Peacemaker Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the ship. Then, they had all been strangers, and bored, and amused themselves by dodging the guards and doing things they were told not to do, harmless things, but forbidden things—like even seeing one another, and meeting in secret places. They were all of them older, now—smarter, more suspicious. They were all more political: that, too.
Far
more political.
    And it was just a year that had passed. But so very much had gone on.
    And if he understood what his guests had told him—most of the grown-ups that had let them come down to the planet had done it only in the hopes they would no longer get along, and that that would end the association for good.
    He was sure that was why his parents had said yes to the idea.
    He had figured that out early, without any help from anybody, the night after he had heard from his father that his associates from the ship were really going to be allowed to come.
    His mother, who was really not in favor of humans at all, really,
really
hoped he and they would not get along. His mother already accused him of getting his ideas from nand’ Bren, as if that was bad—his
father
asked nand’ Bren’s opinion on a lot of things, so was that wrong?
    He thought it was not.
    His father might not
quite
be planning on them falling out with each other—but with his father,
everything
was politics, and maybe his father had notions of playing politics with the ship-captains, eventually, if it did work. At very least he was sure his father was just waiting to use the association, if it worked, or end the notion, if it failed.
    But he had thought entirely enough about politics for one day. He just wanted his guests to
want
to come back again.
    â€œAre you scared?” he asked, the old question they had used to ask each other, when they had been about to do something dangerous in the ship tunnels. “Are you scared?”
    â€œHell, no,” Gene laughed, the light-hearted old answer.
    â€œIs it true, Gene-ji?” That was
not
the old question.
“Are
you scared? There was danger at Tirnamardi. There will be danger where I am, in Shejidan. Are you scared?”
    â€œAre we
stupid?
” Gene asked with a little laugh. “We were scared when we got on the shuttle to come down here! Irene was so scared she threw up.”
    â€œDon’t tell that!” Irene protested.
    â€œBut then she said,” Gene added, “‘It’s all right. I’m going!’ And here she is!”
    â€œWe’re all
scared,
” Artur said. “But Reunion Station was more scary. The kyo blew up half the station and we didn’t know when they were coming back to blow up the rest of it. We’ve got Captain Jase, we’ve got his guards with us, we’ve got your great-grandmother and nand’ Bren and Lord Tatiseigi, and all their bodyguards—not to
mention
your bodyguards.
They’re
scary, all on their own.”
    Cajeiri had not quite thought of Antaro and Jegari, Lucasi and Veijico as scary, but he did think they looked impressive and official, now that they all wore black leather uniforms and carried sidearms.
    â€œWe don’t know that much about what’s going on,” Gene said, “but it doesn’t look like
you’re
scared.
Are
you?”
    Cajeiri gave a little laugh, and measured a tiny little space with his fingers. Old joke, among them. “This much.”
    They laughed out loud. All of a sudden, on this train full of trouble, they laughed the way they had used to laugh when things had gone wrong and then, for no good reason, gone right again.
    It was the first time he had felt what he had been trying all along to feel about them, all the way through the visit to Great-uncle’s house.
    They were
his.
They were together. They were
all
feeling what he felt.
    He drew a deep breath and ducked his head a little, because mani and Lord Tatiseigi would not approve of an outburst of laughter from young fools.