"Difficulty?" Ilisidi said to him.
"Forgive me. It's a phone call from Mospheira. It can wait." He was watching Badissuni and Tatiseigi as they spoke briefly, then moved apart, Tatiseigi instantly surrounded by the curious and less restrained, and people gazing in speculative curiosity at Badissuni, whom — God! — Tabini snagged for a small exchange.
And his mother — dammit, he needed to know.
"Go, go, go," Ilisidi said, "attend your phone call. Come back to me. I'll gather the gossip. Your mind is clearly distracted." Ilisidi's face betrayed no concern whatsoever. But her tone of command, sharp and absolute, told him he'd slipped his facial control and let things through he would rather not have allowed to the surface.
But he wanted the phone call. Ilisidi gave him leave. And might learn more than he could — or than she could with him attached.
He cast a worried look around for Jase, who was quietly in the corner, talking to his security and having no difficulty. Jago was watching him, and he coasted past Jago on the way to the door. "A phone call's come from the island," he said. "I'm going to the office. I'll be right back."
"Yes," Jago said, and tailed him as far as the door, when he'd been so bothered he hadn't even twigged to the possibility of a set-up to draw him to disaster. She stayed close, stationing herself in the hall as he went the short distance to the private office, at the door of which the servant stood.
He went in and picked up the phone. "Hello?" he said. "This is Bren Cameron."
"Bren, this is Toby." It was a tone of voice he almost didn't know. "I thought I'd better call."
"Damn right you'd better call. How are you? How's Mother?"
A pause that said far too much. "Heart attack. Small one. How are you? "
It was better than his worst fears. His knees weren't doing so well. He sat down. "I'm doing fine. Tell her that. Listen. I want you to call Barb and have her call me."
"No. No! You get yourself home, Bren. You want your damn business carried on, you come do it, and you come back and take care of the things you need to take care of! Stop asking your family to put up with this kind of crap! Mama's having surgery this week. She wants you, Bren. She wants you to be here."
"1 can't."
"I can't be up here in the city, either, but I'm doing it! I can't leave my house and my business, but I'm doing it! Jill can't answer the phone without lunatics harassing her! We've had to leave home and all come up here, and I can't let my family go down the street to the park! You know what put mama in the hospital, Bren? You did. People throwing paint on her building, the landlord saying he wants her to move —"
He tried to think through the things he didn't want to hear to the things he had to hear — while remembering agencies on both sides of the water were recording everything. "Toby. Call my office. Ask Shawn —"
"I've done that! I can't get through! None of the numbers you've given me work any more, and I don't even know whether Shawn's in office this week, by what I'm hearing in the papers!"
"What's in the papers, Toby? They don't exactly —"
"No, no, no! I'm not doing your work for you! I'm your brother, not a clerk in the State Department! And I want you back here, Bren. I want you back here for
mama! One week, one miserable week, that's all I want!"
"I can't."
"The hell you can't! Tell the aiji your mother could die, dammit, and she's asking for you! "
"Toby —"
"Oh — hell, I forgot. You can't explain feelings, can you? They're not wired for it. Well, what about you, Bren? Is it all the office, and nothing for your family?"
"Toby."
"I don't want your excuses, Bren. I've covered for you and covered for you and not told you the truth because it'd upset you. Well, now I'm telling you the truth, and mama's in danger of her life and I can't take my family home, and I'm scared to death they're going to burn my house down while I'm gone!"
"Just hang on, Toby. Just a little longer."
"I can't! I'm not willing to, dammit! I'm tired of trying to explain what the hell you're doing! We can't explain it to ourselves anymore — how in hell do we make it make sense to the neighbors! "
"You know damn well what the score is, Toby. Don't hand me that. You know what's going on in the government and what game they're playing."
"What are you talking about? What are you talking about, Bren? That we're the enemy, now?"
"I'm saying call Shawn!"
"I'm saying Shawn's number doesn't work anymore and the police won't answer our emergency calls, Bren, try that one! You're not damn popular, and they're taking it out on my family and our mother!"
"Wrong. Wrong, Toby! It's not the whole island, it's a handful of crawling cowards that on a bright day —"
"These are our neighbors, Bren. These are my neighbors that aren't speaking to me, people I've known for ten years!"
"Then get yourself a new set of friends, Toby!"
"That doesn't work for mama, Bren, that doesn't work in the building she's lived in for all these years and now they don't want her any more. What does that do to her, Bren? What do you say to that?"
"It's a rotten lot of people you've fallen for."
"What are you talking about? What are you talking about, Bren? I don't understand you. "
He grew accustomed to silence on his feelings. He was a translator, a technical translator, by necessity a diplomat, by cooption a lord of the atevi Association. And he spoke out of hurt and anger on the most childish possible level, maybe because that was the mental age this argument touched, the last time he and Toby had accessed what they felt. Toby had moved out to the coast. He'd thought then, and still thought, it was to put space between Toby and their mother. He'd gone into University, and aptitudes had steered him toward what the job was supposed to be, which hadn't been this.
"Tell mama I love her," he said, and hung up on his brother.
That little click of the receiver broke the vital connection, and he knew there wasn't a way to get it back. The training didn't let expression reach his face. The training didn't let him do anything overt. He just sat there a moment, with an atevi lady's office coming back into focus around him, and the sounds of the party going on above the silence that click had created, and with the knowledge he had to get up and function with very dangerous people and go be sure Jase was all right.
And he had to finish his talk with Ilisidi, somehow, get the wit organized to regain that mood and that moment and do his job.
If you couldn't do anything about a vital matter, you postponed it. You put it in a mental box and shut the lid on it and didn't think about it when there was a job to do.
And once he'd done that, damn it! He was mad at Toby, who knew things about the government Toby could have told him, critical things, and Toby hadn't, wouldn't, no matter whether peace or war could hinge on it. Toby's peace was unsettled, Toby's life was put out of joint, Toby came at him with personal grievances of a sort the family had once known to keep away from him — which Toby could have been man enough to hold to himself this week and handle, dammit, since there wasn't and wouldn't be anything he could do from where he was.
But it had been a succession of weeks. Toby was getting tired of holding it.
Jago appeared in the doorway. She had her com in hand. Had been using it, he thought, maybe even following the conversation via a relay from the foyer-area security station. Surveillance here, in these premises, was always close, and lately it was overt, just one of those jobs his staff did to be up on things without having them explained.
Sometimes that was a good thing.
"The aiji is aware, nadi-ji."
Not Bren-ji, not the familiar; but the still-remote formal combined with the personal address. Jago was being official. He was grateful for the professional distance. It was a damn sight more consideration than his brother managed.
"My man'chi," he said, going to the heart of what he was sure would worry atevi, "is still to the office and the aiji, nadi. You may tell him that."
"He wishes to speak to you, but cannot leave the breakfast room without notice nor speak to you intimately there. He says, through your security, that though he has said so before, now he urges your acceptance of his offer: at any time of your choosing, you may bring your household to the mainland and he will establish a place and lands for them, nadi-ji, as fits the house of a man of your stature. If you ask, he will make strong request to the Mospheiran government to secure their immediate passage across the strait, with all their goods and belongings. He is aware of the demands of those of your house, and your difficult position, nadi-ji, and is willing to take the strongest action to secure their safety."
"Tell him —" The last time Tabini had moved to secure something from the Mospheiran government, he had threatened to shoot Deana Hanks if they didn't get him back in twenty-four hours. Tabini's offer was not without international consequences. And not without force behind it, though he didn't know what human official Tabini could tell them he'd shoot this time. "Tell him I am grateful. Tell him — I hold his regard as the most important, even —" He almost said — above my family's good opinion; and knew that circumstances and duty had made it true. Now anger and bitter hurt almost confirmed it. "Even above my life, nadi. Tell him that. And I will come back to the gathering when I have composed myself, which should be only a moment."
"I shall tell him that, nadi."
Jago was gone from the doorway, then, giving him the grace of privacy, but he was sure she'd gone no further than the hall outside to relay the message. And to achieve that composed manner he tried to widen his focus, to remind himself how very much was at issue, for three nations counting the ship Jase represented; and what a very extraordinary honor Tabini had offered him.
It was done for state reasons, he had to remind himself. For the same damn reasons of state that had put him in the position he was in.
He'd hung up on his brother.
And wouldn't be home.
Fact. Fact. Fact. There was nothing that could change it, nothing that would get the barrier between peoples down any faster than the things he was doing. So it was two deep breaths and back to work.
He got to his feet and walked out into the hall, where as he expected, Jago was waiting; and where, in the distance, the television interviews were going on, with a scatter of the guests down there in the bright lights. He walked with Jago back into the crowded breakfast room, in which alcohol and alkaloids as well as the sweets were beginning to be a factor and the simple noise of conversation was beginning to sound like the subway below the building. Jase was still safe where he'd left him; and, not willing at this moment to talk to Jase or answer human questions, he tended toward Tabini, who was with Damiri, with Banichi, too.
Tabini's regular security was at the moment hovering much closer to Tatiseigi, who was talking to Ilisidi.
"Aiji-ma," Bren said quietly with a slight bow. "I heard your generous offer. I will present it at my first opportunity, but —" His wits unraveled. "I don't know how to persuade them, aiji-ma. I wish that I could."
"It seems to me," Damiri said, "that this is a trap, nand' paidhi. They wish you to become concerned and to go there. This attack on your mother's residence is not unrelated to this pressure on the Association and the outrageous behavior of your government. I even suspect the death of Jase's father, but I know no design to make of it."
He felt himself increasingly in shock, and willing to make patterns where possibly none existed. He dealt with atevi. And to the atevi mind there were patterns he could see, too, dire and threatening patterns; but he dealt so deeply in the language now he feared his own suspicions. "I know none, either, daja-ma, but I shall certainly think deeply on it."
Another person moved up to speak to the aiji, a lord of the northwest coast, who was clearly waiting his turn, and he was, he decided, done with the things he could say. To be replaced was at the moment a relief from having to think in atevi complexity. He moved aside with the due and automatic courtesies —
And encountered lord Badissuni.
"Nandi," he said.
"Nand' paidhi." The thin, unhappy lord looked sternly down at him. "Your security, one wishes to say, is highly accurate."
What did one say? His heart was racing. "They are Guild, nandi."
"Two of you, now," the lord said. "Does Hanks speak for you?"
"By no means, nand' Badissuni. I disapprove of her adventures and she wishes me dead."
"So one hears," Badissuni said. "7s this faster-than-light a lie?"
"No, nandi."
"Will this ship fly?"
"I have no doubt, nandi. There is no deception."
"One was curious," Badissuni said, and strayed off without another word.
More than damned curious. People were staring at him. He had the feeling he'd been used for display. A political prop. Talk to the paidhi. Be seen to talk to the paidhi. As he'd been seen to talk with Tatiseigi and everyone else available. He didn't see Jago. He didn't think she'd approve his being used; and perhaps neither would Tabini, who'd nevertheless invited the man.
He retreated to the corner next to the doorway, next to a porcelain stand for abandoned drink glasses, where Jase, drink in hand, stood talking with his security, Dureni.
"What was that?" Jase asked. "Is anything wrong?"
A flash of dark and pale green advised him of someone of the house beside him, and he turned to find lord Tatiseigi himself under Ilisidi's relentless escort, bound past them, he was sure, toward the interview area just outside.
"Everything all right?" Jase asked, and in that sense, yes, he was relieved to think.
Then something popped.
Security moved. Everyone moved. Tatiseigi and Ili-sidi were in the doorway and he didn't think — he just shoved Jase to the floor as Jase was diving toward lord Tatiseigi in the doorway.
Lord Tatiseigi continued to the floor along with others diving of their own volition — Bren was down, half sheltered by Dureni; everyone was low; and an apparently unarmed security around the aiji had turned into a crouched, gun-bearing battle-line.
"A lightbulb exploded!" someone shouted from the interview area beyond the door, where indeed a deep and startling shadow had fallen. The lily room burst into relieved laughter, and more laughter, amid a murmur of disgust from Dureni and an apology as Dureni hoped he hadn't hurt him.
"By no means," Bren said, accepting a hand up.
Jase, meanwhile, was in very intimate contact with a very offended lord Tatiseigi as lights flared in the doorway, and the television cameras, a live broadcast, swept over the confusion, Tatiseigi, struggling to rise — and Jase, who got to his feet with more agility.
"Nandi," Jase said faintly, edging backward, attempting to efface himself. But the camera tracked him relentlessly as the documentary reporter with a microphone turned up at Jase's shoulder.
"Nand' paidhi," the reporter said, "an exciting moment."
"I think dangerous," Jase answered quite correctly, and Bren reached him, seized his arm, and propelled him back out of the spotlight, as lord Tatiseigi also escaped the cameras. "He wishes to convey his apology, nand' Tatiseigi, and his profound concern." He didn't mention that the fall had happened partly because Tatiseigi had shown no reluctance to trample others underfoot reaching the door; and Jase had, indeed, tried to carry an adult ateva to the floor to protect him.
"Certainly it might have been more serious," Tabini said. In the tail of Bren's eye, Tabini came walking cheefully in among those who had hit the floor, including a wryly amused Ilisidi, whom Cenedi was helping to her feet. "Grandmother-ji?"
"Certainly an exciting party," Ilisidi said, and the cameras were still going in the doorway. "What for dessert, nandi?"
There was general laughter. And Tabini, never slower than his grandmother, as the camera's glaring eye carried it across the continent: "Nand' Tatiseigi! Good, good and fast! Our first line of defense, and damned well restrained, I say, of the lord of the Atageini, or there'd be no cameramen standing. My father used to call you the best shot in the valley, did he not, nandi?" Tabini waved his hand at the cameraman in the doorway. "Out, out, nadiin! You and your exploding lights! Take them out, out! You've seen the lilies! You've leaned over our shoulders long enough, you! Let us enjoy our evening!"
That was the aiji's word. The aiji's security intervened more directly, and the lights on which the r
cameras relied went out, all at once; someone had gotten the fuse. Lights died, cameras retreated.
Bren realized he had a death grip on Jase's arm and let go.
"It's all right," he said to Jase in Mosphei'.
But Jase retorted in Ragi, "I thought they were shopping."
There was an immediate and embarrassed silence. Then laughter from those in earshot.
"Shooting," Jase said, and went red. And fled out the door and hardly got out of sight before security bounced him back, angry and confused.
Lord Badissuni, disheveled and distraught, sat in a chair by a potted plant and looked overcome, possibly with premonition, or a recollection of gunfire.
"It's all right, Jase," Bren said. "You did all right."
"Toward the Atageini," someone near them had remarked. "Did you note that? Toward the Atageini, would you think so?"
Lord Tatiseigi himself was talking and joking, albeit shakily, with Ilisidi, and with Damiri. Tabini was talking with the Minister of Defense, in a very serious mode; and madam Saidin went over to the lord of the Atageini, as did others, to express their hopes that he was unhurt.
Likely the news service was embarrassed, too, and frightened. "Jago-ji," Bren said, "one wishes the news services to mention the matter in a good light. Tell nand' Saidin so."
"One understands," Jago said, and moved over to speak quietly with madam Saidin, who nodded, looked toward her lady's human guests, and then took herself outside, where he trusted Atageini diplomacy was well up to the task of reassuring the reporters. Jago went there, too, and then Cenedi, and Naidiri, of Tabini's personal guard.
Jase was very quiet. But Jago came back to say that the camera crew was greatly reassured. "We're putting junior security in charge and offering the camera crew the formal dining room. Nand' Saidin has ordered trays of food and drink and asked them not to cross the security perimeter. Nand' Naidiri has assured them of the aiji's good will and suggested an interview with the Atageini."
The adrenaline that had been running began to settle down. The television coverage had been scheduled to go on only another half hour. It was a consequence of the evening that the lord of the Atageini had not gone on television in the historic apartment, in his planned interview regarding the lilies, but there might have been worse consequences, and no one could be at fault for a bad bulb and the reaction in a roomful of hair-triggered Guild.
Lesser lords and dignitaries began to come to speak to the paidhiin, and one, Parigi of some western township, asked the delicate, the almost unaskable question, "One did remark, nand' paidhi, that the paidhiin moved to protect the house."
He'd moved because he thought Jase didn't know the danger; and Jase had dived for the Atageini probably because he'd had it dinned into him how important Tatiseigi was. Maybe it did say something to atevi how Jase had thought instantly to protect the Atageini lord. But it didn't say at all what atevi thought it did.
"He doesn't speak fluently, nand' Parigi, but I think it startled everyone. And Jase-paidhi knew lord Tatiseigi might be intended; remember we're human and draw no conclusions about man'chi — we often startle ourselves with man'chi, isn't that what they say in the machimi?"
"Certainly it startled me," lord Parigi laughed. "And my daughter, who's plagued me for a year to attend a court party, was quite sure we were in a machimi ourselves — perhaps a little more excitement than we country folk are used to."
He could almost relax with such people. And with the good will offered. "Is this your daughter?" She was at the gawky stage, all the height, not enough weight yet: all elbows and knees. But excited, oh, very. "I'm very greatly honored. Nand' Jase, this is the — eldest?
Is it the eldest? Daughter of lord Parigi. Caneso, do I remember correctly? From —"
"Laigin, lord paidhi." The young lady was delighted to be addressed by someone technically a lord, but not landed; and he chose not to notice the gaffe at all: refreshing that an ateva could mistake such a thing.
"And this is your first time in Shejidan?" Jase asked her.
If anything, spirits were higher, the alcohol went down faster, and when a (fortunately not historic) glass dropped and broke on the tiles, there was laughter. The teenager laughed when she saw others laughing, and her father found occasion to steer her away.
"For a party on this floor," Ilisidi said, coasting by, "this is riotous and unrestrained. It will never equal harvest dances in Malguri. — Ja-son-paidhi, Tatiseigi will survive the rescue."
"Is the lord angry?" Jase managed to ask for himself, and remembered to add, "Nandi?"
"He will recover, I say." One didn't — ever — press Ilisidi on first acquaintance, even if one did limp through the language, and Ilisidi's reply was curt and less delighted. "Come, Bren-paidhi, I will make you make amends for your importunate associate." The latter as she caught Bren by the arm and drew him, perforce, with her.
"I should keep Jase in sight, nand' dowager."
"Oh, he's there." Ilisidi took him, to his dismay, to Tatiseigi himself. "Indulge his lordship, who wishes to ask you direct questions."
"I do no such thing," Tatiseigi muttered, and it might have been time to beat a retreat, or it might be the worst time to do so. Ilisidi did not play pranks on this scale. And Ilisidi, damn her, was off and escaped from the confrontation.
"Nandi," Bren said, and bowed and searched the bottom of his resources for compliments. "Your quickness and your forbearance with a young and mistaken person were very apparent to everyone."
"His foolishness was apparent, nand' paidhi!"
"He cast himself between you and expected harm, knowing your great importance to the aiji. Unfortunately — he lacks the grace and the mass of the Guild."
"Importance to the aiji, is it, nadi? With my niece in bed with the upstart of Taiben! And the dowager no better — attaching herself to humans and astronomers."
"I fear my regard in your eyes must be far less, then, since I regard the people you name with great respect and must defend them."
"Humans! Makers of machines! Polluters of the good air! Defilers of the land! The ether of space itself isn't safe from you!"
"Not defiled by my work, nandi. Not by my work." The lord of the Atageini had raised his voice to him. He came back in kind, which might be a misjudgment, but the dowager apparently got along with this man, and Ilisidi backed up for no one. "I hope for the good of atevi and humans to come from the work I do, lord Tatiseigi. So does Jase, who wears no bulletproof vest. Good evening, nandi."
Tatiseigi went so far as to seize his sleeve. Unprecedented, and commanding his attention at a disadvantage of size and strength. Atevi eyes reflected, catching the light just so, and Tatiseigi's shimmered gold.
"Defilers, I say."
"No, lord of the Atageini. And still bearing good will to you despite your attacks."
"Why? Are you a fool?"
"No, nandi. I do so because of the aiji-dowager, who has defended your interests to the aiji and to others and advised me to do so."
"Oh, the aiji-dowager, is it? Do her tastes run so small!"
No ateva in a polite setting had ever delivered him an insult of that kind, not on a personal level.
"I am devastated," he said with all the coldness he could muster. "She spoke well of you."
"Impudence."
"Nadi." He had never envisioned addressing a lord of the Association in that style of hostile equals on the field, either. But he did. Nor had Tatiseigi once let go of his sleeve. "You will disappoint your niece."
"How?"
"Because she also has spoken well of you. I assure you the ship-paidhi thought only to rescue you. That the cameras caught it was either unfortunate or an opportunity. 7 being a representative of governments advise you, nandi, to take your security, visit the reporters, and conduct the interview in the dining room. Such a report will air as often as the other, it will still be within these perimeters, it will often be rebroadcast because it will show yet another room of this historic residence. And, and, I advise you speak well of nand' Jase in order to erase the memory of a mutual indignity before millions. Play the part instead of a lord protected by one of the paidhiin at risk of his life!"
There was utter silence. The music played. The conversation continued around them.
"Impudent, I say."
"For the dowager's sake, I give you my advice unasked."
"For her sake I consider it and not the source." Tati-seigi let him go and stared at him. He stared back, having to look up to do it.
Then he became aware, to his utter consternation, that Tabini was and had been behind him.
"I also counsel you do so, lord Tatiseigi," Tabini said. "Your niece will stand beside you. So will the ship-paidhi."
In support of her uncle. A thunderbolt. Perhaps made necessary by what Jase had done. But a solution, all the same.
He looked for Jase, who occupied the same corner beside the door as before, with his security, but with a small cluster of guests near him. He asked his leave, and went over to Jase and explained the situation.
Jase didn't say much, except, in Mosphei', "I thought he was in danger. What do they want from me?"
"A good appearance," he said. "The lord is willing."
"I can't do this," Jase said in a tone of panic.
"Yes, you will," Bren said. "You will, Jase. You have to."
"No," Jase said quietly, and at that moment Jago caught his attention.
"Nand' paidhi," Jago said, attracting his attention, and he went aside, next to the porcelain lilies' most extravagant display, the north wall, one of those sections that had remained largely untouched, and where a large potted plant afforded a buffer from the crowd and a quiet place for whispers. "Nand' paidhi, I dislike to bring another matter to you, but the boy from Dur has come a second time into the subway."
"Oh, damn!" He'd spoken in Mosphei', having done it with Jase, and for a moment went blank.
"The boy," Jago said, "is in very serious trouble with the Bu-javid guards. He was warned. He saw the news coverage, apparently from a hotel down the hill. He has checked into three."
"What, hotels?"
"His behavior, nand' paidhi, has been entirely suspicious. The boy has checked into three hotels to throw security off his track."
"A boy that young —"
"I have not met him. He is not Guild. The moves he is making are provocative of very serious consequences."
"How serious?"
"There was gunfire, nand' paidhi. He did stop when ordered, for which one is very grateful. I understand he was hit by a masonry chip and that blood was drawn. Damage was done to the ceramics in the station and to a subway car, for which he will be held accountable. I haven't been down there. But I have asked them not to charge him yet, knowing your involvement. What do you order us to do?"
"Am I qualified to judge? Have I caused this boy's reckless behavior, Jago-ji?"
"Nand' paidhi, I think the fault is, as Banichi is wont to say, far too much television. The boy is ashamed to go home without the plane and without your release from feud. To him, at his age, this is great tragedy. To his father, this latest incident will be a disgrace that will indeed harm him in his dealings. The boy is coming to realize this and, being young, is now truly desperate."
"If I write the boy a card, with a ribbon, will he go home?"
"I hesitate to reward such foolishness but, if you will write it, nand' paidhi, I will send it down with one of the juniors. I will not have this boy's death attached to your name, nadi-ji, and some of the guards imagine him as Guild. Three hotels, paidhi-ji."
"But you know definitively he isn't."
"Not in remotest possibility."
"I'll sign the card." The lady's office had the more traditional wax-jack. The security office had a highspeed device that didn't require live flame. He started toward the door.
And missed Jase. Who was not where he'd been.
"Has Jase gone to the interview area?" he asked Jago, who talked to her pocket com.
"The lady's office. He's attempted to use the phone, nadi."
He stopped cold, at a place where an ateva lady felt free to brush close and say, "Nand' paidhi, such an interesting party, isn't it? The paidhiin were very brave."
For a moment he couldn't think, not where he was, not where he was going, in a room otherwise filled with people all towering head and shoulders above his head, through a doorway blocked by such people. He wanted air and a sane space for thought, and knew that Jago was following him. He found a gap and went through it and out the door.
"Be careful, nadi-ji," Jago said, overtaking him in the quieter, cooler air of the hall; she had the pocket com in hand.
"Who is he talking to, Jago-ji?"
"To the station at Mogari-nai. To the ship. But the call didn't go through. Our office stopped it."
He was less alarmed. He could use the wax-jack in the little office. The device had a lighter. He could talk sense to Jase in private.
"He's hung up," Jago said before they reached the door.
And when they reached the door and walked in, there were blowing white curtains, past the tapestry and needlework side panels that curtained the balcony and the dark.
But no Jase.
Jago moved. He thrust out a hand and prevented her, knowing, he decided in the next heartbeat, that Jase was in a mood, and that atevi intervention might gain compliance, but not a lot of information,
"I'll get him in," he said to Jago, and approached the balcony carefully, as Jago would.
From that vantage he could see Jase, in the dark, hands on the balcony rim, gazing up at the sky. And he knew it wasn't a situation into which Jago should venture. He said to her, "Nadi-ji, please find the card I need," hoping that Jase would think their intrusion wasn't directed at him. And he ventured into the dark, knowing Jago wasn't liking his being near that window, or even near Jase.
Jase gave him only a scant glance, and looked again out over the city.
Jase, who hadn't done well under the daytime sky. It was, as far as he knew, the first time Jase had stood under the sky since he'd arrived.
The balcony where the party was spilled light and music into the night.
"No stars," Jase said after a moment of them standing there.
"City lights. It's getting worse in Shejidan."
"What is?"
"Haze of smoke. Lights burning at night. Neon lights. Light scatters in the atmosphere till it blots out the stars."
"You can't see them on the ship, either," Jase said.
"I suppose that's true." He'd never really reckoned it. He was vaguely disappointed.
"I just — know my ship is up there. And I can't see it."
"I have. But it was in the country. No lights out there."
"From the ocean can one see the stars?"
"I think one could."
"I want to go there."
"Come inside. You're in danger. You know you're in danger. Get inside, dammit."
There was a long silence. He expected Jase to say he didn't care, or some such emotional outburst. But Jase instead left the rail and walked with him back into the light of the office, where Jago had the wax-jack burning and the card ready.
"I have to make out a card," Bren said, and sat down at the desk. He welcomed the chance to do something extraneous to the worst problem, namely Jase's state of mind. He was glad to offer Jase and himself alike a chance to calm down before they did talk. He wrote, for the boy from Dur,
Please accept my assurances of good will toward you and your house, and my hopes that the paidhiin will enjoy yours. I will remember your earnest wishes for good relations to the aiji himself, with my recommendation for his consideration. From the hand of,
Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, under the seal of my office.
Cards were more commonly just the signature, the seal, the ribbon. This one, with a personal message, was calculated to be a face-saving note the boy could take to his father in lieu of the impounded airplane. He hinted that he might intercede, and that Tabini, who had the power to release the plane, might consider forgiveness for a parental request. He didn't know what more he could do. He folded it and stamped it with his seal, and gave it to Jago to pass on.
"Now," he said to Jase. "The interview."
"May I speak with you, nadi."
"Jago-ji, will you maintain position in the hall for a moment?"
"Yes," Jago said, and went.
Which left the two of them, him seated, Jase standing. There was a chair by the corner of the desk and Jase sank into it, pale and tense.
"Bren," he began, in Mosphei', and Bren kept his mouth shut, figuring that confession was imminent. He waited, and Jase waited, and finally Jase took to hard breathing and helpless waves of the hand, wishing him to talk.
He didn't. He sat there. He let Jase work through his wordless, helpless phase.
Finally Jase was down to wiping his eyes surreptitiously and shaking like a leaf.
"Going to foul up?" Bren asked with conscious bluntness.
"Yes!" Jase said fiercely, and not another word for another few moments of hard breathing.
"Going to panic?" Bren asked, wary of an unwarned punch and the fragile antiques around them. He nipped out the wick on the wax-jack with his bare fingers, ignoring the sting of fire and hot wax.
Jase didn't answer him. He stood up, put the wax-jack in the cabinet where it belonged, and walked to the other side of the little space, psychologically to give Jase room.
"They worked quite a while to choose me," Bren said finally. "I warned you. I was picked out of a large population, because I can take it. Can't find a word, can you? Totally mute? Can't understand half I'm saying?"
Silence from Jase, desperate, helpless silence.
Jase had hit the immersion zero-point. No communication. Total mental disorganization, for the first time, not for the last.
"I want you," he said to Jase in Ragi, "to go to that interview, say, yes, lord Tatiseigi, no lord Tatiseigi, thank you lord Tatiseigi. That's a very simple thing. Do you understand?"
A faint nod. The very earliest words were coming back into focus, yes, no, thank you. Do you understand?
"I want you to go to that room. I want you to be polite. Do you understand?"
A nod. A second, more certain nod. Fear. Stark fear.
"I," Jase said very carefully. "Will. But —"
"But —"
For another moment Jase didn't — couldn't speak, just froze, wordless.
And that wasn't going to do the program, the aiji, or the interview any good. Jase had reached that point, that absolute white-out of communication students of the language tended to reach in which things didn't make sense to him, in which the brain — he had no other explanation — was undergoing a massive data reorganization and stringing new cable in the mental basement, God only knew.
He reached for a bribe. The best he had.
"I want you," he said, "to do this, and I swear I'll get you to the ocean. Trust me. I asked that before. I'm asking it now."
There was no answer. But it was more than a bribe. It was close to a necessity. He knew the state Jase was in, and he was going to sweat until he'd gotten Jase off the air.
"Yes," Jase said in a shuddery voice.
"Good." He didn't chatter. He didn't offer Jase big words at the moment. He just gestured, got Jase on his feet and to the door and out into the hall.
"Are they set up down there?" he asked Jago.
"Yes," Jago said, having her pocket com in evidence, and going with them. "As soon as they remove lord Badissuni. The man's taken ill."
He was startled. Dismayed. "Is he ill?" he asked.
"Quite honestly, nadi." There were tones Jago took that told him it was the real and reliable truth. "It seems to be stress. They're taking him to the hospital for the night."
Amazing what bedfellows politics had made. It made a sensible man careful of making any rash statements about anyone, sharp-edged words being so hard to digest.
Tatiseigi stood in the lights, reporting the absolutely ridiculous and totally true fact of a security alert downstairs, which had turned out to be explained, and somehow never mentioning that the culprit was a young boy from the islands.
Then Tatiseigi wended his way into a report that security had been on edge, and that all threats had been dealt with.
Tabini, who had used the newfangled airwaves quite shamelessly to justify his positions, could take notes from this performance. Tatiseigi, who publicly decried the deleterious effects of the national obsession with television and machimi actors, by what the paidhi had heard, who had spoken against extending television into new licenses, certainly knew the value of it.
"I will tell you," he began, traditional opening of a topic, and launched into the matter of his restorations, his programs, the history of the Atageini. It was an unprecedented chance for one of the houses. Tatiseigi went on into historic marriages, about the relations of the Atageini to the founders of the capital at She-jidan — and then, with Damiri standing beside him, as Jase also did, he talked about the Atageini "venturing into a future of great promise and adventurous prospect."
My God, Bren thought, listening to it, looking at the picture it presented to a watching world. It was almost a declaration of support for the space program.
It was damned near a declaration for Tabini and against Direiso and the Kadigidi and all their plots.
Certainly, long and soporific as the history had been, it had snapped to a sharp and dangerous point, right there, in three carefully chosen words: future, adventurous, and prospect, meaning the hitherto changeless and conservative Atageini were shifting into motion; and the so-named prospect was going to refer in some minds, with Damiri visible before them, to heirs and marriage and the final merger of two Padi Valley families of vast power, a merger that might firm up the political picture very suddenly.
Very frighteningly so for some interests, Direiso chief among them.
Not mentioning Ilisidi with her ties to the distant and often rebel East.
The old tyrant had intended this when he'd headed for that room and the lightbulb blew. He'd been wound up for the bitter necessity of peace with Tabini, consoled by the chance for public glory, and then embarrassed by a human.
Thank God he'd gotten this chance, this bit of theater. He could only imagine with what fervor the man hadn't wanted his niece and the aforesaid human on stage with him.
Bet that a speech of this magnitude had been set in the man's mind before he came up here and that the alternative was not to give it, and to keep balancing peace and war with Tabini and dancing a slow dance with Tabini's enemies. He'd suggested a change from the infelicitous venue down at the small dining room, for this area, and no matter how irreverent an ateva grew, there was still that cultural and public reluctance to accept a place or a set-up for an event if that place had been tainted by ill fortune.
Hence this set-up in the state dining room, still within the apartment, proving that humans were not the infelicitous item, with a human, emblematic of change, right there beside the conservative lord. And with Damiri, the tie to Tabini who might wish to supplant him, standing right there by him, the old man got to the fore of the rebellion in his own house and did it with style — on national television.
He didn't know whether he'd helped at all or whether Tabini had come to rescue a rash human or to propose exactly the same things; but Tabini would at least be glad he hadn't had to get into a verbal brawl with the old man.
Who might well wish the paidhi's head on the ancestral battlements. Two paidhiin, infelicitous two, might urge that as a solution.
He kept smiling. He kept smiling as he rescued Jase, who was practically wordless after the event, but who'd responded appropriately during it. He fed Jase a stiff shot of alcohol before putting him in the hands of his security, which gained him the silence and the window of opportunity to reach Ilisidi.
"Aiji-ma," he said with a deep bow to her and her chief of security, Cenedi, "aiji-ma, I have an urgent request, a very extravagant request, which I must make of you foremost of all; and also of your grandson. If I have any favors unclaimed, hear me at least. I know I am too extravagant. But I have no other resource — as your grandson, having no other resource, came to you under very similar circumstances."
Ilisidi's eyes were a record of years lived and intrigues survived. And her mouth quirked in amusement. "You've just murdered the lord of the Atageini in his own dining room and wish asylum?"
"Almost," he said. "Very close, aiji-ma."