Free Inheritor by C. J. Cherryh Page B

to go into the capital city airport, but there were elements loose and still in motion that had them worried. That was what he heard in Tano's statement: knowledge of a threat not precisely aimed at him but through which he might have to pass. Guild members contracted to Saigimi were professionals who would not waste themselves or their colleagues' lives in a lost cause, but there would be moves for power within the clan and around it. Aftershocks were not over.
    Trust these two, and leave Geigi, who owed him his intercession and thereby his survival? Absolutely. Tano's and Algini's man'chi was to Tabini, and if Tabini ever wanted him dead, these were the very ones who would see to it. If Tabini wanted him alive, these were the ones who would fling their bodies between him and a bullet without a second thought. Man'chi was very simple until one approached the hazy ground between households, which was where Geigi's grew too indistinct to trust in a crisis like this. Man'chi went upward to the leader but not
down
from him. It was instinct. It was mathematics as atevi added matters. And these two advised him to move quickly and not to divert to any other destination.
    So he simply began to fold up his work and to shut down his computer as Tano got up again to order something regarding their landing.
    The plane banked sharply and dived, sending dignified atevi careening against the seats and up. Bren clamped his fingers to hold onto his precious computer as the smooth plastic case slid inexorably through his grip, aimed by centrifugal force at the window.
    Fruit juice had hit the same window and wall and stood in orange beads.
    The plane leveled out.
    "
Nand' paidhi
," the copilot said over the speakers, "
forgive us. That was a plane in our path
."
    Tano and Algini and the rest of the staff were sorting themselves out. The juniormost, Audiri, came immediately with a towel, retrieved the glass, which had not broken, and mopped the fruit juice off various surfaces.
    He had not let the computer escape his grasp. His fingers felt bruised. His heart hadn't had time to speed up. Now, belatedly, it wondered whether it might have license to do that, but the conscious brain advised it to forget it, it was much too late.
    "Nadiin," Algini was saying to the crew via the intercom, "kindly determine origin and advise air traffic control that the aiji's staff requests names and identifications of the aircraft in this matter."
    "Probably it's nothing," Bren muttered, allowing Tano custody of the precious computer. The air traffic control system was relatively new. Planes were not. Certain individuals considered themselves immune to ATC regulations.
    If on a given day, and by their numerology, certain individuals of the Absolutist persuasion considered the system gave them infelicitous numbers, they would
change
those numbers on their own and change their course, their altitude, or their arrival time so as to have their important business in the capital blessed by better fortune.
    And the assassination to the south had
changed
the numbers.
    Tabini and the ATC authority had fought that battle for years, particularly trying to impress the facts of physics on lords used to being immune to lawsuit. There were laws. There were ATC regulations. There was the aiji's express displeasure at such violations, and there was the outstanding example of the Weinathi Bridge disaster for a cautionary tale.
    Security today had been very careful to move the aiji's private plane onto a flight path usually followed by slower-moving commercial air… for the paidhi's safety.
    His security was understandably worried about the incident. But whatever the closeness of the other aircraft had been, the emergency was over. The plane did some small maneuvering as the nose pitched gently down and it resumed its landing approach.
    Tano and Algini came to sit opposite him for the landing, and belted in.
    "Likely it was someone
else
worried by the Saigimi business," Bren said.