113 - You Had Bugs on All of Us?

“So, let me understand this,” Ilax said, his face calm and neutral.  “Your Emir-al, under broad-reaching orders from Diryish, authorized this... bugging of people?  You had bugs on all of us?”  Dukir made the minor salaam to Ilax and turned to include the rest of the fire in the last of his motion.

“My ‘pologies, but s’curity’s needful, Naser.  T’was eyes an’ ears only, surdeniliarch.”  Dukir deliberately didn’t look at his Emir-al who was just now finding out that apparently he’d ordered this.  “An’ it twere useful.  M’bugs follered a line back t’word Lainz.”  Though unfortunately there were no recognition codes that I knew, and no line all the way back to their sender.  There was a reboot and a ‘reproduce’ signal that I could hack to bits but not identify with any certainty.  But there are four or five significant coding sequences that might tell me whom to accuse.  “Ah’m no great Mander, Naser.” That anybody knows of, here. Though the older Kyrus is both looking suspicious and... ah, yes, laying his own bugs on me.  Good man, even though all you’ll get is my current statistics, those of a career Ass.  “Ah’ve got five Hive Lords’ as possible.  Ah’d not trust any of ‘em.  Not as far’s ah could comfortably crap a bush dragon.”  He shifted his gaze to the elder Kyrus, who held him in his stare.

“Ah’ve got the orders, Naser, through m’Emir-al, Naser.  Pertect, an’ ward yeh BOTH.  His most high an’ shiny Radiance’d have m’ Ass in a cage ifn’ I... ifn we couldn’t pertect yeh all te way home.”

“Not my home any longer, Amir.  At least not until things are straightened around.  So this is why you and the Emir-al were so upset with what looked like minimal security?”

“Ay, Naser.”

“I... admit,” Ilax said.  “I was less vigilant for my inamour’s and step-son’s lives than I should have been. Even on Milari soil we need to be under full war-defense vigils.”  It wasn’t a question. He looked angry at himself.  As you perhaps should be? Dukir told himself not to be judgmental.  Milar had none of the back-stabbing politics that Lainz had.  They tended to be loud and argue long but were uninclined to kill each other for position.

“If I might point out,” Raghnall said.  “We’re within a day’s ride of the border and things are going to be ruffled, to put it politely, once we cross, since we have a full-on state visit here, even with as little ceremony as Milar want.  We Lainz are going to want ceremony and pomp or we won’t respect you.”

“They learned to respect us in the last war...” Ilax said mildly, not commenting on his own part of that earned respect.  The Emir-al just nodded.  “But I understand.” He smiled a little.   

“I was reminded by my konsiliarch and my husband both that if I don’t display earned respect then Lainz think I don’t respect myself.  We’ve brought our banners and we have some mandery prepared.”

Ky blinked.  This was news to him.  He’d been under the impression that the fancy birds and the fancy clothes packed in some of the bags were the extent of pomp that the Milar were willing to show.

Raghnall coughed and changed the subject.  “I understand His Radiance has a new communications device that is a thousand times faster than any letter, in every dwelling and office in Lainz, even that horrid little honour post.”

“Naser, thet honur posts’ gonna be spic an’ polished by the time we cross.”  At least it better be. Dukir had left a stinging word or two in the ears of the ‘gone-native’ guards.  “An’ we’ll see if the Naser might be able tah ask for new orders?”

“Of course, my Amir.”  Raghnall nodded.  “I will be happier once we get the full protection of the Great Hive, Rasheem and all.”

Ilax looked around at his entourage, his eye lingering longest on Hara and Werfas and Ky.  “You three... I think we will play this as Ky being the one brought in as Siwion.  No one is going to be looking for you, love.  I believe that most of the Lainze still think you are dead, and behind the veils no one is going to recognize you.”

“I’m not setting my son out as bait!” Kyrus was indignant.  “It would not be right!”

“But sneaky,” Maya said. After her firewall had died down, she sat and Von had refilled her tea from the boiling pit.  Once they were out of the tsingy and into the limestone and karst they’d have to use a raised pot over the fire. “You’d be best placed to take out whomever just tried to kill the boy.  Don’t let them know what hit them, take them out in the act, in the back.  They stepped outside of honourable by attacking a child as far as I’m concerned.  You cannot treat an assassin like that as a warrior you can trust to face you, and fight you inside warrior protocols.  They are already cheating.”

Kyrus nodded slowly, even as Ky seethed and wanted to jump up with ‘I’m not a child!’ Hara put a hand on his arm as if she knew how he was feeling, and Werfas moved his shoulder to bump him, slightly as if to say he was there too.   

Ky could still smell his dead bird’s blood and guano on him, even after scrubbing down with sand and washing at the camp.  It had more water than they’d seen in several days, so he was lucky but the smell was still in his nose, in his mind. He was hiding that he was still shaken by his wild ride this afternoon and unable to swallow more than tea, even though he was hungry.  He still had a biscuit in his hand that he tried to keep nibbling on but the dry crumbs kept catching in his throat and making him cough.

He didn’t want his friends, his wing-brother, his lover... either of them getting tangled up in this and getting killed.  He’d been so close to dying this afternoon that he thought he could smell death’s afterburners.  Hara took the crushed biscuit from him, daubed a bit of cream on it before handing it back.  His next bite he swallowed more easily. He gulped and swallowed and rinsed it down with buttered tea before he spoke up.

“Da... I... and Hara and Ilax and all the Milari are going to be better able to protect me, especially if no on knows you’re there.  The news that you’re alive is probably in the city already, but veiled no one will realize and if I’m not trained enough to keep my own data clean then I’d better get my lessons before we get to the Lainz city bridges.”  He rather liked the idea of nobody suspecting his father was at his back if he was going to be facing assholes like the one who killed his bird.

“Well said, lad,” Von said quietly.  “That said, I’ll follow up on the firewall and do some outer perimeter as well.” He rose and stepped outside the circle of light from the fire.

“Emir-al,” Ilax said.  “I’d like to consult with you... and your Amir –“ His look at Dukir was a little ironic.  As long as he thinks I’m the old campaigner trying to cover his officer’s tender young anus. The grin and shrug he threw at the Milar politician was culled from a half dozen grizzled old under-officers, veterans of that nasty little war eleven years ago now.  The ‘we’ll see him all growed up’ smile. “We must come up with combined protocols that your Hive Lord assassins won’t be expecting.”

“We are in entirely in accord there, Naser,” Raghnall said. “They might expect our separate mandery and clinery but not working together.  We are supposed to still be somewhat at odds.” He fluttered his gloved fingers over his sleeve as if flicking off imaginary impediments, like a courtier shooing away bees.  “They’ll get a surprise the next time they stick their bloody fingers in, then,” he said.

“P’raps we’d make it som’ut more subtle?  Set out an open trap tah bring home the Bakon?  Let ‘im think he’s got past it, free and easy-like?” Dukir had to say something here.

“Yes, Amir.  Excellent suggestion.  With your permission, surdeniliarch?”

“We need to set it up carefully, and it’s Ilax, please.”

“Yes, Ilax.” But he put the minor salaam on top of his concession to the surdeniliarch’s demand for a bare name.  Ilax just threw up his hands.