Protector

“Everything is good,” he said. “All safe.” He glanced at his aishid, very sorry that he had gotten them in trouble. “Nadiin-ji, one regrets—”

Antaro gave a little oblique nod, as if to say, yes, there would be a problem, but his aishid would deal with that for him, too.

“We have Boji back,” she said.

“Wherever he is,” Lucasi said.

But they all sat down to talk it over, late as it was, with his aishid nominally still on duty, still armed, leaning rather than sitting.

And in a little while Boji put his head out from the top of a drape.

“Egg,” Cajeiri said, and Lieidi, nearby and with his eye on Boji, calmly reached into his pocket and produced one. “His egg, nandi.”

•   •   •

“We are strongly suspecting,” Tano said, still listening to the communications flow, and still with no word what the situation was out on the grounds, “that this infiltration was prior to the sensors going up. It would take a very expert sort to get in here now. I know only four who could attempt it and three of them are under this roof.”

“The fourth?” Bren asked. Jase was doing a shorthand translation for Kaplan and Polano. Algini was checking Banichi’s black box, doing something.

“Far too wise to take off across that meadow with the mecheiti let loose. We believe they were inside, decided to try to get out. At the moment, we are more worried about anyone who may be left inside.”

“Somebody our housecleaning missed?” Bren asked.

“Possibly, nandiin-ji. We have kept staff frozen in place for hours for individual interviews. We have begun to release certain staff, one area at a time, as their personal quarters are searched and cleared. Lord Tatiseigi’s security is proceeding now with a roll call, all staff to report for individual recognition and clearance, and it has been slow. We are not accepting a supervisor’s word without an interview and an examination of identification—we are doing this as delicately as possible, considering we are treading over Atageini prerogatives. We have conducted interviews. We have asked about unlocked doors, pilferage, or unusual behavior, about persons late, or otherwise out of routine. We have had chiefs of staff cross-compare the schedules and duty reports. We are now going over those records ourselves. We have checked the furloughed servants: five groundskeepers who were put on holiday before our visit—three mechanics sent on furlough the day before our arrival. They are registered at the hotel in the township. We have sixteen questionable individuals lodged in a house, under guard, which represents every individual who might know anything about our activity and security arrangements here. We have not had any deliveries, no one coming or going.”

“We are not satisfied with the garage,” Algini said sharply. “It abuts the area where we had the first alarm. We are rechecking.”

“The three mechanics,” Tano said, “normally have quarters in the loft above the service area. We started processing that area this afternoon. The vehicles, the loft, the fueling station, the service pit . . . the searchers say most access doors are painted shut and undisturbed—they opened the plumbing access, and checked for signs of entry, but found none. The place is evidently a dense clutter of tools, pipe, chain, all sorts of things. Four of Cenedi’s men spent two hours going over the place—but we also have had the basements to go through, and the staff checks. The team in charge locked the garage and put a guard on it, then went to check plumbing accesses that branch off from that one.”

“We are not satisfied,” Algini repeated. “We have been through the basements—we are assured the basements have no access at all except through the door in the main hall, and Lord Tatiseigi confirms that is the case, but we have been surprised before by some detail that dates to the last century. The garage holds two dead vehicles besides the current, besides, we are told, every tool and spare part ever needed on this estate, besides plumbing and electrical parts, hose, chain, and parts for an earthmover not in the garage: there are accesses, plates welded shut, painted shut, accesses built over with shelves—the moment we had the second alarm, we unlocked that door and started another search. Banichi and Jago, with Rusani’s men and the original four, are rechecking the place right now. We have cleared the entire house to our reasonable satisfaction. Not the garage. And we are having to proceed with caution, nandi, in the event of some sort of trap.”