Protector

“A man in an upstairs window,” Jase said, with a better view. “Waving and shouting.”

That would not be Guild. And they mustnot harm civilians. The bus door was shut, cutting off sounds from outside. Bren shoved himself out of his seat, Jase right with him, and ordered the door open, trusting to Kaplan and Polano for protection.

He got to the bottom step and looked up. The man was dressed as a servant, and seeing him, waved furiously, shouting down, “My lord requests respect for the premises! My lord requests assistance!”

“A house servant,” Bren said for Jase: the Padi Valley accent was thick. “Speaking for Lord Aseida.” He called up to the man: “Can you come down, nadi? Come to the front entry. You will be safe! We—”

A shot hit the folded bus door. Kaplan and Polano fired, robot-quick, before Bren could react and recoil. He had felt his hair move; he had felt a sting in his cheek; and then thunder blew past him. He blinked, and saw the window at the building corner—missing, along with the masonry around it.

The window from which the servant had called to them was undamaged. But empty.

Sensors. A sniper in a window up there in the corner room. He stared for a few heartbeats. Jase was hauling him back by the arm. He moved in compliance, backed up the steps, still looking up in disbelief.

“Nadi,” he said to the driver. “Advise those inside. Sniper strike, building corner, top floor. Jase’s guard just took them out.”

“Nandi,” the driver said calmly, and relayed that information.

Bren said: “Lord Aseida’s possible location is also the third floor, third window, next to the missing one.” His cheek stung. He touched it, bringing away bloody fingertips. Not a real wound. There might be a splinter of some sort. He was disgusted with himself. “My fault, standing there. Sorry, Jase.”

“Your local problems don’t miss an opportunity,” Jase said. “Sit down. Let me look at that.”

He sat. Jase looked, probed it, shook his head. “Not too bad.”

“Missed my head,” he said, and sucked in a deep breath, mad at himself, and now he second-guessed his sending information into the house. He hopedhis information wouldn’t draw his people into some sort of trap. About Lord Aseida’s rescue, he didn’t at the moment give a damn. “My bodyguard’s going to say a few words about my going out there.”

“Nandiin,” the driver said. “They acknowledge. They say keep inside.”

“Assure them we are aboard,” he said, with an idea whohad said keep inside.

There were medical kits aboard, a small one in the overhead storage, a larger one in the forward baggage compartment. He got up and got a small bandage to stop the cut from bleeding; but they were, he thought, unhappily apt to need the larger one before all was done, and he was not going out there.

Things grew quieter. He became aware he was no longer hearing gunfire through the insulation of the bus.

“They have located the lord and his servants, nandiin,” the driver said.

“Good,” he said. Then the driver said:

“Lord Aseida requests to speak with the paidhi-aiji. They will be bringing him down.”

He was not, at the moment, enthusiastic about dealing with Aseida. His cheek was throbbing and he was developing a headache—those were the sum of hisstupidity-induced injuries; and he could certainly do his job past that discomfort, but all of a sudden he felt entirely rattled. It seemed a crushing responsibility, to get the necessary dealings right, to react, knowing the record would be gone over and gone over by political enemies. His people had risked their necks to get the renegades identified and removed—everything had worked. They’d gotten their chance, and they’d made the most of it. Hecouldn’t give the opposition a loophole in his own sphere of responsibility . . .

Most of all he couldn’t give Assignments’ allies in high places in the Guild any excuse to charge a misdeed to Tabini’s account, and the station’s. Aseida was not, counting the damage to his house, going to be an asset.

He wasrattled, he thought, by that trifling hit. He drew deep breaths, steadying down, getting control back.

The exchange of gunfire was over. He wanted to know his people were all right, and that the dowager’s were, that first. Lord Aseida, already under ban, was not in charge of events now. No. Only the aiji could unseat Aseida, and hehad the excuse Tabini needed.

“Whatever Aseida is,” he said to Jase, “he’s representative of a major clan, a lot of people, a lot of connections, historic and otherwise. He’s a patch-together sort of lord—the clan’s lost one after the other—but he’s what they’ve got, all they’ve got. Banned from court. They couldn’t let him into the Bujavid, for security reasons. Most of all, they couldn’t let his bodyguard in. He’s alive. And we’re going to keep him that way. His own allies probably won’t like that.”

“They are bringing out the casualties first, nandiin,” the driver said.