Free Prince of Storms by Kay Kenyon Page A

inadvertently, by revealing his security lapse. He felt a sense of relief that they had finally come.
    It was no longer just him with his mSap holding the Ascendancy by force of a clumsy threat. The Jinda ceb would guide him, and despite his uncertainties about their motives, he most desperately needed them.

CHAPTER SIX

    Â      Lowly veldt mouse, gray of back and eye.
    Â      Footprints in the sand. Fire in the sky.
    â€”a poem of the Jinda ceb Horat
    THE J INDA CEB DID NOT LIKE TENTS , but that was the least of Quinn’s problems with the newcomers.
    By the morning after their arrival, the two Jinda ceb had spun a narrow habitation with a high-peaked roof, like an attenuated African hut. Here they sat with Quinn and explained that their interests were rather more limited than he could have wished.
    Most crucially, they did not admit a stake in, nor sense a responsibility for, safeguarding the Rose.
    Anzi sat at Quinn’s side, offering insights when she felt Tindivir had been obscure. When she was present, Ahnwalun absented herself from the hut as a protest of Anzi’s presence. The slight distressed Quinn, but he kept Anzi at his side.
    â€œAhnenhoon cannot become active,” Quinn declared. “If the solitaires take over the engine, we have to remove them.”
    â€œWe stand aloof from this question,” Tindivir asserted.
    Quinn laid out his arguments that to burn the Rose would be unconscionable—not only morally objectionable, but dangerous to the Entire, if it provoked a Rose attack on a realm fragile in its configuration.
    â€œWe stand aloof,” was Tindivir’s stark response.
    â€œThey have all the brightships. I ask for a ship, Tindivir.” What couldone ship do against five? But he must have mobility. The army stood guard at the fortress, but he was hamstrung, shut up here at the Ascendancy. And was it certain that the army would fight against the solitaires?
    Tindivir said, “We cannot intervene in the matter of ships.”
    They perceived themselves between two dark choices: destroy the Rose or abandon the Entire. But it was self-serving of them to remain disengaged. The solitaires were now free to start up Ahnenhoon. Doing nothing, the Jinda ceb could still have all they wanted.
    He broached the closer political question of Sydney. They understood who she was, given their long association with Anzi. Now that they were here and could judge more directly for themselves, they might need some time to choose sides. Still, he had to be clear: “It concerns me that you might have reason to support her.”
    â€œWe are neutral in this.”
    He wondered if they were. If they could be. But Anzi had said this topic would surely be discussed in Manifest. She had seen lesser things take hundreds of days.
    Quinn turned to her. “Am I understanding him correctly? They won’t help us secure Ahnenhoon from the solitaires?”
    â€œThey will not, Titus.”
    â€œBut they won’t help the Tarig, either.”
    Anzi glanced at Tindivir for confirmation.
    â€œNeutral,” Tindivir said. “As I have told you.”
    When Quinn felt that they had thrashed at the issues long enough, he and Anzi excused themselves. There was no getting past the answer, We will discuss this in Manifest.

    Later that day when Quinn took up the discussions with Tindivir again, the hut had changed somewhat. There was a different table surface than before, and benches instead of chairs. Bumps clustered on the walls like a colony of mollusks. These were forma , as Anzi termed them, objects that could assemble into larger, useful items, retracting at command. Anzi had told himof the Jinda ceb fondness for minimalism and assembling items instantly. When in growth mode, the forma built themselves up from material in the hut walls and floor.
    There were many technological issues of interest. Quinn assigned John Hastings to debrief Tindivir, to the extent possible.