Protector

He had had his eyes shut. For a moment he had been seeing the fields, feeling the mecheita moving under him.

Artur had fallen asleep, and Irene and Gene were trying not to nod off.

There was a weird sound from outside, far off: mecheita, he thought. And then he heard a mecheita grunt, and another moan, and then three or four.

Mecheiti did that when they were disturbed. It could be vermin in the stable.

Then there was a horrid screech that woke up Artur and had Gene and Irene wide-eyed.

“Boji!” Cajeiri cried, leaping to his feet, with every intent of going to the window to open the drapes.

But then a rifle shot echoed off the walls.

“Lights,” Veijico said sharply—she was already on her feet. All his aishid was, and he was. The rest of them stood up just as Lieidi, close to the door, threw the light switch.

The room went dark, all but a light in the bodyguards’ bedroom.

“What’s going on?” Irene asked in a whisper. “What’s that sound?”

“Mecheiti,” he said. Down in the stables, the mecheiti were telling everybody to keep out.

Their last light went out, except for the tiny seam of light under the main door—Eisi had gone into the bedroom and gotten that one. By that last seam of light, he saw Jegari putting on his jacket—and Gene bumped into a chair arm—humans did not see well in the dark, he knew that. “Everybody stand still,” he whispered. “Listen.”

He was trying to hear anything coming from his bodyguard’s communications unit, faint as it might be. Outside, another faint seam of light at the edges of the drapes: someone had just thrown on the outside lights. The mecheiti continued threatening and moaning about something.

He heard a faint scratching, then, right at the window.

Guild, was his first thought, even up here.

But then there was that tap-tap-tap of a bony, long finger, on the window glass—the way Boji opened eggs.

“That’s Boji!” he whispered. “Open the drape, nadiin-ji! Please! He wants in!”

Antaro was nearest. She very carefully pulled back the drape, and there in the gap, against the glow of floodlights below, was a little spindly-armed silhouette, looking in, hands spread on the glass.

“Let him in,” Cajeiri said. “Let him in! Let him in,Taro-ji!”

“Gari,” Antaro said to her brother, and Jegari worked his way to the other side of the window. They let the drape fall a moment, as the two of them, each on a side, loosed the latches and carefully eased the window up a little.

“Boji!” Cajeiri said softly, and made that clicking sound he used to imitate Boji’s own. “Egg, Boji! Eisi-ji, quickly, find him an egg, Eisi-ji!”

The commotion down in the mecheita pen was clearer with the window open. There were voices outside. Lucasi and Veijico were talking on Guild communications, telling whoever they were talking to that Boji had just come up the wall.

“I have the egg, nandi,” Eisi said.

“Let me have it. Quickly!” Cajeiri took it, and held it in his hand—Boji’s kind could surely see it even in the dark. He obeyed Antaro’s furious signal and kept back against the wall as he reached the window. She shoved him down, low, and he held it on the windowsill, determined not to let Boji snatch it and run.

Boji’s head appeared, under the curtain, in the barely adequate opening Antaro and Jegari had created.

Then more of him eased in under the window. Everyone in the room stayed very still.

“Come, come, come, Boji. Egg.” He kept it just out of reach. “Take the egg.”

All of Boji came in.

“Now!” Antaro said aloud, and down went the window, smoothly, from both sides.

The window slamming down panicked Boji. He jumped for a chair in the dark and jumped again, one place after another, and lost himself in the recesses of the high ceiling, where no light reached.

“Lock the window,” Veijico said quietly. “Get the young gentleman back from it, nadiin.”

She had just said it and he had gotten up, about to back away, when a shot went off, notnear the mecheita pen. North of that, his ears told him. On the grounds outside, but under Great-uncle’s and mani’s windows.

“Mani!” Cajeiri said. “Nadiin! Mani’s rooms!”

“They are safe,” Lucasi said. “The grooms are closing the herd into the stables. Taibeni riders are coming in. They will be searching that little wood near the garage and all up and down. They may try that powder again. The riders are aware of it.”

Damn, Cajeiri thought. They were all standing in the dark, he still had a stupid egg in his hand, and now his aishid was shifting about, putting protective jackets on, and strapping on their sidearms. He set the egg down on the table nearest, intending to explain to his guests as much as he knew, when of a sudden something dropped like a missile and left again.

And the egg was gone.

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