A pressure of Tabini’s fingers, and a release of his hand. “Did one say it was your fault, Bren-paidhi? Give my respects to my grandmother.”
“Aiji-ma.” Surrender was all Tabini left him. He only dared the most indirect rebellion. “May I have my mail routed there?”
“There should be no difficulty,” Banichi said, “if it’s sent through the security office.”
“We don’t want to announce your destination,” Tabini said. “But, yes, security does have to know. Take care. Take every precaution. You’ll go straight to the airport. Is it taken care of, Banichi?”
“No difficulty,” Banichi said. What ‘it’ was, Bren had no idea. But there was nothing left him but to take his formal leave.
‘Straight to the airport,’ meant exactly that, evidently, straight downstairs, in the Bu-javid, to the lowest, inner level, where a rail station connected with the rail systems all over the continent.
It was a well-securitied place, this station deep in the Bu-javid’s heart, a station which only the mai’aijiin and the aiji himself and his staff might use—there was another for common traffic, a little down the hill.
Guards were everywhere, nothing unusual in any time he’d been down here. He supposed they maintained a constant watch over the tracks and the cars that rested here—the authorities in charge could have no idea when someone might take the notion to use them, or when someone else might take the notion to compromise them.
What looked like a freight car was waiting. The inbound tram would sweep it up on its way below—and it would travel looking exactly like a freight car, mixed in with the ordinary traffic, down to its painted and, one understood, constantly changed, numbers.
It was Tabini’s—cushioned luxury inside, a council-room on wheels. That was where Banichi took him.
“Someone has checked it out,” he said to Banichi. He’d used this particular car himself—but only once annually on his own business, on his regular departure to the airport, and never when there was any active feud in question. The whole proceedings had a surreal feeling.
“Destined for the airport,” Banichi said, checking papers, “no question. Don’t be nervous, nadi Bren. I assure you we won’t misplace you with the luggage.”
Banichi was joking with him. He was scared. He’d been nervous walking down here, was nervous on the platform, but he walked to the back of the windowless car and sat down on the soft cushions of a chair, unable to see anything but the luxury around him, and a single televised image of the stationside with its hurrying workers. He was overwhelmed with the feeling of being swallowed alive, swept away to where no one human would ever hear of him. He hadn’t advised anyone where he was going, he hadn’t gotten off that phone call to Hanks or a letter home—he had no absolute confidence now that Banichi would deliver it if he wrote it this instant and entrusted it to him to take outside.
“Are you going with me?” he asked Banichi.
“Of course.” Banichi was standing, looking at the monitor. “Ah. There she is.”
A cart had appeared from a lift, a cart piled high with white plastic boxes. Jago was behind it, pushing it toward the car. It arrived, real and stuck on the uneven threshold, and Jago shoved and swore as Banichi moved to lend a hand. Bren got up to offer his efforts, but at that moment it came across, as Tano turned up, shoving from the other side, bound inside, too.
The cart and the baggage had to mass everything he had had in the apartment, Bren thought in dismay, unless three-quarters of that was Banichi’s and Jago’s luggage. They didn’t take the luggage from the cart: they secured the whole cart against the forward wall, with webbing belts.
Protests did no good. Questions at this point only annoyed those trying to launch them with critical things they needed. Bren sat down and stayed still while Banichi and Jago went outside, never entirely leaving the threshold, and signed something or talked with other guards.
In a little while, they both came back into the car, saying that the train was on its way, and would couple them on in a few minutes. Tano meanwhile offered him a soft; drink, which he took listlessly, and Algini arrived with a final paper for Banichi to sign.