Betrayer: Foreigner #12 Read Online Free PDF Page B

unchallenged?
    What was in Machigi’s interest?
    Power.
    Survival.
    Pleasing those fishermen.
    Underlying issues. Poverty, perpetual poverty in most of the Marid, poverty locked to traditionalism and a general low level of literacy.
    An educational system based on apprenticeship, which didn’t include more than one needed to know to buy and sell or to fish and maintain a boat.
    Bloodfeuds two centuries and more old. In some places on the continent the network of allies and shared bloodfeuds was the cement that held communities together.
    The whole district, with its internal wars and feuds, had lagged half a century behind the technology of the rest of the aishidi’tat. The district had phones, they had electrification—but not everybody in the country did. Their fairly modern freighters got their fuel from refineries to the north, and the whole region stayed dependent on the north for that resource, while hating them for it.
    They had rail, a straight but antique line from the west coast of the Marid to Shejidan, running through Senji and ending at Tanaja. Everything else, absolutely everything else, moved by boat, among clans situated around a common sea.
    The dowager, too, came from a staunchly traditionalist region. Over on the east coast wooden boats still went out to fish. Not every great house and not every village in the East had electricity, to this day, and the dowager’s own house had it only as an afterthought—but in that case, it was stubborn traditionalism.
    In some ways the dowager’s East had a great number of values in common with the Marid.
    In some Eastern districts, by choice, technological development lagged. Distrust of the western Ragi Guilds meant minimal rail and air service, though that was increasing.
    Damn, yes, there were lot of similar points.
    Get the Marid, the most dedicatedly hostile district in the aishidi’tat, to refrain from ancestral feuds and talk to the aiji-dowager?
    He had to be crazy. But there were points in common. Machigi would never agree with the West. But being approached by the East?
    There was a shred of hope in that idea.

2
    I t was at least half an hour before Tano and Algini came back from the phone business, looking unruffled and fairly pleased.
    “Lord Machigi himself listened in, Bren-ji,” Tano said. “So we were plainly informed. We asked permission to call Cenedi with your message. We further asked to report that Barb-daja and Veijico are found. That was granted, with a written text to read from. So we did. We expressed to Cenedi-nadi your personal doubt that Lord Machigi’s orders were behind the kidnappings and the illicit explosives and that you wish him to request a suspension of Guild proceedings against Lord Machigi. Cenedi-nadi agreed and we terminated the call on that basis. We also, under the same arrangement, called the head of Tabini-aiji’s security in Shejidan and informed him first that we are here in Tanaja and that negotiations with Lord Machigi are proceeding at the personal urging of the aiji-dowager and under her auspices. We asked him to relay to Tabini-aiji that you request his personal Filing against Lord Machigi be voided on the same grounds. We are assured that message will be conveyed. Both messages have answers pending, and Lord Machigi’s staff will notify us once the answers arrive.”
    “Well done,” Bren said with a deep sigh. “Very well done, nadiin-ji. Breakfast is here, should you wish.” As if they hadn’t noticed. Banichi and Jago had just taken up plates, and Barb had declared she would venture it, Veijico having finished her breakfast half an hour ago without dying.
    “Yes,” the pair said in near unison, and headed for the buffet.
    He had a little fresh toast, himself. He was by now not quite in good appetite, whether from the compression bandage, subliminal pain, or the fact that the job was far from finished with just two phone calls. He had now to produce results with Machigi, personally, and even toast