As I'm about to enter the foyer of the Badgerpaw Signet I have the weirdest premonition of danger. While this premonition does not have the crystalline clarity of true prophecy, it is nevertheless enormously convincing: a presentiment of undeniable peril which hits me forcefully. Something appalling is about to happen. If I step into the foyer, then I am doomed to immediate destruction.
        "Ken?" says Iola.
        I must not go into the foyer. To do so would be death. Instant annihilation. I have an absolute foreknowledge of the fact that disaster is waiting for me. But how can I say this to my wife, to my eternally sane and reasonable wife?
        "Ken, is something wrong?" asks Iola.
        I have a choice between, on the one hand, dying, and, on the other hand, making myself look unendurably foolish by confessing that I've been scared witless by a floridly extravagant act of self-prophecy.
        I choose.
        I take one big, deep step which takes me lunging into the foyer. It is such a prodigious step that I almost fall over. For a moment I'm tottering, struggling for balance. Then I've done it. I've stepped into the foyer. I've lunged forward into the danger zone. And ... nothing untoward has happened to me.
        Which reminds me of another truism. While growing up in Yendo's perturbed zone may mean that you acquire special abilities, anything from the power to animate bamboo horses to the power of prophecy, you should never underestimate the deceitfulness of your own imagination. The power you think you have (in my case, the power to predict the outcome of adventuring forward into the foyer) may be no more than a quirk of your own faculty for self-delusion.
        From the foyer, I glance into the dining room. Molo is in the restaurant eating a bowl of noodle soup. He doesn't see me, and I have no incentive to start the meeting early. So I lead the way upstairs to Mitodarni's office.
        This morning, the stairs seem steeper and narrower than I remember, and I pause a couple of times and hold on to the rickety bannister. What's making the world so effortful? Is this merely today's transitory defect? Or is there something seriously wrong with my health?
        I'm glad when we make it to the office, an immaculately tidy and softly gleaming place. Polished wooden desk ornately carved in the classical Tomoeiji style, polished hardwood floors. High overhead, a wooden ceiling, elegantly carved in autumn foliage patterns. I envy this spacious and elegant office, so unlike what I have at home, my cramped and cluttered redoubt with its off-white pasteboard walls and tone-matching ceiling of acoustic tiles.
        There's a phone on the desk and there's also a slick Iwarabaoto brand laptop computer. By the desk there's a gadget which is a combined printer, photocopier and fax machine. But the room is dominated by wood rather than by metal and plastic, and the overall effect is formal and restful.
        Aunt Chariot is already ensconced in the office, sitting in a collapsible wheelchair to the left of Mitodarni's empty desk. She has dressed up for the occasion: she's wearing her best silk blouse, the one adorned with embroidered flying dragons in mauve and violet, and she's wearing her pearls. Her lips are rouged. In fact, she's so well made up that she no longer looks eighty. She could easily pass for seventy-five.
        She's sitting with her back to the window. Perhaps she's been carried up the narrow stairs, or perhaps she's still capable of walking. In recent months, Aunt Chariot has been hospitalized at intervals for chemotherapy, and dutiful hospital visits (Iola has insisted that we make them) have taught me that Aunt Chariot's condition is variable; she alternates between being ambulatory and bedridden.
        "Hi," I say.
        "The happy nephew greets his tottering aunt," says Aunt Chariot sardonically. "What do you think the chances are, Ken? Am I going to die quietly, or will I persist long enough to make accounting difficulties?"
        Sober or drunk (and I'm unsure which applies to the present moment) Aunt Chariot has always been a combative individual, and sickness has not sweetened her nature. She makes me uneasy because I never know what psychic needle she's going to jab in my direction next. And the presence of her diseased body is also disturbing.
        On an intellectual level, I know that cancer is not contagious. Even so, I feel a primitive and ineradicable discomfort at being in the same room as this sick person.
        "You can't get it off toilet seats," says Aunt Chariot, divining the cause of my discomfort and indulging herself by jeering at it.
        "I know," I say.
        Some wooden chairs, comfortable enough to sit on because they have been adroitly sculpted to accommodate the curves of human buttocks, have been arranged in an arc in front of Mitodarni's desk, facing the desk, Aunt Chariot and the window. I take the one in the middle, and rest my eyes on the view. Renewed rain, water, and the gold of Ginsasebo Utokawa. Iola seats herself to my right.
        "You didn't come to visit me during my latest chemotherapy," says Aunt Chariot, glaring at me accusingly.
        "I know," I say. "I'm sorry."
        Actually, as I'm sure Aunt Chariot knows, while she was staying in hospital for her last chemotherapy session, the five days from Monday April 17th through Friday 21st inclusive, I was up north, in Bakufueki. Why was I in the capital? Because Tanto and Helena had their school trip, and I was one of the parents who got roped into going along to supervise. But there's no point in venturing an exercise in self-exculpation. Whatever my excuse, it'll be twisted into something negative. Aunt Chariot loves conflict whereas I hate it: that's the problem.
        Aunt Chariot has lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, and at her age -- we have to remember that she's eighty -- the prognosis is not good. For some months (six months, isn't it?) she's been in and out of hospital having chemotherapy, and the impression I get is that it has not been going well. Iola follows the details and so, although the subject makes me queasy, I end up hearing about the deteriorating demerits of Aunt Chariot's innards, including nuggets of unpalatable information about her bone marrow, neutrophil count and potassium levels.
        What annoys me about Aunt Chariot is the unpleasantly aggressive energy with which she tackles what's left of her life. She's mentally intact, one of these crossword puzzle experts whose synapses are still hectically active even in old age, so she has the intellectual resources to sustain the verbal aggression she's so fond of. Since she's disposed to be actively unpleasant, it would be nicer if she could master the role of the supine and failing invalid. Unfortunately, tackling such a role has never seemed to be on her agenda.
        "I hope we won't find it necessary to go to war with each other," I say, in effect asking for peace.
        "Ken," says Aunt Chariot, "for you, I'll stitch on my happy face smile." And she grins, showing teeth. "You see, Ken? I still know who you are. My beloved nephew, none other! I'm still intellectually intact. This is my left hand and down there is my left foot, the one with the world's biggest bunion. We can have quality time together, you and me and all the family ... but the bottom line is that you want me to die so you can have my money."
        "Why do you have to be so negative?" I ask.
        Does she really hate me? If she does, I can't see why. There's no reason for my father's sister to bear me any animus. More to the point, why should I complain that she's not being the loving aunt? I'm a grown man and she's an old lady, old and sick and dying, embattled, fighting the good fight, enjoying the frisson of sticking guilt knives into whoever happens to be handy.
        "Your father would have wanted me to have the money," says Aunt Chariot.
        And she looks at me sharply, as if expecting a response. But I have nothing to say. I have never been easy with the idea of talking about my parentage. That takes us into an area of irrevocable tragedy, of unfixable disaster, of maimed misfortune.
        My father, Ipamana Udamana, disappeared on the day that my mother was murdered. I was seven years old at the time. In fact, it was my seventh birthday. My father vanished in the morning and my mother was slaughtered that very afternoon. The killing of my mother was a public event, a grotesque piece of communal butchery. The loss of my father, by contrast, was not so clear cut. He simply went missing. Seven years later, having been tracelessly absent for all that time, my father was declared legally dead.
        The sevens dance in my head. I was seven. The first of my father's missing years numbered seven. Molo has been out of jail for seven years.
        "But I'm not superstitious," I say.
        I was speaking to myself, speaking inadvertently. But Aunt Chariot picks up on the comment as if I had been making conversation.
        "No," she says, "not superstitious. Senile. Right, Ken?"
        "You're very combative today," I say, unable to resist the temptation to bite back.
        "What else should I be?" says Aunt Chariot. "What do you want me to be? Pretty? Cute little Grandmother Spiderweb, pretty gray hair, candyfloss hands? Senile is as senile does, Ken. I see plenty enough of it in that garbage dump where you've parked me."
        Before Aunt Chariot got diagnosed she used to live with Egishi in the Hachi Hari. Naturally enough, since he's her son. But, once she fell sick, she moved into the Gasa Tarosa with Cousin Po and his unruly crew: Po himself, his wife, their three kids, the nursemaid Chelooza, Chelooza's baby and Po's two female tenants. The theory was that she would be better looked after there. But she didn't get on with Yazuchi, Po's wife, so she has now been quartered in Dolagataka Dignity Domiciles, a block of serviced apartments (three meals delivered daily, and a nurse on call) conveniently near Yendo Central Hospital.
        I wouldn't call DDD a garbage dump but it is at the low end of the expenditure scale. A state-subsidized place. Egishi underreports his income to the point of indulging in welfare fraud. Should I be ashamed of this?
        In more prosperous times, I might indulge myself by playing with this question. However, with bankruptcy (and maybe jail) looming in my mind as active possibilities, I really can't be bothered to vex myself with the ethical niceties of what Egishi gets away with. In practice, the law is a series of fictions, allowing us Udamanas to organize welfare help for Aunt Chariot even though we're a long way short of the desperate poverty for which the welfare system is supposed to cater. Egishi, for example, is living in a huge house, the Hachi Hari, one of our six Big Houses. But, technically, he doesn't own it. Technically, the house is owned by our family trust, the Udamana Zekotalora Trust.
        So Egishi can front up at the welfare place, Incentive Assistance Nizon, and plead poor, and beg for financial help with accommodating his mother, even though he is living in what is really a rich man's house, a big house sitting on a really valuable piece of real estate in Central Yendo Historical Preserve.
        "You're not listening, are you?" says Aunt Chariot.
        I realize that she has been talking at me for some time while I've been woolgathering. I haven't heard a word of what she's said. Do I have a memory tape I can play? No. All that I have in memory is a vague recollection of the fact that someone (Aunt Chariot) has been energetically nattering away.
        Caught out, and with no way to deny it, I shrug.
        "Learning habits from the terrible twins, are you?" says Aunt Chariot.
        Aunt Chariot believes (not entirely without reason) that age fourteen is the worst of irresponsible ages, and is always at war with Tanto and Helena, needling them about their unsatisfactory behaviors, which include interrupting her, not listening properly when she's speaking, indulging in chewing gum and, high on the list of deadly sins, shrugging.
        As I'm trying to think of a comeback -- Aunt Chariot deserves to be verbally slapped, and striking back isn't likely to do her gnarled and knotty psyche any harm -- Molo comes in.
        "Greetings, war mongers," says Molo.
        This stupid comment comes from an idiotic movie he's seen recently, the name of which, if memory serves, is "Blasting Bigger Holes". One of those movies starring Harbin Bayan, the guy who kept dipping his mustache in blood in that serial killer flick, "Happy Butcheries" or whatever it was. "Greetings, war mongers" -- it's a childish catchphrase, so inappropriate that I'm embarrassed for Molo. Is that why he uses it? To annoy me? No, he's not that subtle.
        Molo looks as unsubtle as he is, a hefty piece of meat, usually dressed in oily denims. The suit he's presently wearing does not successfully camouflage him: he still looks like someone who's just got out of jail. The reality is that Molo hasn't been incarcerated for any fraction of the last seven years, and makes a living, more or less honestly, by customizing cars and by working as Cousin Po's bodyguard when Po is selling party pills in bars, carparks and nightclubs.
        "Ken," says Molo, "you want to ditch the Qodrodder?"
        "Pardon?" I say.
        "It's two years old," says Molo. "I can get you a good deal on an Iyako Major."
        "Yours?" I say.
        "No," says Molo. "A new one."
        "I'll pass, thank you," I say.
        There's no money in the kitty for extravagances like new cars. We have to concentrate on doing the basic stuff like paying the electricity bills.
        Cousin Po, entering shortly after Molo, takes a seat by his aunt. Although Po has gone to the trouble of dressing up in a suit, he (like Molo) can't quite pass for respectable. Though he knows it's a formal occasion, and therefore has not shown up in a slovenly T-shirt, he hasn't shaved properly. Hasn't shaved at all, actually. He's bristly and there are shadows of fatigue under his eyes, meaning he's probably had a long hard weekend out with Molo at blood beat parties and the like.
        For how long has Po been a salesman? If memory serves, about six months now. He sells party pills, which he manufactures in the Hachi Hari with Egishi's help. These drugs are designed to rev you up, and contain a variety of stimulants and mood-altering substances, skirting the edge of legality.
        Po still shows up at the Yaplama to work for Bamboo Horses, but he's talking of making his recreational drugs business into a full-time thing.
        It has not escaped my notice that, of all of us, Po and Molo are probably best equipped to survive financial disaster, if that were to befall us.
        "Petticat is late as usual," says Aunt Chariot, taking a jab at Molo's absent wife.
        "Am not neither," says Petticat, appearing in the doorway. "It's not gone nine. We're starting at nine."
        This is true. It's only 08:59, and Petticat has a sulky, petulant look on her face, so I apologize, something which Aunt Chariot would be unlikely to do even if it occurred to her.
        So now we're all here, almost. Me, my wife, Po, Molo and Petticat. We're still missing two: Egishi and Atakana. A stair creaks then a newcomer appears in the doorway. Cousin Egishi? My big brother Atakana? No. It's neither of them. Rather, it's Yazuchi.
        I'd rather not see Yazuchi at this meeting because she tends to be sour and argumentative. Still, if I can bring my wife then I suppose it's fair enough for Po to bring his. Yazuchi has dyed her hair blonde, which is a change. Is there some special significance in this fashion move? Maybe. Every time there's a crisis in Yazuchi's marriage, a fashion change of some kind ensues.
        Next to arrive is Egishi, who is carrying a cardboard box from Ozarella Hots, a takeout pizza place. Egishi looks tired, and his eyes are red. As he takes the seat to my left I catch a whiff of his floral deodorant. Then, without apology or preamble, he opens the pizza box, revealing the remains of half a pizza. Usually I love the smell of pizza but this morning my stomach feels distinctly upset, perhaps as a consequence of nerves, and the odor makes me feel slightly nauseated.
        What's Egishi thinking about this morning? Me, I'm thinking about the fifty million zen which Atakana let Egishi borrow from Udamana Holdings some five years back. Assuming that we dissolve the Udamana Zekotalora Trust and sell our lands, is Egishi going to repay that money? The difference between yes and no may end up being the difference between me staying out of jail or going there for five years or more.
        My imagination supplies no comfort. What I can all too easily foresee is that Egishi will stall if pressed for the money. Suppose he decided to fight me in court. Lawsuits equal delay: it could take years to extort the money from him. By which time he could have spent it. He's perfectly capable of doing that: of splurging it all and then going cheerfully bankrupt.
        Mitodarni arrives at 09:10, immaculately dressed in a gray suit with a lavender tie. It's most unlike him to be tardy. His manners are meticulous and he would construe it as being insulting to be late without very good reason. So what's happened? A family problem? He has an autistic child, a boy, Ongol by name, six years old, and Ongol, in addition to having behavioral problems, is subject to severe attacks of asthma. On top of that, Mitodarni's wife is struggling with bipolar depressive illness.
        Mitodarni apologizes profusely for being late and asks where Atakana is.
        "I assume he'll be along shortly," I say. "I did phone him this morning to make sure that he was clear on the arrangements."
        That's not entirely true. I did phone him before leaving home but my motive was to make sure that he was sober. Atakana has been off the booze for two solid years but his past history of relapses indicates that stressful situations tend to be his undoing, and today's meeting counts as just such a situation.
        So why is Atakana late? Is he having a quiet drink or three somewhere? Possibly. But my guess is that he's being deliberately late. A power play. He does love to be in charge, an unfortunate trait in someone who has such a well-developed capacity to mess up.
        "So," says Aunt Chariot, "Ken made a phone call. So now we know who is responsible."
        As an attack, this is weak and ineffectual, the intellectual equivalent of being jabbed by a piece of wet spaghetti. Even so, it gets under my skin because I'm tired and stressed by all the responsibilities which have been piling up on me.
        It's typical of Aunt Chariot that she should go out of her way to try to say something nasty, and I'm disappointed in her. I suppose it's naive, but I would have thought that coming down with a potentially fatal disease (in Aunt Chariot's case, a probably fatal disease) would have some kind of redemptive value. That it would widen your spiritual horizons, make you rethink your life, and make you discard backstabbing nastiness. That it would cleanse your soul as it took you into the realm of first and last things.
        But apparently not.
        In Aunt Chariot's case, the effect of sickness has been to make her sick. And, if anything, more self-centered and peevish than before. Illness has not helped her to transcend her limits and I suppose I was a fool to think that it would.
        Another squall blows through, sending rain driving hard against the glass of the windows. It really is filthy weather outside, first violently wet then clear then wet again.
        As the squall clears away, someone can be heard coming up the stairs, accompanied by a banging sound which might be the ferrule of an umbrella thumping on the polished wooden boards of the stairs. Atakana? No, it turns out to be Valencia, who does not know where her husband is or when he will be arriving.
        "There is an umbrella stand downstairs," says Mitodarni, who is generally a quiet, tolerant person but who is undoubtedly a tad annoyed at the sight of Valencia's wet umbrella dripping over his immaculate floor.
        "This is a very expensive umbrella," says Valencia, unimpressed, in her imperial way, by the criticism implicit in Mitodarni's comment.
        The "very expensive" suggests that the precious item might be stolen by Mitodarni or by someone in his family or by one of the customers at the Badgerpaw Signet. Valencia is sophisticated enough to know exactly how rude this is but probably doesn't care.
        Valencia takes the last free seat, the one to Iola's right. Mitodarni's office is starting to feel too crowded. Assuming that Atakana will be putting in an appearance, we're going to be one chair short, so Mitodarni goes downstairs to fetch another chair. If we were motivated to do so, we could start the meeting now. We could get along just fine without Atakana, but I haven't said that to anyone else in the family. They have asked for him to be present because they think he is the boss, the man who calls the shots.
        As we wait, Valencia chats with Iola and invites her to go to an antiques auction directly after the meeting. I don't know what it is about antiques, but Valencia has become very keen on them over the last two or three years. Maybe the old things make her feel younger. Not that she's old, exactly. Not old in the sense that Aunt Chariot is old. But her face is definitely that of what, to be kind, one could call a mature woman. She's not yet gaunt and raddled, but you can see the lines which indicate the kind of intensive care her skin is going to need somewhere down the track, in the years which are not all that far ahead.
        She's middle aged. Like me. Not a bad way to be, if you're adapted to your condition. But Valencia wants to be the young and glamorous princess. Emphasis on the "young".
        A little rattling sound draws my attention. Valencia is fooling with a miniature box which is caged in her fingers, sometimes partly visible and sometimes not. It's something she can control and dominate. Something she can shake. See, little box! You are helpless! Mine to command! What is it, that box? An antique? Maybe. It seems to have that opalescent gleam of old mother-of-pearl. Whatever's inside it, the sound is irritating me.
        "Precious treasures?" I ask, a little sardonically.
        A mistake. Valencia, like Aunt Chariot, is someone you should not poke with a stick.
        "Scorpions," says Valencia.
        "Scorpions?" I say.
        "Arachnids," says Valencia. "You know. Eaters of spiders. Scorpions and their tiny little eggs. That's what I've got."
        This claim is patently untrue for two reasons. To start with, as everyone knows, there are no scorpions in Nizon. Nowhere, not anywhere in the whole country. Secondly, scorpions do not lay eggs. Baby scorpions get born, very little and vulnerable, and ride about on their mother's back until they get bigger. I know this from my visit last month to Creepy Crawly Central, one of the multimedia segments of the Bakufueki Child Science Museum. (Being fourteen years of age, Tanto and Helena were scornfully unimpressed, denouncing it as something for "little kids", but I was fascinated.)
        At last, when it's almost 09:30, Atakana arrives. He's gotten very wet, somehow, maybe having forgotten his umbrella. His clothes are damp and there are drops of water in his big black beard, the beard he's been cultivating for the last three years. It's such a glossy beard that I wonder if he dyes it.
        Atakana is unpardonably late, in my opinion, but he makes no apologies. His failure to apologize is a gross breach of etiquette and it makes me feel ashamed for him.
        Atakana stands, surveying the room, doing a little head count, checking that we're all present. Aunt Chariot, me, Iola, Mitodarni, Valencia, Po, Yazuchi, Molo, Petticat, Egishi. All dressed well for this formal occasion. Atakana himself is wearing his best suit, a brown woollen number, with jade cufflinks visible.
        I've never used cufflinks in my life, and it occurs to me that perhaps that's a mistake. I am, after all, the General Manager of Udamana Holdings, responsible not just for the holding company but also for the day-to-day running of Bamboo Horses. Itty bitty little white plastic buttons project the wrong image.
        Atakana and Valencia have arrived separately. How come? They only have the one car. It occurs to me that maybe Iola gave Valencia a lift. Then I realize that's ridiculous. I came in with Iola myself in our car. Little mental glitches like this are starting to become a feature of my life. Are these glitches trivial symptoms of stress, or do they signal that something is going ominously wrong at a deeper, organic level? Maybe I should have a chat with Doctor Sogara and find out.
        "I think that's everyone," says Atakana, at last, having taken his own sweet time about it.
        He makes his comment with the air of a man who is taking charge, as if he's chairing this meeting. He's still conscious of being the firstborn, the oldest child, the big brother. I'm only two years younger than he is, but he's always treated me as being distinctly junior. In the world of appearances, Atakana is definitely the boss.
        The legal reality, though, is that I'm in charge, the Family Court having disqualified Atakana from managing the Udamana money. But that's a secret known only to me, to Atakana, to Mitodarni and to a few people who form part of the machinery of the court. Benefiting from the secrecy of the undisclosed, Atakana is able to play the role of the big man. Are there times when he forgets the realities of the situation? Perhaps so.
        With dignity, Atakana seats himself, and that's when Egishi jumps in. Since we're in Mitodarni's office it would have been natural to let Mitodarni take the lead, but Egishi comes in with a big aggressive verbal shove, taking the initiative.
        "My mother is not well," says Egishi, one hand indicating Aunt Chariot.
        With that, he looks directly at me, as if challenging me to contradict him. That's when Molo coughs, heavily. It sounds terrible. What has he been smoking?
        "My mother's very sick," says Egishi, "and she'd like to pass me a little something before she dies."
        "She doesn't want to pass you a little something," says Molo. "She wants to bite out half the land for your very own."
        "Can she do that?" says Yazuchi.
        "The decision isn't hers," I say, intervening. "To sell or not to sell, that decision is made by Udamana Holdings. Mitodarni, could you explain, please?"
        "By all means," says Mitodarni. "First, let's understand that management of the Udamana Zekotalora Trust is the responsibility of the family's holding company, Udamana Holdings."
        And he talks for some time about the technicalities. In essence, it's pretty simple.
        Back in the days before the Tolgamma War, back in the years before my father was born, the Udamanas decided to shelter their lands against personal asset taxes by forming the Udamana Zekotalora Trust.
        Subsequently, instead of the land being owned by individuals, it was owned by the Trust, an arrangement which has helped preserve the wealth of the Udamana clan.
        The trust is controlled by Udamana Holdings, the holding company which manages all the clan assets, most notably Bamboo Horses, our fabrication and animation outfit.
        "For the land to be sold," Mitodarni says, "the holding company, Udamana Holdings, must dissolve the trust. This is easily done. But then the money is split on a generational basis."
        The generations are age-defined. Those in the lower generation, those aged twenty-eight and under, get nothing. Instead, the money from the land sale is divided fifty-fifty between those in the middle generation (those who are at least twenty-nine years old and who have not yet attained the age of sixty) and those in the upper generation (sixty and over).
        "But that's not fair," says Yazuchi, "because Aunt Chariot is the only person in the upper generation. She gets half all to herself."
        "Two points," says Mitodarni. "First, the Trust was never designed to be fair. It was designed to be stable. The upper generation approved it, and they wanted something which wouldn't tempt the younger people to dissolve it. The disincentive is there by design. That's the first point.
        "Second point. It's a family trust so any legal issues arising out of it would have to be dealt with by the Family Court. There is one issue which you may not have thought of, and that concerns Melshu. Is he or is he not an Udamana? By reputation he is. That's the family tradition. But there's no paperwork on this, no documentation. If we were to dissolve the trust we'd have to go to the Family Court to ask for a ruling, one way or the other."
        This statement draws murmers of disapproval. Melshu is so old, so many generations old, that it's hard to think of him as being properly human. Certainly the notion that he might be lining up with the rest of us for a share of the spoils of the dissolution of the Udamana Zekotalora Trust is hard to stomach. But Mitodarni is insistent. There's no telling how the Family Court might rule, but the issue cannot be ignored. As he sees the law, that's the way it is.
        Mitodarni fields questions. Given the lack of firm evidence either way, it is entirely possible that the Family Court would rule that Melshu is not an Udamana, but he can't guarantee it. Then Mitodarni asks me to speak.
        "Decision time," I say. "If the Udamana Zekotalora Trust is dissolved now then it's a two-way split. Half goes to the upper generation, whether that's one person or two, and the other half is divvied up between the five of us."
        The "five" is me, Atakana, Petticat, Po and Egishi. I do the math for them. A professional valuer has placed the value of our land, encumbered as it is by strict constraints on development, at five hundred million zen. Half of that, split five ways, is fifty million each.
        "If the upper generation were to be excluded from the division," I say, dragging the key issue right out into the open, "then the share of the surviving five would be a hundred million each."
        And there it is.
        If Mitodarni can persuade the Family Court to rule that Melshu is not an Udamana, and if we can delay the dissolution of the Udamana Zekotalora Trust until Aunt Chariot has died of the cancer which is (probably) in the process of killing her, then us five survivors can each get twice as much money. For each of us, an extra fifty million zen: the price of a house. Not a big house, but an ordinary middle-class house somewhere in the city of Yendo.
        "Now," I say, "as you all know, I've been negotiating for a couple of months now with a Merlercian outfit, South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions. So far our contacts have been limited to phone calls and e-mail. But the latest news is that they want a meeting. They're seriously thinking of making an offer for our entire land holdings, and they're talking about sending a team out here later this month to physically inspect the land, to make us a firm offer, and to conclude a deal."
        I give that time to sink in, then continue.
        "The question before us is this," I say. "If the Merlercians come through with a firm offer, do we accept it? Or do we wait until the ... until the status of the generations has been revised? I must point out that at this stage our lands have been on the market for five years. We've had a number of tentative offers come to nothing. So, while I'm not saying that this is our only chance, realistically, if we want a sale within a reasonable timeframe, then it would seem a good idea to say yes to any appropriate proposal that the Merlercians come up with. Does anyone have any questions?"
        They have a lot of questions, mostly about the Merlercian outfit, South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions. I tell them what I can. As far as I can establish, South Zeast is in the business of land speculation (or, if you prefer a gentler term, land development). I've been able to confirm that South Zeast has been involved in some substantial land deals both within Merlercia itself and in other countries.
        The person I would be dealing with primarily, the team leader, Kilsarda Jevonica Klemp, the International Negotiations Manager, has the media profile you would expect from someone in her position. She's been interviewed by various media outlets down through the years so I can be sure that she's a real person, not a fabrication of fraud.
        "As far as I can determine," I say, "South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions is a legitimate outfit which has been in business for over twenty years. Judging by its track record, it's properly resourced. If they like what they see, we may get a firm offer some time this month. So the question is whether we take the offer or wait for circumstances to change."
        And I call for a vote.
        Nobody wants to commit themselves. Everyone would rather wait for someone to wave a magic wand and revise reality. Both options are unpalatable. If the Udamana Zekotalora Trust is dissolved this month, then a full half of the money will go to Aunt Chariot. Or to her and Melshu. On the other hand, if we skip this sales opportunity, we may not get another one for years.
        "I'd like a holiday," says Yazuchi.
        Technically, she doesn't have a vote. She's Po's wife, which gives her no entitlement to a share of the profits. But her unabashed greed for immediate affluence strikes a chord with the rest of us.
        As for me, well, I don't have any realistic prospect of becoming affluent. As I've explained to Iola, the deficit in the accounts of Udamana Holdings is about a hundred million zen. And I am personally responsible for that deficit, since I am the person who has permitted the company to keep trading its way deeper and deeper into debt, avoiding my legal responsibility, which would have been to put Udamana Holdings into bankruptcy years ago.
        A payoff of fifty million zen is still going to leave me in the hole for fifty million. Even so, I, too, feel the excitement of yelping greed. Money, here! Money, now! And maybe I can find the missing fifty million, somehow. Squeeze it out of Egishi, for example. He does owe us fifty million.
        "There is one more thing to remember," says Mitodarni. "The Equitable Levies Scheme."
        We are all familiar with the details (or should be, at this stage). Even so, Mitodarni quickly recaps, giving us a succinct rundown of the legislation, which will come into effect two years from now, and will (if we are still in possession of our lands) impose on us the Groker-Ribnold Levy, otherwise known (amongst those of us who have the misfortune to own land in the Central Yendo Historical Preserve) as the Doomsday Tax.
        The legislation enabling the imposition of the Groker-Ribnold Levy was enacted five years ago, and was the factor which persuaded us to put the Udamana lands on the market. Now, with the imposition of the levy only two years away, it helps push us toward a decision. It is better to sell the land than to hold it because the Doomsday Tax will start chopping away at the value if we do hold it.
        A vote quickly settles the issue. We will sell to the Merlercians this month, if they are willing to buy.
        Atakana tells everyone that I will be handling the negotiations; he does this in a lordly manner, in the manner of one who is delegating something to a subordinate. I know and he knows that the ruling made by the Family Court necessarily puts me in charge of any sales negotiation, but his overbearing attitude does not reflect this knowledge.
        "What about the facilitator's fee?" says Molo. I
        He says it in a surprisingly aggressive manner, like a man who is spoiling for a fight.
        "This issue was talked through two years ago," says Mitodarni, "when it seemed that Nedo Horimoto Gezenterprizes looked as if it might be making a bid for the land. Ken's position at that time was that he would not be putting his hand out for the facilitator's fee."
        "That remains my position," I say.
        It doesn't seem fair to me. I need the money. And if I could slice off fifteen percent of the sales price of five hundred million, which, technically, I'm legally entitled to, then I'd be picking up seventy-five million zen. That, plus my legitimate share of the rest, would answer my financial difficulties.
        Already I'm starting to feel bitter and twisted about not getting the facilitator's fee. This signals to me just how much potential for trouble there is in this business of carving up our land money.
        "We're done, then," says Egishi, always the most impatient of us.
        But Mitodarni prevails upon him to wait a few minutes while he wordprocesses into existence a memorandum of what we have agreed to. The printer hums and everyone gets a copy. Then the group breaks up. Valencia and Iola go off together: they are going to an antiques auction, with Valencia driving, and Atakana will be getting a lift home with Cousin Po.
        Mitodarni has a court appointment to keep, so makes his apologies and departs, and I find myself left along with Aunt Chariot. How am I going to get her down the stairs and back to her home? I still don't know if she can walk. On the occasions when I've visited her in hospital, sometimes she's been able to get out of bed but at other times she's been too weak. Maybe I should ask Molo for help: I presume he's waiting at his car.
        As I'm wondering about this, Aunt Chariot pulls out a cellphone and speed dials someone.
        "Chariot," she says. "I'm ready to go. Pick me up, please."
        And she explains to me that a van from Dolagataka Dignity Domiciles will be coming round to pick her up shortly. The crewmembers will collapse her collapsible wheelchair and carry both it and her down the formidably steep and narrow stairs.
        "They'll take me home so that's where you'll find me if you want to come and kill me," says Aunt Chariot.
        "Pardon?" I say.
        Up until this moment there has been no doubt in my mind that Aunt Chariot is as sharp as she has ever been, one of those people who are still mentally acute at age eighty. But this "kill me" statement smacks of dementia.
        "Kill me like you killed him," says Aunt Chariot.
        "Killed who?" I say.
        Maybe she's confusing me with someone else. Like Grandfather Hondo, who killed quite a considerable number of people in the war. Or Uncle Grendabous, who I would prefer not to think about.
        "You know," says Aunt Chariot.
        Should I push the issue? What does it matter? The fact is that I've never killed anyone. What's more, I'm not the sort of person people would suspect of unconfessed murders. I'm a business manager: orderly, conservative and as law-abiding as the next citizen.
        "Excuse me," says someone.
        It's a young man, who has come to the door of Mitodarni's office. Someone I've seen before, though I can't quite place him.
        "And you are ...?" I ask.
        "Hanri Pokupawa," he says.
        And that's when I click. He's a journalist with "Leaves and Voices", here to shoot photos of our bamboo horses with the gold of Ginsasebo Utokawa in the background, and to interview me (if I'm agreeable, and I think I am) about the possibility that Udamana Holdings is going to be selling its lands.
        "Let's go," I say, glancing at the window.
        Outside, it's stopped raining. Good. Nodding goodbye to Aunt Chariot, I lead the way downstairs, out to the grayness of the wider world, where Molo and our bamboo horses will be waiting for us.