Protector

He would have his guests, all his associates from the ship, that he had not seen in a whole year, his eighth, which was not a lucky number, and not a lucky year. One did not celebrate it, mani had said.

But this year, his ninth, was supposed to be veryfortunate, because it was three threes of years.

Oh, he wanted that year to start, because a lot of bad things really had happened in his eighth, his infelicitous year, which was two sets of two sets of twos, and just awful. He was still scared his mother was going to try to stop his party happening—his mother did not favor nand’ Bren, or any human. His mother blamed nand’ Bren’s advice for his having been sent to mani in the first place, and she was appalled at human influences on him. That was what she called it: appalled.She had said he was going to grow up abnormal. That he should not havehuman associates,

But she had said that months ago, when she and his father were fighting. And his father had said that if they had not had nand’ Bren and Jase-paidhi and Yolanda-paidhi, up on the station, the whole world would have been in trouble.

And his mother had shouted back that if they had not had them advising them, Murini never could have had his coup and they would not have been living in the woods in the winter.

His father had had the last word. His father had said what was the truth: that the heavens were wider than the earth and that if they had not had nand’ Bren and the rest advising them, they would have been sitting on the earth with the space station totally in the hands of the worst sort of humans . . . who had had their own coup going, except for nand’ Bren and Jase-paidhi.

His father was right about that. But things had just gotten quiet again. The walls in mani’s apartment were just thick enough to prevent one hearing the end of arguments, and he had no idea what his mother had said then. She at least had never called him abnormal again.

Sometimes during that beyondinfelicitous eighth year he had just hadto do somethingto get his mind off the problems. He hadgotten in trouble a few times, but he had not stolenthe train to go to Najida.

He had just gotten on it.

He hadstolen the boat, though.

Well, he had borrowedit.

Or it had run off with him. But nand’ Bren had made that right, and paid the fisherman. He was sorry about that. He was glad nand’ Bren had fixed it.

But he had been on exceptionally good behavior since he had gotten back from the coast. He had come to realize that he was very close to his birthday.

And he had his letters, now. And his father’s promise. He was reformed, now. He really was. He was going to be nine and do better. And he would get smarter. . . .

He was so stupidto have stolen that brandy last night.

Now he was at the mercy of Eisi and Lieidi, who had a sort of man’chi to him, but they were not entirely his, the way his bodyguards were.

He hopedthey would not tell his parents.

He hoped, hoped, hoped nobody took his birthday away.

5

The train was in open country now, the city left behind. Bren had been over this route so often he knew every turn of the track, every bump and swerve of the red-curtained car.

He was a little anxious in the outing—he was always a little anxious about well-publicized moves in this last year. He and Geigi were both high-value targets, and the business Jago had handed him last night . . .

That was more than a little worrisome, but it was one not apt to become acute overnight. Their enemies had taken a hammering down in the Marid, they were still being hunted out of holes down there, and it would take them time to reorganize and replot. They mighteven reform, depending on how the local man’chi sorted out.

Dealing with atevi was not dealing with humans. The sense of attachment, man’chi, that one could call loyalty, but which was so much more fundamental to the atevi instinct—was the emotion that held clans and associations together. Man’chi was as intense as human love and just as subject to twists and turns, but man’chi was a network of attachments, not a simple one-on-one. Sometimes, when the configuration of alliances changed, people changed. One could always hope a reconfiguration of possibilities and objectives could allow some who had been enemies to reinvent themselves—and have it stick.

It did happen. It was why atevi had feuds, but didn’t often nurse grudges, and had notrouble shifting politics when situations changed.