He hadn’t thought of Barb when he’d thought he was dying, and that was the bitter truth. Barb, in his mind and in his feelings, went off and on like a light switch… No, off was damned easy. On took a fantasy he flogged to desperate, dutiful life whenever the atevi world closed in on him or whenever he knew he was going back to Mospheira for a few days vacation.
‘Seeing Barb’ was an excuse to keep his family at arms’ length.
‘Seeing Barb,’ was the lie he told his mother when he just wanted to get up on to the mountain where his family wasn’t, and Barb wasn’t.
That was the truth, though he’d never added it up.
That was his life, his whole humanly-speaking emotional life, such of it as wasn’t connected to his work, to Tabini and to the intellectual exercise of equivalencies, numbers, and tank baffles. He’d known, once, what to do and feel around human beings.
Only lately—he just wanted the mountain and the wind and the snow.
Lately he’d been happy with atevi, and successful with Tabini, and all of it had been a house of cards. The things he’d thought had made him the most successful of the paidhiin had blinded him to all the dangers. The people he’d thought he trusted…
Something rough and wet attacked his face, a strong hand tilted his head back, something roared in his ears, familiar sound. Didn’t know what, until he opened his eyes on blood-stained white and felt the seat arm under his right hand.
The bloody towel went away. Jago’s dark face hovered over him. The engine drone kept going.
“Bren-ji,” Jago said, and mopped at a spot under his nose. Jago made a face. “Cenedi calls you immensely brave. And very stupid.”
“Saved his damn—” Wasn’t a nice word in Ragi. He looked beside him, saw Banichi wasn’t there. “Skin.”
“Cenedi knows, nadi-ji.” Another few blots at his face, which fairly well prevented conversation. Then Jago hung the towel over the seat-back ahead of him, on the other side of the exit aisle, and sat down on his arm rest.
“You were mad at me,” he said.
“No,” Jago said, in Jago-fashion.
“God.”
“What is ‘God?’ ” Jago asked.
Sometimes, with Jago, one didn’t even know where to begin.
“So you’re not mad at me.”
“Bren-ji, you were being a fool. I would have gone with you. You would have been all right.”
“Banichi couldn’t!”
“True,” Jago said.
Anger. Confusion. Frustration, or pain. He wasn’t sure what got the better of him.
Jago reached out and wiped his cheek with her fingers. Business-like. Saner than he was.
“Tears,” he said.
“What’s ‘tears’?”
“God.”
“‘God’ is ‘tears’?”
He had to laugh. And wiped his own eyes, with the heel of the hand that worked. “Among other elusive concepts, Jago-ji.”
“Are you all right?”
“Sometimes I think I’ve failed. I don’t even know. I’m supposed to understand you. And most of the time I don’t know, nadi Jago. Is that failure?”
Jago blinked, that was all for a moment. Then:
“No.”
“I can’t make you understand me. How can I make others?”
“But I do understand, nadi Bren.”
“What do you understand?” He was suddenly, irrationally desperate, and the jet was carrying him where he had no control, with a cargo of dead and wounded.
“That there is great good will in you, nadi Bren.” Jago reached out and wiped his face with her fingers, brushed back his hair. “Banichi and I won over ten others to go with you. All would have gone.—Are you all right, nadi Bren?”
His eyes filled. He couldn’t help it. Jago wiped his face repeatedly.
“I’m fine. Where’s my computer, Jago? Have you got it?”
“Yes,” Jago said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“I need a communications patch. I’ve got the cord, if they brought my whole kit.”
“For what, Bren-ji?”
“To talk to Mospheira,” he said, all at once fearing Jago and Banichi might not have the authority. “For Tabini, nadi. Please.”
“I’ll speak to Banichi,” she said.
They’d charged the computer for him. The bastards had done that much of a favor to the world at large. Jago had gotten him a blanket, so he wasn’t freezing. They’d passed the border and the two prisoners at the rear of the plane were in the restroom together with the door wedged shut, the electrical fuse pulled, and the guns of two of Ilisidi’s highly motivated guards trained on the door. Everybody declared they could wait until Moghara Airport.
Reboot, mode 3, m-for-mask, then depress, mode-4, simultaneously, SAFE.
Fine, easy, if the left hand worked. He managed it with the right.
The prompt came up, with, in Mosphei’: Input date.
He typed, instead, in Mosphei’: To be or not to be.
System came up.
He let go a long breath and started typing, five-fingered, calling up files, getting access and communications codes for Mospheira’s network, pasting them in as hidden characters that would trigger response-exchanges between his computer and the Mospheira system.
The rebels, if they’d gotten into system level, could have flown a plane right through Mospheira’s defense line.
Could have brought down Mospheira’s whole network. Fouled up everything from the subway system to the earth station dish—unless Mospheira, being sane, had long since realized he was in trouble and changed those codes.
But that didn’t mean they were totally out of commission. They’d just get a different routing until he got clearance.
He hunted and pecked, key at a time, through the initial text.
Sorry I’ve been out of touch…
Banichi had been forward in the plane, standing up, talking to Ilisidi and one of her men, who was sitting at the front. Now he came down the aisle, leaning on seat-backs, favoring the splinted ankle.
“Get off your feet, damn it!” Bren said, and muttered, politely, “Nadi.”
Banichi worked his way to the seat beside him, in the exit aisle, and fell into it with a profound sigh, his face beaded with sweat. But he didn’t look at all unhappy, for a man in excruciating pain.
“I just got hold of Tabini,” Banichi said. “He says he’s glad you’re all right, he had every confidence you’d settle the rebels single-handed.”
He had to laugh. It hurt.
“He’s sending his private plane,” Banichi said. “We’re re-routed to Alujisan. Longer runway. Cenedi’s doing fine, but he says he’s getting wobbly and he’s not sorry to have a relief coming up. We’ll hand the prisoners over to the local guard, board a nice clean plane and have someone feed us lunch. Meanwhile Tabini’s moving forces in by air as far as Bairi-magi, three-hour train ride from Maidingi, two hours from Fagioni and Wigairiin. Watch him offer amnesty next—if, he says, you can come up with a reason to tell the hasdrawad, about this ship, that can calm the situation. He wants you in the court. Tonight.”
“With an answer.” He no longer felt like laughing. “Banichi-ji, atevi have all the rights with these strangers on the ship. We on Mospheira don’t. You know our presence in this solar system was an accident… but our landing wasn’t. We were passengers on that ship. The crew took the ship and left us here. They said they were going to locate a place to build. We weren’t damned happy about their leaving, and they weren’t happy about our threat to land here. Two hundred years may not have improved our relationship with these people.”
“Are they here to take you away?”
“That would make some atevi happy, wouldn’t it?”
“Not Tabini.”
Damned sure not Tabini. Not the pillar of the Western Association. That was why there were dead men on the plane with them: fear of humans was only part of it.
“There are considerable strains on the Association,” Banichi said somberly. “The conservative forces. The jealous. The ambitious. Five administrations have kept the peace, under the aijiin of Shejidan and the dictates of the paidhiin…”
“We don’t dictate.”
“The iron-fisted suggestions of the paidhiin. Backed by a space station and technology we don’t dream of.”
“A space station that sweeps down from orbit and rains fire on provincial capitals at least once a month—we’ve had this conversation before, Banichi. I had it with Ilisidi’s men in the basement. I just had it, abbreviated version, with the gentlemen in the back of the plane, who broke my arm, thank you very much, nadi, but we don’t have any intention of taking over the planet this month.” He was raving, losing his threads. He leaned his head back against the seat. “You’re safe from them, Banichi. At least as far as them coming down here. They don’t like planets to live on. They want us to come up there and maintain their station for them, free of charge, so they can go wherever they like and we fix what breaks and supply their ship.”
“So they will make you go back to the station?” Banichi asked.
“Can’t get at us, I’m thinking. No landing craft. At least they didn’t have one. They’ll have to wait for our lift capacity.“ He began to see the pieces, then, in a crazed sort of way, while the arm hurt like bloody hell. “Damned right they will. The Pilots’ Guild will negotiate. They’re scared as hell of you.”
“Of us?” Banichi asked.
“Of the potential for enemies.” He turned his head on the head rest. “Time works differently for space travelers. Don’t ask me how. But they think in the long term. The very long term. You’re not like them, and they can’t keep you at the bottom of a gravity slope forever.” He gave a dry, short laugh. “That was the feud between us from the outset, that some of us said we had to deal with atevi. And the Pilots’ Guild said no, let’s slip away, they’ll never notice us.”
“You’re joking, nadi.”
“Not quite,” he said. “Get some sleep, Banichi-ji. I’m going to do some computer work.”
“On what?”
“Long-distance communications. Extreme long distance.”
Ilisidi was on her feet, hovering over Cenedi’s shoulder, Banichi and Jago were leaning over his. He had the co-pilot’s seat. It was a short patch cord.
“So what do you do?” Ilisidi asked.
“I hit the enter key, nand’ dowager. Just now. It’s talking.”
“In numbers.”
“Essentially.”
“How are these numbers chosen?”
“According to an ancient table, nand’ dowager. They don’t vary from that model—which I assure you we long ago gave to atevi.” He watched the incoming light, waiting, waiting. The yellow light flickered and his heart jumped. “Hello, Mospheira.”
“Can they hear us?” Ilisidi asked.
“Not what we say, at the moment. Only what we input.”
“Dreadful changes to the language.”
“ ‘Put in,’ then, nand’ dowager.” Lights flashed in alternation. ID, came up. The plane was on autopilot, and Cenedi diverted his attention to watch the crawl of letters and numbers on a small screen, all of which ended in:
—the further content of the lines wasn’t available to the screen.
Humans had, at least in design, set up the atevi system. It answered very well when a human transmission wanted through. The systems were talking to each other, thank God, thank God.
The plane hit bumpy air. Pain jotted through the nerve ends in the shoulder. Things went gray and red, and for a moment he had to lean back, lost to here and now.
“Nand’ paidhi?” Jago’s hand was on his cheek.
He opened his eyes. Saw a message on the screen.
The Foreign Office wanted to talk on the radio. He’d a headset within reach. He raked it up and fumbled with it, one-handed. Jago helped him. He told Cenedi the frequency, heard the hail sputtering with static.
“Yeah,” he said to the voice that reached him, “it’s Cameron. A little bent but functioning on my own. Where’s Hanks?”
There was a delay—probably for consultation. They hadn’t, the report was, finally, heard from Hanks. She’d gone into Shejidan and dropped into a black hole four days ago.
“Probably all right. The atevi have noticed we’ve got company upstairs. Ours, I take it?”
The Foreign Office said:
“That’s Phoenix, in a high-handed mood.”
“What’s the situation with it?” he asked, and got back:
“Touchy.”
“You want atevi cooperation? You want an invitation to be here?”
Are you under duress? the code phrase came back at him.
He laughed. It hurt, and brought tears to his-eyes. “Priority, priority, priority, FO One. Just bust Hanks’ codes back to number two and give me the dish on Adams, tonight, in Shejidan. I am not under duress.”
The Foreign Office alone couldn’t authorize it—so the officer in charge claimed,
“FO, I’m sitting here talking in Mosphei’ with a half a dozen extremely high-ranking atevi providing me this link on their equipment. I’d say that’s a fair amount of trust, FO, please relay to the appropriate levels.”
Atevi didn’t have a word for trust. The Foreign Office said so.
“They’ve got words we don’t have either, FO. Go with Hanks or go with me. This is a judgement call I’m required to make. We need the aiji’s permission to be on this planet, FO. Then where’s Phoenix’ complaint?”
The Foreign Office thought they’d talk to the President.
“Do that,” he said. “Much nicer if my call to Phoenix goes out through the dish on Adams. But the intersat dish on Mogari-nai is the aiji’s alternative, and I think he’ll use it, directly. Atevi could deal without me in the loop. If they wanted to. Do you understand? Tabini’s government is under pressure. That’s the disturbance in Maidingi Province. That’s where I’ve been. Tabini has to make a response to this ship. He’ll offer Mospheira a chance for input in that response. United front, FO. I think I can get that arrangement.”
Three hours, the Foreign Office said. They’d have to talk to the President. Assemble the council.
“Three hours max, FO. We’re in the Western Association, let me remind you. Tabini will act ultimately in the best interests of the Association. I earnestly suggest we join them.”
The Foreign Office signed off. The computer exchange tailed off. He shut his eyes, felt a little twinge of human responsibility. Not much. He’d be human after the hasdrawad met. After he’d talked to Tabini. He’d get a plane to Mospheira… trust the hospitals there to know where to put the pieces.
“Nand’ paidhi,” Banichi said after a moment.
They couldn’t have followed that exchange. Banichi might have followed every third word of it, but none of the rest of them. Damned patient, they were. And very reasonably anxious.
“Tell Tabini,” he said, “prime the dish on Mogari-nai to talk to that ship up there, tonight. I think we’ll get the one on Allan Thomas, but when you’re dealing with Mospheira, nadiin, you always assure them you have other choices.”
“What other choices,” Ilisidi said, “do we tell that ship up there we have?”
Sharp woman, Ilisidi.
“What choice? The future of relations between atevi and humans. Cooperation and association and trade. The word is ‘treaty,’ nand’ dowager. They’ll listen. They have to listen.”
“Rest,” Jago said, behind him, and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Bren-ji.”
Didn’t want to move for the moment. It hurt enough getting up here to the cockpit.
Figure that Tabini probably knew everything they’d just said—give or take the computer codes; and don’t bet heavily on that, once the experts got after it. Anything you used, numerically speaking, to get past atevi, you couldn’t go on using.
But peace was in everyone’s interests. Certainly it was in Tabini’s. And in the interest of humans, ship’s crew and planet-bound colonists a long, long way from the homeworld.
He’d told Djinana they might walk on the moon. Lay bets on it, now, he would. Granted Malguri was still standing.
He made an effort to fold up the computer. Jago shut the case for him, and disconnected the cord. After that—the necessity of getting up.
He made it that far. Ended up with Banichi’s arm around him, Banichi standing on one leg. The dowager aiji said something rude about young men falling at her feet, and go sit down, she was in command of the plane.
“Let me,” Jago said, and got an arm about his middle, which stabilized the aisle considerably.
Banichi limped after them. Sat down beside him.
“Long distance, is it?” Banichi said. “If you go up there, we go, nadi.”
He couldn’t say he understood Jago or Banichi, or Tabini.
Couldn’t say they understood him.
Scary thought, Banichi had. But he suddenly saw it as possible, even likely, when negotiations happened, when Mospheira got that lift vehicle, or the ship up there built one in order to deal with them. Atevi were going into space. No question. In his lifetime.
Baji-naji, The lots came down, Fortune and Chance made their pick. You weren’t born with your associates. You found man’chi somewhere, and you entered into something humans didn’t quite fathom with an altogether atevi understanding.
But in the way of such things, maybe atevi hadn’t found the exact words for it, either.