Betrayer: Foreigner #12 Read Online Free Page B

a high-ranking prisoner, one assumed by her situation and her species to be a prize worth taking home.
    It was a jigsaw puzzle of pieces that could fit together, if one assumed someone was setting up the Taisigi and also assumed that Machigi had had time to hear about it, investigate it, and set his people in place.
    His people still hadn’t stopped that truck themselves. Possibly they’d spotted Veijico, who was staying hidden from the truck, but maybe they hadn’t seen her at all and had been surprised by her attack on the kidnappers.
    Possibly Machigi, if innocent of the kidnapping, as he maintained, had had a report from his own observers at Najida as to what had happened and where the kidnappers were going . . . an incident that, more than any argument the aiji-dowager’s representative might pose, might have already convinced Machigi that he had a problem, that his neighbors were setting him up.
    Interesting notion, all considered.
    “What are you thinking?” Barb asked.
    “I’m thinking it’s a dead certainty we’re bugged, and it’s not impossible there’s someone hereabouts who can understand some Mosphei’. There’s a lot of that going around lately. But there’s a lot more that doesn’t add up in what happened. We thought you’d been taken to a place called Targai. That’s Lord Geigi’s clan residence, though he’s not been there in years. So Geigi and I went there to ask questions, and the clan lord at Targai turned out to be a problem. Tried to shoot us, in fact. Geigi ended up taking over his clan lordship. He’s over there now, trying to put his clan association back together, and he’s not happy to be there.”
    “Why not happy?”
    “He doesn’t want to be lord of Maschi clan. He’s got enough to do being lord of Sarini Province, and he absolutely intends to go back to the space station and live up there safe from all of this. But that’s where he is.” He’d said what he’d said for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping. If they understood. And afterward he drew a breath.
    Mistake. He winced.
    “You’re hurt,” Barb observed.
    “Oh, bruises. Nothing much.” Quick diversion to Barb’s favorite topic: Barb. “Your head’s far worse. Nasty crack you took. Tano’s very sorry. You just mustn’t emote around armed security. Mustn’t. You could have been shot.”
    “Tano knows me! Did he think I’d assassinate you?”
    “It wasn’t Tano who’d have shot you. The lord’s men in the hall might have, thinking you were coming after me. I was under their lord’s protection, and you were about to touch me. That’s the way it works. Just don’t touch people. And keep a calm face, no matter what.”
    Bowed head. “I was doing pretty good up to that point.”
    “You really must have been,” he said honestly, and he saw that Tano and Algini had come through the hall door.
    Banichi and Jago went over to them. For a moment there was a low conversation with a notable absence of handsigns. His bodyguard evidently wanted their eavesdroppers to have no trouble with whatever they were saying to each other.
    Jago came over to him, then, and quietly refreshed Bren’s cup and Barb’s. “One may report some progress with staff, nandi,” she said—the singular address, along with a turned shoulder, pointedly though quietly ignoring Barb. “We have sent word through the lord’s staff that we wish to make two phone calls in Lord Machigi’s best interest. We have received permission. Tano and Algini will be going to a house security area to make the calls. We are to make them ourselves, under observation, with a written text.”
    “Are we to call Shejidan to reach the Guild?”
    “No. They have agreed to our contacting Cenedi at Najida.”
    “Tell Cenedi this: that we have spoken at length with Lord Machigi and are favorably impressed. Say that he had already recovered both Barb-daja and Veijico from the kidnappers and released them to me as an act of good will, besides agreeing