It wasn't a matter of going out to the installation where the dish was: they would, Tabini's message had said, relay to Bu-javid systems, which meant anywhere convenient, and the meeting room was the same that Tabini had called him to the night he arrived.
Jago preceded him as he maneuvered his casted shoulder past the converse of aides at the door, into a meeting room crowded with technicians, communications equipment, and lords and representatives, two of the senior members of the print media, and a camera crew of uncertain but undoubtedly well-funded affiliation.
"Nand' paidhi," Tabini said, inviting him to the place of prominence, and Tabini's aides hastened to draw back his chair and settle him at Tabini's right, while Jago quietly set his notebook in front of him and his computer beside his chair. Technicians were making last-moment adjustments and set a microphone in front of him. He saw that it was switched off and cast a nervous look at the cameras. "Are they network, Tabini-ma?"
"Legislative," Tabini said. "We want meticulous records, not alone for posterity."
Preservative, he thought, of all their reputations, considering all the rumors that were bound to arise.
And useful in mistakes the paidhi might have to set straight. He felt more at ease with the cameras and the press under that understanding. He decided he wanted them there, rumor tending, as it did, to exaggerate every unaccustomed event. "Have we made technical contact yet?"
"The technicians are working on it. Everyone should understand —" A hush was rapidly settling in the room as lords and representatives strained to overhear them. "This entire evening's effort may be without result. But the contact between us and the ground station is clear. — Are we settled, then?"
There was a murmur from around the table as the last two members quickly assumed their chairs.
"Speak, nand' paidhi. We hope the ship will listen: your microphone will reach the operator at Mogari-nai."
"I'll do what I can, aiji-ma." He drew the mike closer, flipped the switch to On and felt his stomach uneasy. "Mogari-nai, this is Bren-paidhi. Do you hear?"
"Nand' paidhi, we can put you straight onto the dish."
Dreadful syntax. An assault on the language. The traditionalists objected to these enthusiastic technocrats. It likewise jarred the paidhi's nerves.
"Yes. Thank you, Mogari-nai. Am I going through now?"
"You're going through."
"Phoenix-com, this is Bren Cameron, translator for the atevi head of state based in Shejidan. The aiji of the Aishi'ditat has a message for the captains. Please acknowledge. — nadiin-sai, machi arai'si na djima sa dimajin tasu."
Keep playing that until further notice, that was.
He looked at Tabini. "I've asked the ship to answer, aiji-ma. No knowing whether there's a captain immediately available — there's probably more than one — or whether anyone's monitoring the radio. Sleep and waking hours up there aren't necessarily on —"
"This is Phoenix-com," came through the audio, in Mosphei' — or at least a dialect with origins common to his own. "Do you read?"
He'd felt reasonably steady a heartbeat ago. Now his very surroundings looked unreal to him. He moved the microphone closer, and his pulse seemed to shake his bones and preempt his breathing.
"I hear you quite clearly, sir. To whom am I speaking?" "This is Robert Orr, watch officer. Please give your name and identification."
"Mr. Orr, this is Bren Cameron, translator between humans and the Western Association — which is the largest nation and the only nation with which humanity has regular, treaty-bound contact. As a matter of protocol, as the translator, I can negotiate with you as a ship's officer. The person for whom I translate, on the other hand, the elected head of state of the Western Association, wishes to speak with the seniormost officer on the ship. This is a matter of protocol. The atevi head of state is present, well-disposed, and waiting to speak. Can you advise your senior captain and see if we can put him and the atevi head of state in direct contact during this conversation?"
"Yes, sir. I'll inform him." There was a little quaver of disturbance in the voice, a hasty, apparently afterthought: "Stand by. Someone will be back to you in just a minute. Don't lose contact."
"Thank you." He looked at Tabini. "Aiji-ma. I was speaking with a person of middle rank. I asked him to alert his highest authority. He wishes us to be patient; I believe he's gone in search of someone qualified."
There was absolute silence down the table, not the rustle of a paper.
"How do you judge the reply?"
"This is a respectful, proper answer to the proposition of someone of rank. They've every reason to deal sensibly, and to find someone —"
"Mr. Cameron."
A different voice.
"This is Stani Ramirez, senior captain. I understand you're speaking for a native government. Is this correct?"
"For the elected head of the Western Association — which covers more than three-quarters of the world's largest continent, and all industrialized culture whatsoever. I'm speaking from the capital of Shejidan. Please hold." Language switch. For a moment he suffered mental whiteout. "Tabini-ma. This is Stani, house name Ramirez. He is the highest authority over the ship. He's waiting to speak to you."
"Explain the Treaty. Inform him we consider this the appropriate association with humans."
"Yes, aiji-ma." Switch back. "Captain Ramirez. The aiji wishes me to explain that the Western Association considers that relations between all humans and atevi are governed by a Treaty which the aiji accepts as the appropriately safeguarded conditions of human-atevi interaction. I'm prepared to transmit a copy to you at the end of this conversation. The Western Association asks you to follow its terms as the only mutually agreed means of protecting both human and atevi cultures from misunderstandings."
"We'll have to consider this document."
"Yes, sir, but I believe you know that the first atevi-human contact led to war. The issues are biological, not cultural, and all persons experienced in atevi-human contact will advise you these issues are not resolvable. Atevi are not hostile. They wish to communicate directly with the ship, for protection of their own interests, but communication channels have to be confined to persons educated to interpret what's being said: that's the whole gist of the Treaty."
'Tell him," Tabini interrupted him, lifting a hand, "to appoint a mediator like yourself, Bren-paidhi, whom you will instruct. This translator will deal with you and come down to Shejidan in person as soon as possible."
He froze for what felt like a long, stunned moment. There were sinking instants in which he was sure Tabini knew more Mosphei' than Tabini ever admitted to, and then he said to himself that Tabini had done nothing more than take a rational decision in advance. An appropriate decision. A Treaty-suggested decision. The committee heads shifted anxiously in their seats at his delay — perhaps at the dismay that might have gotten to his face. It wasn't for the paidhi to rule on the aiji's decisions, no more than he made policy for Mospheira. He translated. He interpreted. That was all he was supposed to do. It was just —
Tabini had injected a completely unplanned, unknowable variable into his calculations, and with the aiji's powers to dictate first and have the legislature review it later, Tabini had done exactly what he'd suggested Tabini do: act.
"Sir," he said to the captain.
"I read you clear."
"In regard to what I was saying, in your reading of the Treaty, you'll find all translation and mediation between atevi and human authority rests in a single appointed translator. Let me explain: it's a difficult, biologically impacted language interface." One couldn't even assume, he thought on the fly, that ship personnel knew anything about languages other than their own. One couldn't assume, over elapsed centuries of restricted, probably small population on that ship, that they even retained the concept, let alone the experience, of different language — let alone had persons able to grapple with the facts of a language with almost no word-by-word congruency with Mosphei'. "The language expresses vast differences in psychological concepts, in basic biology, which we've worked out peacefully and reasonably. The leader of the atevi invites you to appoint a candidate to take instruction from me in necessary protocols as well as language. The aiji requires this representative be sent to the capital at Shejidan as soon as possible."
"You're saying, appoint a protocol officer to be in regular contact with you. To land on the planet."
"Sir, yes: send down a person with authority to make agreements which you may ratify. A diplomat."
"What does Mospheira say to this?"
"Mospheira is a member state of the Western Association. The island is a province among other provinces. It does not speak for atevi or for this planet. It's required to abide by the decisions of the Western Association regarding foreign policy and trade. Such things are easy to set up — there are channels, appropriate routes, that kind of thing. There are abundant agreements attached to the Treaty which handle protocols, shipping points — I understand you're looking for some manufacture and supply that lies on the mainland. A protocol officer could facilitate that — but a real aptitude for language is a must. I can provide short cuts, but there has to be a natural ability."
There was a silence. Damned right there should be a moment of silence. Then: "I have my own council to consult. How will we contact you?"
God, it sounded like Mospheira. One thought the captain of a working ship could make a decision. "The ground-station operators will be aware of my whereabouts. We have one gap in the relays which I imagine you will have noticed: the satellite went down a considerable time ago. The operators are aware of that and can work around it."
"Are these native operators?"
"They are atevi, yes, sir. They won't understand your operators, but the Western Association is linguistically homogeneous and I'm well-known. Use my name and they'll have no doubt that you're looking for contact. I suggest another call tomorrow at local midday. Can we expect that?"
"It may take longer to go through this document. What's your sending mode?"
"Standard to the station. Atevi communications are identical systems to the ones you've been reaching on the island." Yes, Captain, we are receiving what you say to Mospheira, but you don't know at what levels and how legitimate or thorough our penetration of ship communications is, do you? "You'll find the document very brief, in the style of atevi legal documents. The details rest in specific subsequent agreements. If you need me at any hour of the day or night, you can reach me simply by calling the earth station. They can patch me right into the local phone system, wherever I am."
"Mr. Cameron, this may be late to bring up — but what assurance do we have that you're authorized, or even a real official?"
It was at least one thing he'd thought of. in advance. "Sir, if you've located the source of transmission —" and I'll bet you're doing that, sir, and trying to figure what it is "— you'll find it a very large, very official installation which regularly monitors the station's telemetry. In point of fact, there are only three or so humans in the world fluent in the atevi language, there're no atevi fluent in the human language, and there's no other channel appointed by the Treaty for contact except me. Call anywhere on the planet you like: you'll get no answers but from me and Mospheira. The big dish at a site called Mogari-nai is the only place besides Mospheira that can put you in touch with anyone who understands your language." He cast a glance at Tabini, who'd been quite patient. "Aiji-ma, jis asdi parei'manima pag' nand' Stani-captain?"
"Masji sig' triti didamei'shi."
"First atevi word to learn, sir, is aiji. That's the title of the atevi president — more powers than 'president,' but it's the closest translation. His personal name is Tabini: call him Tabini-aiji, and call that name whenever and every time in a conversation you say a sentence to him: it's basic courtesy. He'll await and expect your acceptance of the entire Treaty. Atevi don't understand making exceptions during initial agreement: please consider the Treaty document as a sweeping statement of principle, closer negotiations to follow. Atevi law is based on equity stemming from such broad agreements. — Have you any special word, sir, to the aiji of the Western Association?"
"Tell him we hope for friendly contact and we'll stand by for your document transmission."
"Thank you, sir. I'm concluding now. — Daiti, nadiin tekikin, madighi tritin distitas pas ajiimaisit, das, das, das, magji das."
"Pai sat, paidhi-ma."
He set the computer on the table, with the last-moment help of an aide, flipped up the screen, pulled out the line to the phone connector on the table.
Then he called a file; actuated; and the Treaty document flew, presumably, to the atevi earth station and bounced to the ship.
That simply, that easily, from a phone connection on a desk in the Bu-javid.
Mind-boggling even to the arbiter of technology.
And evidently mind-boggling to the heads of committee at the table. Usually at a meeting there were half-attentive looks and the momentary fidgets or a consultation of notes or aides. Not this time. There was solemn anxiousness, absolute quiet. They might not yet realize what had happened. They certainly didn't know what all that chatter back and forth had been.
"So what did he say?" Tabini asked.
"I asked, aiji-ma, what he would say to the aiji. He said, quote, 'We desire peaceful contact and we'll stand by for the Treaty agreement transmission.' End quote. I sent it. I did substitute one word in that: his 'peaceful' contact carries an expectation of nonwarlike interaction that has no atevi equivalent."
"Does it change the meaning of contact?" the head of Judiciary asked.
"It expresses routine politeness. Sometimes it has a casual and not highly specific application, meaning not-war, or, equally, can mean a real yearning for association. It's that word friend, nadi, the one that always confuses translations."
"A pest of a word," Tabini said.
"Always, aiji-ma. Even another human has to figure out how the other human means it at the moment."
"Intended confusion?"
"It can be." The atevi leap to suspicion was possibly hardwired. It was at least fast. "I could have predicted he'd use it — in a way I find it reassuring that he did use it. But he doesn't realize you won't know its nuances. I suspect there's no one on the ship that's ever met another language. They want to know about the Treaty document — and I can equally well predict they'll ask if they got it all. They won't expect it to be that short. Their own legal documents try to nail down every minute exception and possible eventuality in advance."
"This seems excessive trouble," Tabini muttered.
"Tradition. Law — I'm not sure I know the history behind it. But they try to think of all the problems that could come up."
"Negative thinking. Is this not your expression?"
"But they will almost certainly do it. I confess I'm daunted, nadiin, aiji-ma. I just hadn't realized operationally until I talked with this man how far back I have to start explaining our mutual history of relations. Clearly I'm not dealing with the university on Mospheira: I'm going to have to interpret very heavily. No one on the ship is going to know how to avoid troublesome concepts. I'll have to explain them as I go."
"How accurate can this interpretation be?" Judiciary asked.
"As accurate as the paidhi's recognition there's a difficulty, nandi, which is why I must ask, if you hear something disturbing, please interrupt and object. Context makes a vast difference. So does historical background. I'll advise you of the words I find suspect; and I find the idea of creating a specialist from among them — startling as it was to me — is an excellent notion, aiji-ma. Granting they can find someone with the ability and if I can teach the right ideas to this person — it may be a vast help." He found himself more nervous than if he'd been facing guns and grenades. One didn't second-guess the aiji. Or any other atevi lord. But he had to supply the objection he saw. "But if I detect the person isn't capable or that the interface is getting worse — I request the authority, aiji-ma, nadiin-ma, to shut this person off immediately from information and to reject this contact. If that should be, we may be thrown back on the resources of the university. And we may have to go to them, if I find I can't deal with the translations alone."
"This would have severe implications," Tabini said. "And I would rather you succeeded, paidhi-ji."
"I would most earnestly rather I succeeded, aiji-ma." He'd been more anxious than he knew. A number of conclusions were coming home to roost, one of them a surmise that, since he'd put himself on very shaky ground with the university and the Department, he might still have to deal with Hanks as the representative of Mospheira and himself… God only knew. As Tabini's, he supposed.
It wasn't a situation he wanted. But that little jarring note in the negotiation had rung alarm bells all up and down his nerves: not that he hadn't expected it, but that word friendly, that no regular contact he used would have dared use, advised him of dangerous problems.
Friendly contact.
The War memorials and the fact that humans lived on an island weren't part of the ship captain's growing up, the captain's constant awareness, the captain's conceptual reality. He didn't know that lives were in danger. Or didn't know that they were in danger for the reasons that they were. Mospheira had transmitted a history of the war. But knowing the details of history wasn't the same as stopping for that minute of silence at 9:16 A.M. every Treaty Day; or seeing that time frozen on the clock in the photos of Alpha Base. He'd been there once. Every paidhi went there once.
"Aiji-ma," he said, "I'll prepare another document for transmission. A handbook of protocols, by your leave. I can assemble it by tomorrow, out of-the dictionary."
"As the paidhi will," Tabini said. "Whatever the paidhi deems necessary."
It was an appalling grant of power. It meant — in atevi terms — he bore direct responsibility, along with that grant of power.
He folded up his computer quietly, thinking, God, he'd put his neck in the noose now. After that it came down to operational details, a handful of answers he needed to give, a confirmation of meeting dates, all of which he had to sit through, but his mind wasn't on committee housekeeping, or even the few questions committee members asked.
It was the moment, in a curious retreat of his mind, in which he really, definitively said good-bye forever to Barb. In which he thought of the letter he'd write to his mother, and Toby.
In which he held himself and his motives and his mental condition entirely suspect. The aftershocks of an irrevocable, previously confident decision were rumbling through the mental landscape, disturbing precarious balance. He felt slightly sick at his stomach. He questioned his motives and his sanity this time from hindsight, not theoretical actions. Reality always put a texture on things, a chaotic topography of imperfections, that imagination had foreseen as smooth and featureless. Now it was all in past-tense conversation between two minds, not one mind reasoning with itself. Now it was interaction with a very potent and distance-wise inscrutable third party, as well as a Department that was going to ask the paidhi what in hell he thought he was doing.
"Nadiin," Tabini said, "we are adjourned. Nand' paidhi, thank you."
"Aiji-ma," he murmured, and with one aide to help with die chair and another to help with the computer, he gathered himself up, still with that hollow feeling inside, and collected his belongings.
Lord Eigji of the Commerce Committee cleared his path to the door — perhaps in consideration of his small stature and his necessary awkwardness with the outward-braced cast — but such a reversal of ordinary protocols of rank required first the acknowledgment of a bow of the head, then puzzled afterthought, so deep a thought he knocked the doorframe with the cast in leaving and, expecting Jago, didn't look up quite enough: his view was suddenly and entirely black leather and silver metal.
"I have it," Banichi said, and collected the computer from his hand.
"Where have you been, nadi?" was his first unthought question, while they were still blocking atevi lords from die doorway.
Banichi led him aside before saying, "Sleeping, nand' paidhi. One has to, eventually."
It wasn't at all the truth. He gave not-the-truth back to it. "I never was sure you did that."
He amused Banichi. That Banichi could be amused was a reassuring stroke in itself: if Banichi was in good humor then something that was security's concern must have gone right.
One had to wonder, on the other hand, where Jago had gone now, and he wasn't at all sure it was back to the residence, but the recipient of their duty couldn't pursue the question, even in the most security-conscious area of the Bu-javid —
Or especially because they were here, in an area where anxious, life-and-death interests hung close about them.
They walked toward the lift not quite elbow to elbow with the lords of the Association, but possibly within earshot.
"I have to go to my office, if not today, tomorrow," he said, off his balance in this switch of personnel; he'd mapped out how to deal with Jago. And atevi had changed the situation on him again without warning. "I have to find out what's been done there — I need to consult with Hanks."
"I thought you'd declared war on her."
"Not — quite that far. Understand, please, Banichi-ji. I don't want her to come to harm."
"You must be the only one on the mainland," Banichi said, "to say so."
"We can't allow it, Banichi. Can't. Daren't. — Where is Jago?" They'd reached a relatively isolated area by the lift that served the more securitied floors, and he pounced on the first chance for the question. "Algini's back, did you know? You go, Jago goes, you come back, Algini's got the foyer stacked with my luggage —"
"Shush." It was the word one used with a child. "You're due upstairs. Rest, Bren-ji. It is a physical necessity."
"Cenedi said there was trouble going on."
Banichi had pushed the call button. The car had arrived, but Banichi lingered to cast him a curious look. "Cenedi said," Banichi reiterated.
"Cenedi said — he'd stand with you in the Guild, if he had a choice."
"Did he?"
They had to take the car or lose it. Banichi swept him inside and followed.
With no intent, it seemed, of answering his question, even in general. But he thought Banichi had been at least taken off his guard by that information.
And gave nothing back.
"Banichi, dammit."
Banichi found it convenient to watch the floor indicator. Banichi was dressed fit for a council meeting: official, impervious, unruffled by whatever was going on.
"A man died last night," Bren said sharply.
"One heard." Banichi still didn't look at him.
"Banichi — one could arrange one's affairs ever so much more wisely if one's security told him something! I am not a fool, Banichi, don't treat me as one."
Banichi offered a small, frayed smile. "Bren-ji, it's your task to deal with ships and such. It's ours to see you aren't diverted by extraneous matters."
"The man had a family, Banichi. I can't forget that."
The car stopped. The door opened.
"We can't discuss it here. Not a secure area, Bren-ji."
"What is? Besides the apartment I'm borrowing from —" But the microphones which evidently worried Banichi, which Banichi had equipment to detect, surely all that were in this hall served Tabini, and therefore were accessible to Damiri.
It was that small uncertainty that stopped him.
And why? he said to himself. Why could there be any question about third-floor security that Banichi couldn't make sure of?
Who was up here, with access to this floor, but staffs that held man'chi to Tabini, to —
To the Atigeini woman who'd offered him her hospitality — and whose family opposed Tabini.
Banichi stopped at the door to take out his key, and said, under his breath, "More than one man is dead, Bren-ji. Amateurs. I swear to you, it's amateurs will bring us down. I'm sure it's television. It plants foolish ideas in foolish heads that otherwise couldn't remotely conceive such plans."
"You mean the representative from —"
"One means that the Guild has refused arguments, bribes and coercion to undertake contracts against the paidhi." Banichi opened the door into a foyer miraculously void of boxes. "Jago's aim was accurate. His damaged a historical artifact. That — is the difference, among others. Kindly stay out of crowds, nadi."
The Assassins' Guild operated by strict rules. They accosted you in hallways, they turned up in your bedroom, they met you on the steps outside, but they didn't endanger bystanders, they didn't take out accidental targets, and most of all they required the person who hired them to meet certain criteria of responsibility and to file Intent with the authorities. Who notified you. Formally. In some ways — in their Guild deliberations on what contracts to accept and what to reject — they were atevi lawyers.
But the paidhi hadn't acquired an assassin of Banichi's and Jago's class; he'd touched off some middle-aged man with a family.
And probably nobody in the world remembered what he'd said last night. They'd just seen a man die, and nobody might even remember the difficult points he'd had to convince them of — the points he'd spent all his credit with his own government to make — and that thought brought a crashing depression — an aftershock, maybe — but with it a sense of being in well over his head.
He walked into the apartment with Banichi and found the message bowl overflowing onto the table. Tano met their arrival; so did madam Saidin: Saidin with grave courtesy, Tano with relief evident.
Which said to him Jago was not simply napping. And neither had Banichi been. Algini came from inside the security quarters, and Banichi and Algini were quite professional, quite matter-of-fact in their meeting.
The tenor of which said to him that Algini's presence in no way surprised Banichi and that Banichi just might have been at the airport when Algini came in.
"Nand" paidhi," Tano said, meanwhile, "Hanks-paidhi has called. Three times."
Oh, God, he hadn't countermanded the call and recall order. The operator had been ringing Hanks since die afternoon.
"Did she leave any message?"
"She was extremely angry. She said she wanted to speak with you personally."
"I do apologize, Tano."
"My job, nand' paidhi. I'm glad to intercept it. There are telegrams from Mospheira. Three, nand' paidhi. I wouldn't mention any business I could manage widiout consulting, but —"
He was tired. He was suddenly drained, and shaken, and he couldn't take his own damn coat off himself. The servant had to help him with it — her name was — he'd heard her name —
"I can't," he was forced to admit, and found his voice wobbling. "I can't — Tano, I'm sorry, I can't deal with these things tonight."
"Bren-ji is exhausted," Banichi said as the last of the tape came free of the sleeve and Bren escaped the coat. He just wanted his bed. Just that. Soft pillows. No questions.
But he was scared what might have come in those messages. He hoped one of them was from the President, accepting his position. He hoped it wasn't damning him for a fool and ordering his recall for arrest.
He had at least just to glance through those three and know what they were. He broke the seal on the first one, in his awkward, arm-braced procedure. It was from Barb.
Bren, it said. I didn't know. I feel so bad. Please call me.
He was numb, at first reading. Then he tossed it casually back into the message basket. He was angry — maybe as angry as he'd ever been at anyone in his life.
Or hurt. He couldn't decide. He couldn't ask himself for coherent judgment right now, least of all to judge Barb. He opened the second telegram, which proved to be from his mother. It said, Sorry I missed you at the hospital, but after that, the censors had made lace out of it. Not a damned sentence in the thing was intact but that, and whatever his mother had meant to say — God knew. He couldn't decipher anything from the I's and a's and the's.
Which meant his mother had said things critical to security — and his mother never knew anything critical to security. There was nothing she ever had to say to him that the censors would reasonably block, it just wasn't in her knowledge of the universe.
Something could have happened at home, maybe something they didn't want him to hear right now — but then why did the censors let that one line get through, when they could have stalled the whole letter? They could have sent the telegram down a black hole and he wouldn't have known it and his mother wouldn't have, until they could compare notes — so why worry him, if they were just trying to save him from worry in the first place? He didn't understand what was going on. They hadn't censored Barb, who'd certainly disturbed him, and those personal matters weren't likely secret from Departmental censors. It didn't make sense.
The third was from the State Department. It began, Field Officer Cameron: the title the State Department accorded him, though there was only one field and only one officer; it launched straight into The Department advises you on behalf of the President that it is taking your report under advisement. In the meantime, it orders in the strongest possible terms that you make no further translation of intercepted transmissions …
Oh, well, he thought, that's all. He was too numb to give a damn and too far along the course to damnation to Slink it mattered. He tossed that telegram straight into the wastebasket, to the shock of Tano and bystanders, then gathered up Barb's and his mother's and chucked them after it.
Ilisidi's message cylinder had come back again. He opened that last. It said, An old woman desires your company on any morning you feel inclined. You improve our circulation. And you have such pretty hair.
He read it three times, with a lump in his throat and the illegitimate and fatal satisfaction of believing one living being in the universe enjoyed his company; one lord of the Association didn't want to buy him, kill him, or use him — or wasn't assigned by Tabini to protect him. Very opposite things were the possibility. But, dammit, at least he knew what and why.
He gave that cylinder to Tano. "Nadi, a courteous appreciation to the dowager, with my desire to join her at breakfast sometime very soon. Tell the lady dowager — tell her I treasure her flattery. Please see it delivered tonight. Order a felicitous arrangement of flowers with the message."
He surely shocked Tano, on more than one account.
Then he wandered off, out of the foyer toward his own bed, forgetful until he was in his own doorway that he'd left Banichi without a second look or a word of courtesy — but Banichi probably had his own instructions to give to Tano and Algini, or maybe Banichi just lingered to share a cup of tea with people who didn't ask him unanswerable questions.
At least Banichi was back — and Jago had vanished, if she wasn't in her room asleep, as Banichi had claimed to have been.
Maybe, he thought muzzily, they took waking turns at whatever they were doing, which he knew in his heart of hearts was Tabini's business, and Tabini's security. They'd never left him alone, nor would. He could rely on that. Popular as he was making himself — he had to rely on it.
He'd made Hanks mad. He was too tired to deal with it. Hell, he probably could start by apologizing, but he wasn't interested.
He undressed with the help of a half dozen demure servants, made his requisite nest in his bed, propped his cast with pillows, and only as he lay down realized they'd installed the television he requested, against the far wall, and a turn of his head found not only the requested water glass but a television remote within his reach at the bedside table. His nerves were one long buzz of exhaustion, his senses threatening to blank out on him, which he wished would just happen: he wanted to shut his eyes and let his mind spiral down to the sleep he'd won. But, Please call, Barb said.
Bloody damn hell. Call. Calling might have been in order, all right — for her to call him when he was in town — at least to have called the hospital. She'd probably been off on her honeymoon.
He'd forgiven her — everything but that "Please call," the way she'd always say when they'd disagreed. She knew the hours he kept in a work crisis, she knew she should call in the morning if she wanted to catch him with a personal problem. But, no, he should call her. Tonight. He should call her. He should do the negotiating, meaning cajole her into doling out this little reaction and that little reaction until he guessed his way through her crisis and placated her.
For what? For getting married? He wasn't in the mood.
He reached irritably for the television remote, flipped it on to find out what was on the news, and saw himself, sitting at the council table, heard himself, and knew that Mospheira could pick up that broadcast quite nicely — as the mainland regularly picked up whatever Mospheira let hit the airwaves.
There was footage of damage to something somewhere, but that wasn't bomb damage from Malguri; it seemed to be nothing more than a windstorm taking the roof off a local barn. A machimi play was on the next channel, a machimi he knew, a drama of inheritance and skullduggery, the resolution to which lay in two clans deciding they hated a third clan worse than they hated each other — very atevi, very logical. Lots of costumes, lots of battles.
Glassy-eyed and fading, he flipped back to the news, hoping to hear the weather, wishing for a cold front to alleviate what promised to be a still, muggy night.
The news anchor was saying something, this time without footage, about a parliamentary procedure recalling members of the Assassins' Guild to the city, a procedure which a spokesman for the Guild called an administrative election.
The hell, he thought, disquieted. They censored his mother's letter and Banichi was gone for a day and a night on administrative elections, while Cenedi said it was a crisis in the Guild? Jago also had a vote. And might be casting it.
And Banichi had said something about the Guild rejecting contracts on the paidhi. Disturbing thought. By how much, he wondered, had they voted down the contracts? And what would acceptance of those contracts have meant to Tabini's stability in office?
He found no comfort in the news. He could watch the play, which at least had color and movement. But the eyes were going and the mind had already gone or he wouldn't contemplate staying awake at all.
He was aware of dark, then, a suddenly dark room, and he must have slept — the television was showing a faint just-turned-off glow and a large man was standing in front of it.
"Banichi?" he asked faintly.
"One should never acknowledge being awake," Banichi said. "Delay gives one just that much more advantage."
"I have a house full of security," he objected. "And I haven't a gun any longer."
"Look in your dresser," Banichi said.
"You're joking." He wanted to go look, but he hadn't the strength to get up.
"No," Banichi said. "Good night, Bren-ji. Jago's back now, by the way. All's well."
"Can we talk, Banichi?"
"Talk of what, nadi?" Banichi had become a shadow in the doorway, in the dim light from some open door down the hall. But Banichi waited.
"About the election going on in your Guild, about what Cenedi found it his duty to warn me about — about what I suppose I'd better know since I've accepted another of Ilisidi's invitations."
"With suggestive grace, nadi. One is surprised."
"I like the old woman," he said shortly to a silhouette against the doorway, and well knew the word didn't mean like in the humanly emotional sense. "And there, of course, I have information I don't get here."
"Because you think the aiji-dowager is a salad and you value information from those most interested in disinforming you?"
He knew he should laugh. He didn't have it in him. It came out a weak moan, and his voice cracked. "Nadi, I think she's a breath of fresh air, you're a salad, yourself, and I'm collecting everything I can find that tells me how to make humans in the sky not fly down tomorrow morning in satellites and loot the Bu-javid treasures — I'm so damned tired, Banichi. Everybody wants my opinion and nobody wants to tell me a damned thing, how do I know she's disinforming me? Nothing else makes sense."
Banichi came and stood over him, throwing shadow like a blanket over him. "One has tried to protect you from too much distraction, nadi."
"Protect me less. Inform me more. I'm desperate, Banichi. I can't operate in an informational vacuum."
"Jago will take you to the country house at Taiben, at your request. It might be a safer place."
"Is there anything urgently the matter with where I am?"
That provoked a moment of troubling silence.
"Is there, Banichi?"
"Nand' paidhi, Deana Hanks has been sending other messages under your seal."
"Damn. Damn. — Damn." He shut his eyes. He was perilously close to unconsciousness. So tired. So very tired. "I don't mean to accuse, but I thought you had that stopped. What's she up to?"
"Nand' paidhi, she's in regular communication with certain of the tashrid. And we don't know how she got the seal, but she is using it."
He had to redirect his thinking. Three-quarters of the way to sleep, he had to come back, ask himself why Taiben, and where Hanks got a seal.
"Came with it," he said, "a damn forgery. Mospheira could have managed it."
"One hesitated to malign your office. That thought did occur to us. Equally possible, of course, that the forgery was created by our esteemed lords of the tashrid. And I don't say we haven't intercepted these messages before sending them on. They're some of them — quite egregiously misphrased."
"Dangerously?"
"She asked the lord of Korami province for a pregnant calendar."
Pregnant calendar and urgent meeting. He began to laugh, and sanity gave way; he laughed until the tape hurt.
"I take it that's not code?"
"Oh, God, oh, God."
"Are you all right, Bren-ji?”
He gradually caught his breath. "I'm very fine, thank you, Banichi. God, that's wonderful."
"Other mistakes are simply grammatical. And she speaks very bluntly."
"Never would believe you needed the polish." Humor fell away to memories of Deana after the exams, Deana in a sullen temper.
"We are keeping a log. We can do this — since it's our language under assault."
He laughed quietly, reassured in Banichi's good-humored confidences that things couldn't be so bad, that they could still joke across species lines, and he was fading fast, too fast to remember to question Banichi about the weather report, before, between flutters of tired eyelids, he found Banichi had ebbed out of the room, quiet as the rest of the shadows.
He hoped it would rain again and relieve the heat, which seemed excessive this evening, or it was the padding he was obliged to put around him.
Still, he was sleepy, and he didn't want to move — Banichi was all right, Banichi was watching, and if he waited patiently there was, he discovered, a very slight and promising breeze circulating through the apartment, from open windows, he supposed, perfumed with flowers he remembered —
But that was Malguri, was it not? Or his garden.
He shut his eyes again, having found a position that didn't hurt, and when he felt the breeze he saw the hillsides of Malguri, he saw the riders on tall mecheiti.
He felt Nokhada striding under him, saw the rocks passing under them —
The ominous shadow of a plane crossing the mountainside…
"Look out," he thought he said, jerking about to see, and feared falling bombs.
But after that he was riding again, feeling the rhythm of a living, thinking creature under him, feeling the damp cold wind.
He wanted to be there.
In a dream one could go back to that hillside.
In a dream one could find his room again, with the glass-eyed beast staring at him from the wall.
And his lake, of the ghost-passengers and the bells that tolled with no hand touching them.
That was what he wanted to save. That and the cliffs, and the wi'itkitiin — and Nokhada, that wicked creature. He wanted to go out riding again, wanted to be in the hills, just himself and that damn mecheita, who'd knocked him flat, jarred his teeth loose, and several times nearly killed him — wanted to see the obnoxious beast, for reasons of God-knew-what. He even wondered, in this dream, if he'd saved up enough in his bank account, and if he could get the funds converted into atevi draft, and if it was honorable of the aiji-dowager to sell Nokhada away from Malguri.
But then, still in this dream, which turned melancholy and productive of estrangements, he realized the mecheiti had their own order of things, and that he couldn't take Nokhada from the herd, the flock, the — whatever mecheiti had, that atevi also had, among themselves. Nokhada belonged there. A human didn't. Nokhada didn't understand love. Nokhada understood a tidal pull a human didn't, couldn't, wouldn't ever have.
In his dream he almost understood it, as a force pulling him toward association, weak word for the strongest thing atevi felt. In his dream he almost discovered what that was. He was walking in the hills, and he watched the mecheiti travel across the land, watched ancient banners flutter and flap with the color of the old machimi plays, and saw the association of lords as driven by what he could almost feel.
In this dream he saw the land and he felt human emotions toward it. He supposed he couldn't help it. His need to feel what atevi felt was a part of that human emotion, and more than suspect.
In this dream he sat down on a hillside, and his Beast walked up to him, still angry about its murder, but curious about the intrusion on the hill. It wanted part of his lunch, which he'd brought in a paper bag, and he shared it. The Beast, black and surly, heaved itself down with a sigh and ate half a sandwich, which it pinned down with a heavy forepaw and devoured with gusto. He supposed he was in danger from it. But it seemed content to sit by him and snarl at the land in general, as if it had some longstanding grudge, or some long-standing watch to keep over the fortress that sat on its hill below them. The sky was blue, but pale, making you think of heat, or new-blown glass. Anything might come from it. Maybe that was what die Beast watched for.
Wi'itkitiin launched themselves from the rocks. And far, far below, an atevi in black came walking, climbing up among the rocks, alone. He thought it was Jago, but he couldn't prove it from this distance.
The Beast watched, head on paws, snarling now and again, because it would, that was all. And no matter how long the figure below climbed, it came no nearer, and no matter how anxious he became, he was afraid to get up and go down to it, because he knew his Beast would follow and hunt both of them. It was safe while he kept it fed. As long as sandwiches came from that mysterious place in dreams from which all necessities emerged. The figure below was safe as long as it followed the unspoken Rules of this dream, which demanded it make no progress.
So was he. That was what he was doing here. He did a lot of dangerous things. But he wasn't going anywhere. He was stuck on this hillside, overlooking things he couldn't have. And the sky was free to rain havoc. The sun was shining now, but it wouldn't in a few hours. The sun was the only thing that did progress, the only thing that was free to move — except his Beast, and it was waiting.