Read Online Tracker by C. J. Cherryh - Free Book Online Page B

past the unshielded windows of the bus.
    They weren’t using the window shades this morning. The youngsters and Jase had so little time left to see the world, and it was an hour void of other traffic. Trucks might come later today, picking up or delivering goods or, rarely, passengers. But now the road was vacant and they had an unobstructed view of grasslands and small groves of trees.
    It was a special train they were meeting, at a very early hour, and indeed that old-fashioned train was waiting as the bus climbed the barely perceptible rise. The engine sat steaming a plume into the pink morning light, ready to roll.
    The station where it waited was a modest and rustic place. There was a newly painted little office, next to a small plank-sided warehouse, a wooden loading platform and the requisite water and sand towers of more modern vintage. The venerable and elegant steam engine had only two cars at the moment—one a standard baggage car, the other an old-fashioned passenger car with windows that only looked like windows.
    In point of fact—it was the elegant Red Train, the aiji’s own, with the baggage car that usually attended it. Tabini routinely lent it to the paidhi-aiji on official business—and in this case it was here to convey honored guests to the spaceport and bring the aiji’s son back home. It had run from Shejidan, crossed the Southern mountains and the chancy district of the Senjin Marid last night to be here this morning.
    It would not be taking the same route home.
    The bus rolled slowly to a halt alongside the platform and opened the doors.
    Tano and Algini were first out onto the platform, and other armed, black-uniformed Guild appeared from both train cars. Those would be the aiji’s men, who would have ridden out from the capital, and who now would ride back in the baggage car.
    Clearly, from the easy manner on both sides, they were people Tano and Algini knew, and Bren himself recognized two who served in the aiji’s own apartment.
    Algini gave the all-clear. Banichi and Jago got to their feet; Bren and Jase did, and they exited first.
    Then the young folk came out, joined them in crossing to the waiting train, a short walk with a living shield of Guild bodies, to a second, assisted climb into the waiting train car.
    Inside that car was red velvet from a prior century, fake windows with fake shades that didn’t work but looked elegant—two areas of small tables, ordinary seats, then a bench seat at the rear, near the galley. The youngsters took the reverse of their seating on the bus. Bren and Jase and their bodyguards went to the rear where there was a bench seat and galley, while the youngsters and Cajeiri’s young bodyguard stayed at the two table and bench arrangements nearest the door.
    â€œTea?” Bren’s senior valet asked as they settled in. The water in the tea service was already hot, no surprise there. The containers with their breakfast arrived aboard from the bus, handed up by the aiji’s men, who were out on the platform seeing to the baggage.
    There was the sound of another vehicle outside: their baggage truck had arrived, with the young gentleman’s baggage, and his. Jase’s bulkier baggage, and the youngsters’ one large case, had gone to the port last night.
    They would take tea while the crates loaded, he and Jase. The youngsters declined.
    Boji’s screech was audible even with the car door shut. No question he was part of the operation, first loaded, last off.
    And toward the end of the first cup, came the thump of the baggage car door slamming shut.
    In a moment more, the Red Train began to move, a barely perceptible motion.
    Bren’s valets, Koharu and Supani, began the breakfast service with a professional flair. Ramaso and Cook had provided absolutely everything they could ask, hot and chill, and spicy and sweet and savory, from the insulated cases. A liquid storage held an abundance of iced fruit