Free Deceiver: Foreigner #11 by C. J. Cherryh

solutions.
    Jago opened the door and slipped inside. “Lord Geigi’s staff has just contacted us, Bren-ji. He is in the air at Mori, and will land here, we estimate, within the hour. The new bus is fueled and stocked and in order. The guest quarters are available now, and furnished with linens. The truck is on its way up from the village. We are ready.”
    “Excellent.” He looked at the wall clock. So Lord Geigi, having landed at Shejidan, had come into an airport near the Isles by jet, and was coming down the coast from the Isles by prop plane . . . inventive route, possibly with time for contact with old allies on the northern coast. “We should be moving, then.”
    The card game had ended, unfinished. Jago gave a single hand sign to Tano and Algini that simply amounted to, “Banichi and I will go with Bren,” and that was that: all arrangements made. Tano and Algini would stay with the monitoring, along with Cenedi and his men, and Banichi and Jago would go with him to the airstrip.
    Certain house staff would go with them, too, particularly to handle the luggage, additional of which might be coming in a second plane—one would not be at all surprised at that arrangement. Personal baggage could go into the underside of the fancy new bus; but the village truck would be a prudent backup, so as not to leave any of Lord Geigi’s belongings exposed at the little airstrip, begging the kind of mischief they had had.
    Moving an atevi lord anywhere was an exercise in complex logistics, but what a lord saw generally went smoothly—thanks to staff.
    And all he needed do was go to his bedroom, put on a nicer coat—Koharu and Supani helped him with the lace and the pigtail and the fresh white ribbon, the white of neutrality being the paidhi-aiji’s heraldry and sign of office. That was his choice for the meeting, a politic choice considering the color choice of the bus.
    Then he walked out and down the hall toward the front door, picking up Jago and Banichi along the way, along with four of the dowager’s guard, for a little extra security. One of the dowager’s men would drive, this trip—Banichi and Jago were, on his orders, taking it a little easy the last several days.
     
    It was a wonderful bus, on the inside—new-smelling, modern, and clean, with very comfortable seats, its own lavatory, and a well-stocked galley. Now Bren finally got to enjoy it, and enjoy it he did, in a seat of atevi scale, plenty of room for a human, new upholstery, and deeply cushioned, responsive even to a human’s lighter weight, and with a place for his feet. “No, nadiin-ji,” he said, to the staff’s offer of fruit juice. “I shall enjoy it with Lord Geigi when he arrives. Kindly serve it once he is aboard.”
    The bus had, besides the luxury of a galley, air conditioning and the very nice protection of windows that appeared black to the outside, even without using the pull-down shutters.
    The engine positively purred with power.
    And the front seats were arranged by opposing pairs, so that he and a guest, or, at least on the way out, Banichi and Jago, could sit facing one another. There were pullout trays in the arm-rests, like those on a transcontinental jet. And footrests—the paidhi was particularly happy with that arrangement, usually having his feet dangling in atevi-scale transport. He settled back in utter comfort and watched the slightly shaded landscape go past in backward order, while Banichi and Jago, similarly comfortable, and armed to the teeth, casually watched for trouble on the road ahead.
    None developed. They crossed the tracks at the station and kept going on a reasonably maintained gravel road—thank Najida village for that convenience—which led to, one and a half fairly smooth kilometers from the train station, a small, flat-roofed building with a fueling station, a recently mowed grass strip, and a single windsock.
    They parked and waited.
    And in time, delayed a little, perhaps, by the soundproofing, one