All of which—was his problem, if Ilisidi did not step in to make decisions this morning. And they had no word of her doing that. She likely was trying to get information out of Guild Headquarters. Or perhaps just over-tired. She was extremely old. The environment, the thin air, the complications and the decisions that had to be made . . .
She was busy. He told himself that. She was doing something needful. He was apparently in charge, second in authority aboard, God help him, without knowing what precisely she was doing, what was happening down in the Marid, what Tabini-aiji thought of the mess, or whether Tiajo had realized that, up atop the longest, steepest grade on earth, Ilisidi had just peeled away her chief ally.
For the immediate future, he had to be sure the sentries expected Topari to cross that open square. He had to weigh how much to tell anyone about Homura’s undercover and ill-omened arrival—no way in hell, he thought, that he had just happened to answer his summons here, turning up in a place they never could be expected to be. Either Homura had made the world’s wildest and luckiest guess where to find them, or had business here—or he was back in the employ of the people who held his partners hostage. The fact he was alone and his remaining partner Momichi was not with him—was worrisome. He had said Momichi was down in Koperna, where a person would be if he intended to take the rare train up to Hasjuran.
Of course, it was possible Hasjuran was where Homura and Momichi had been operating, all along, unfindable until now. The high mountains and the villages were a place to be lost, and still pick up news out of the Marid.
Trust Homura, under the circumstances?
Bottom line, one was down to that aspect of human-atevi relations that Bren could not feel and not judge, that emotion that distinguished and often confounded atevi. Man’chi. Homura had given man’chi to him, in debt for his life and freedom. To him and to the dowager, in the same moment. Attachment. Loyalty. The psychological willingness to take a bullet for another person.
He felt ashamed to doubt Homura’s sincerity in that regard—it was a deep and serious gesture Homura had made, in Lord Tatiseigi’s entry hall; but he had to consider that possibility, for the sake of his own aishid, for the dowager, and everybody else. Order Homura found? It could expose an innocent man; or get someone else killed; and they had too many loose ends flying in the wind right now, no surety they would be staying here longer than it took to get Topari’s signature and seal on a piece of parchment.
And bottom line right now, Ilisidi also held hostage Bregani’s man’chi, his authority over Senjin: his dignity, his lordship, his people’s man’chi vested in him. Ilisidi, getting Bregani up here, had told him she would send him back again at his request. She had pledged him her support—but delayed because they needed the engine for power; and now replaced his guard with her own because that guard was turned.
Now that other train had passed them, of what nature, they still had no word, and in what intent, they had no word, but the train had not bothered to identify itself or ask a by your leave. With the dowager involved—that said something.
They could not go on delaying their own action. He read that well enough. They would go in some direction, either turn around—the station had that capability—or go down. And his own instinct said they would not turn around, not with Ilisidi having given her word.
Court dress, indeed. Bren dressed his lower half, put on his shirt, and did the buttons himself, his preference. Narani came to assist, and stood ready with the bulletproof vest, that stiff and unpleasant defensive item recent events made advisable—blue, this one, matching the coat, and for once he was glad of its extra warmth. But he did not fasten it until he had, with Jeladi’s assistance, put on his boots.
“Bren-ji,” Banichi said quietly. “Regarding the train—we do not yet have a statement, but headquarters has now sent a plain code specifically to us regarding our question. They do not take alarm.”
That was reassuring. He stood up, and made a half-hearted try at the vest. Jeladi intervened and fastened it under the arm. “The train was theirs, then? Or is its owner higher up?”
Of higher up in that chain of command, besides Ilisidi, there was only one.
“Unclear,” Banichi said. “That does not answer for its speed going through here, but Transportation would likely have warned the operator that the signals were not working, and likewise affirmed that the track was clear and that the switches were safely chained and locked.”
Little snowy Hasjuran offered a clearer clear track than one would ever find down in the midlands, where trains wove their way to every village and township and ran tightly interlocked schedules. Up in this lonely little station, trains that came from Shejidan and occasionally from the East picked up and delivered cargo, then reversed and went back down to the transcontinental rail. Two regular trains twenty-three days apart would come here, shed cars in excess of what the switchback descent permitted, and head down to Koperna, the Marid’s only rail connection. A freight would shed cars there, pick up others, and head west to Targai and Najida, then head north along the coast to Cobo, again take on cars, and then leave on the transcontinental line. It was rare that any train ran up the Hasjuran-Koperna rail.
Excepting the very small railyard here at Hasjuran, it was single track all the way from the transcontinental line up into these mountains, and down the hellish grade to Koperna, where there was another, much larger yard. The plan had been, once, to link the Dojisigin Marid with Senjin, welding the two northern Marid provinces into one trade entity, but decades back, Cosadi’s warfare in the Marid had gotten too ambitious, and in the upshot of a brief shooting war, the Transportation Guild had cut the Dojisigin Marid off cold and refused to build their rail, though it maintained the Hasjuran grade and the railyard in Senjin as a useful access to the entire Marid, and as a useful turnaround for trains headed in either direction.
“We cannot get to the Dojisigin by rail,” he said to Banichi. It was a question, because things might have changed since the last map he had seen. “That old line was never finished, am I right? We cannot get to them by train and they cannot get to us.”
“There is a siding,” Banichi said, “and an unfinished spur at the end of the descent. We are told the siding is maintained useable, and is under Transportation control, as Koperna could cease to cooperate without notice for some reason. The spur, such as there is, is reported impassible. They have not maintained it.”
“So that train that passed us could either go on to Koperna, or stop on the siding, if it were so disposed—without blocking our descent.”
Banichi gave a little frown and nodded. “Even so.”
“Has the dowager given any hint of her intention to go down?”
“She has not. But she has promised to get Lord Bregani home.”
“One can only hope she will wait for more clarity on the situation in Koperna. And on the track.”