21 - Do You Need Me?

*Emergency* *PRIORITY* *EMERGENCY!*

Dukir put a hand to his head, not having to feign a headache, the blast of information from his daughter hurting him quite enough.  Rather like having a spike driven into one ear. His hostess set her relish tray down next to the chai pot.  “Are you all right, Nas... um Giori?”

“Oh... oh, I’m so sorry, Buris... Nasera... I was just struck with a sudden headache.”

He let his eyes squinch shut as another wave of emergency information rolled through his head.  *Shashi... oh, my pardon, Amardad... please drop the volume, you are loud enough that code is about to burst from my nose.* He smacked himself mentally.  That was the fussy old guy he was playing.  *What’s wrong?*

“I... am so sorry, Nasera Buris, I simply cannot take chai with you at the moment.  I must lay my poor, aching head down,” he said out loud.

She fussed at him.  “Oh, certainly, certainly Naser.  Oh, of course.”  Her mother squinted at him over a page from their lin that she was reading, but didn’t say anything.

He clambered up to his hostel bed, set in human sized honeycombs in built up blocks on the flat delta, formed out of orange/red rock.  He would have preferred to be underground somewhere but there was no decent underground here.   

*His Radiance and his husband are lost in code.* Amardad sent, flat and to the point.  *They went in with what we thought was sufficient backing but the security systems reacted much more aggressively than when His former Radiance went in, for some reason.  We cannot find any evidence that Prime is actively hunting us.  The ice has not resumed falling.  The kraganzh, his wing-brother and his lover, the Milari children, are going in to find and fetch their parents.*

*The children?  Are there no teachers or zon left?*

*The zon all say they cannot access Tertius Gate.  They have attempted this with your daughter’s assistance but they just do not have the correct access keys.  They say that their access’s to the owner’s country were thoroughly destroyed centuries ago and they have been working with me and my students to try and help them rebuild without alerting Prime.  But that is probably the work of years.  If I could just go in and set things up openly it would be a few days work.*

*But you must not risk our disclosure.*

*We may have access to the owner’s country through the Naduman Gates, but they are refusing to answer our questions about it.*

*Stubborn bird-brains.*

*Indeed.*

*Is Shashi still down?*

*Sleeping.  We sent the children to ground themselves as thoroughly as they can before venturing into danger.  I will have Werfas set clines around them so that if things start to go wrong, they’ll be pulled out.  His Radiance and the Surdeniliarch--*

*Pushed it to their limits, of course.* He thought back at her.   

*As they do, thinking that surely they are invincible.*

*You would think their experiences with war would have convinced them otherwise, my friend.*

*Amardad... you’re solid as rock.  Do you need me in the mix?*

*I’m solid enough to have hidden from you all for years! No.  I think that for what we need to do you should continue working your long-term plan.  Perhaps his Radiance will reconsider all these direct approaches, once we get him out.*

*Once he’s back behind his eyes.  Yes.* He could almost feel her smile.  *We will.  This time or next.  They have several days before we’re truly in trouble.*

*So did you have to blast me with an emergency code like that?*

*You set the original force and intensity.*

*Of course.  You would have to remind me.  Keep me in the saddle.*

*I will. Amardad out.*