The last thing he wanted in the morning on waking was a phone call, especially one from Hanks, before he'd so much as sat down to breakfast. Saidin notified him that Tano had notified her, and he asked for tea, went to the phone in the lady's small office, and took the call.
"This is Bren Cameron. Go ahead."
"I take it you're the one playing pranks with the phone, you son of a bitch."
For some things the nerves in the morning wanted preparation. And his weren't steady yet, nor was his diplomatic filter in full function.
"Deana, let me tell you, you've got a choice. You can be civil and get a briefing on what's going on, or you can sit it out until everything's beyond your useful input. Make a career choice."
"I'm not solving your problem for you! I'm here by Departmental mandate, I take everything that's happened including the damn phone as something you know about and something you arranged, and you listen to me, Mr. Cameron. You can hang yourself, you can work yourself in deeper and deeper, or you can listen to somebody."
"I'm listening, Deana." Past a certain point temper gave way to a slow simmer in which he could accept information, and he didn't give a particular damn about his source. "Give me your read on the situation. I'm listening with bated breath."
"Son of a bitch!" They were speaking Mosphei', Deana's choice from the moment he'd picked up the phone. "You're going to hear from more than me, mister. I heard your speech. I heard the whole damned sales job.
You go off to the interior and hold secret meetings, you sell out to the atevi overlord that wanted you back, and threatened my life to get it —"
"Sorry about that. But you weren't invited. You're playing with fire, Deana. This isn't our justice system. The aiji is well within his rights to remove a disturbance of the peace —"
"You —"
"You shut up, Deana, and get it figured this isn't Mospheira, it's not going to be Mospheira, and I don't care what you think your civil rights are on Mospheira, these people know their law, it works for them for reasons we don't have the biological systems to understand, far less come here and criticize. If you don't know what you're asking for when you go against atevi authority, I assure you, you don't belong here."
"Oh, and you do. You're working real hard at belonging, and damned right they moved heaven and earth to get you back, you'll give them anything they want. I heard your speech, I heard every damned word of it. I get the news. You want a list of the regulations you've broken?"
"I'm fairly well aware of them."
"Our internal politics, our policy disputes, all out waving in the wind — that's not just against policy, Mr. Cameron, that's against the law! You've incited atevi to act against our government —"
"Never against our government. Against your political backers, maybe."
"Don't you talk about my political backers. Let's talk about yours, let's talk about selling out, Mr. Cameron."
It wasn't getting anywhere. "What about lunch?"
"Lunch?"
"Let's have lunch."
"I'm locked in this damn apartment, you rang my phone for twelve hours straight —"
"Sorry about that."
"You've got the nerve to ask me to have lunch?"
"I think it might be productive. We've done rather too much shouting. And I'd like to know where you got the seal you're using."
Silence on the other end.
"You're not in office," he said, if she missed the point. "You're alive because Tabini-aiji is a patient and fortunately powerful man who can afford a nuisance. A less powerful aiji would kill you, Deana, because he'd have no choice. I suggest you have lunch with me, act less like a prisoner and more like an official guest —"
"And be in public with you. And compromise my interests. "
"Thank God you do understand. I'd begun to fear you'd no notion of subtlety. In private, then."
"I'm not coming to your apartment — which I understand has scandalized the Atigeini as is, speaking of subtlety, Mr. Cameron. I'm not being gossiped about."
"Watch your mouth! There's no swearing there are no atevi that understand you. Edit yourself, for God's sake, or I can't protect you."
"Protect me, hell! "
"You are a fool."
"No." Evidently not quite such a fool. The tone was quieter. 'No, I'll meet you for lunch. When?" 'tt Bookmark
"Noon. In this apartment. And you will be courteous to the lady's and my staff or I'll pitch you out on your head, Ms. Hanks. We're not playing games. I'm trying to salvage your reputation and prevent you doing another foolhardy thing that may get you killed. I can't say at the moment I feel overmuch sympathy for the mess you're in, but if you want to continue to watch the news for reports on the situation, you're quite free to rely on that."
At times he shocked himself. Maybe it was atevi court manners that took over his mouth when he suffered whiteouts of temper — court manners with all the vitriol that attended.
"Barb Letterman's married," Hanks said. "Did you know?"
"How kind of you to let me know. Please bring me your seal. Or I'll have your apartment and your person searched."
The receiver went down. Hard.
Which didn't make him calmer. But he had the phone, he had the moment. He took a sip of tea and called the Bu-javid operator.
"Nadi, this is Bren-paidhi. Please ring the Mospheiran operator."
"Yes," the answer came back; he heard the relays click.
And abort.
"Nand' paidhi," the operator began, "the connection —"
"Is having a difficulty at this hour. Yes. Thank you. Would you give me the telegraph service?"
"Yes, nand' paidhi," the operator said, and a moment later, a new operator came on, with:
"This is the telegraph, nand' paidhi."
"Please send to the following numbers: 1-9878-1-1, and to 20-6755-1-1, and to 1-0079-14-42. Please voice-record for transcription."
"Ready, nand' paidhi, go ahead."
"Beginning message. Am doing fine. Are you all right? Last transmission was garbled. End message."
There was no fighting the phone system. It was part and parcel with the security problem — it went when you most needed it. And it could be retaliatory against him; it could be precautionary; it could be atevi doing. He couldn't know, as long as it was down.
That had gone to his mother in the capital, to Toby on the North Shore, and to his office in the capital. And presumably they'd know to resend. And possibly his mother's message would get past the censors this time, or possibly Toby would phrase things more obliquely. Their mother was not a diplomat.
Barb-Barb could get on with her life. He didn't want to rake over that set of feelings before breakfast. He didn't know how much of what he was feeling was Hanks' meddling and how much was being, still, mad at the way Barb had gone about it, and mad at that edge-of-his-bedtime "Call me."
He sipped the remainder of the tea, decided he wouldn't dress yet, and went off to the breakfast room, advising the staff on his way that the paidhi was ready for his breakfast, thank you, and meant to take his time and, which he didn't mention, to let his headache and his temper settle. It did him no good to wake up his nastier side before breakfast — he started the day in attack condition and he found it hard to escape it. Particularly with the notion of sitting down at a table with Deana Hanks before afternoon.
He hadn't seen Banichi this morning. He hadn't seen Jago. He hoped he had security still in the apartment, and that the mysteries that were going on around him had no truly sinister import.
He had, for one very major point, to requisition materials on Determinism, and try to coax a human brain to handle concepts of physics Deana Hanks herself hadn't remotely understood when she'd lightly tossed off the concept of faster-than-light without Departmental approval.
He didn't know folded-space physics. He was doing damned well to get chemical rocket design down. He didn't understand Determinists.
But he had to before the week was out.
Tea and seasonal fruit, eggs and buttered meal, chased by toast and another pot of tea — with the distant blue vista of the Bergid range floating unattached above the tiled roofs of Shejidan, the curtains blowing in the long-awaited breeze, and the crises seemed suspended, the world peaceful and ordinary.
If one didn't know what was in the heavens demanding attention, and beyond the sunrise demanding attention, and across the water demanding attention. He'd like to go to the library after the cup of tea, spend his entire day looking through the antique books on horticulture, taking advantage of the rare opportunity the apartment and all its history presented.
But on that very thought Tano arrived bearing a tray of letters for, one hoped, mere signature and .seal.
"Routine matters," Tano said.
"You've been a vast help," Bren said. "I truly am grateful."
"Thank the lady's staff. These are simple courtesies. There are others the aiji may perhaps lend staff to answer. Tabini-aiji gave us a verbal message that the paidhi should not by any means be obliged to distract himself with schoolchildren."
"The paidhi finds in the schoolchildren the best reason for keeping this job," he muttered without censoring, in the growing confidence that Tano bore no tales and Tabini would understand anyway. "Ask Banichi about salads. Jago is back this morning?"
"Asleep."
"Where's Algini?"
"He had to go —"
"— out? What in hell is going on, Tano?"
"There's a vote in the Guild we must attend."
"Ah." One clear question to the right source. "About assassinating the paidhi?"
"No, nand' paidhi. That's already been defeated."
It didn't even rate a blink. "Then may I ask?"
Tano looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Please ask Banichi, nand' paidhi."
"Forgive the question, Tano-ji. Thank you for what you've told me. Will you wait for these, and share a cup of tea with me, or have you urgent business?"
"Nand' paidhi, I am of junior rank."
"High in my personal regard. Please. Sit with me. — Saidin?"
Saidin always seemed in earshot. "Another cup," he decreed as the head of staff appeared in the doorway, and Saidin departed without a word as Tano settled uneasily into a separate, fragile chair, perched as if for ready escape.
"I intend no improper or unwelcome questions," Bren said, and affixed his seal to one after the other of the documents on his small table. "You looked as if you could stand a round or two of tea. And more mindful courtesy. I'm very abrupt, Tano-ji. When I'm bothered and in a hurry I can become quite preoccupied. I hope you never take it for intended rudeness."
"Hand' paidhi, you are extremely courteous."
"I'm quite glad."
"I assure the paidhi the votes against his detractors were overwhelming."
"Tano, you are not here for me to ask you more improper questions."
"I've no difficulty speaking about a past vote, Bren-paidhi. You have very many supporters. It hurts nothing at all that both Banichi and nand' Cenedi alike spoke for you."
"Cenedi." He was surprised.
"Nand' paidhi," Tano began, seeming uncertain of himself or his permission. But in that moment the tea and the cup arrived on two trays with two servants to carry them. The tea tray in the corridor, on the cart with all the electrical connections, seemed to maintain hot water at all moments.
And Tano had lost his momentum in the gentle courtesies of tea service. He balanced the fragile porcelain in his hand and looked down as he drank.
"Tano," Bren said, when the servants — one with lingering attention to Tano — had departed, "please don't feel obliged. I only want company this morning, just a voice. Tell me when your leave is coming, tell me what you'll do, tell me where you're from and where you go — talk about your job. I'm interested."
"It's very uninteresting, nand' paidhi."
"It's very interesting to me, Tano-ji. I wonder if people have happy lives. I hope they do. I hope they're doing exactly what they want to do, and that I haven't snatched them up out of something they'd rather be doing, or diverted them out of a course they'd rather be following."
"I assure the paidhi not. I'm very content." Something seemed to linger on Tano's tongue, and drown in a sip of tea.
"You would have said?" Bren asked.
"That I only worry about failing. About making some mistake that would cost immensely."
He'd not thought. He'd not measured Tano's steadily increased responsibility. Or the worry the paidhi put on his assigned guards, when he insisted on breakfasts with the aiji-dowager and lunch with Deana Hanks.
"I promise," he said, "I promise, Tano, not to do anything to make your job harder. I've put upon you shamefully. You weren't set here to manage stacks of paper. I've leaned on your support because I felt you had the judgment to discriminate the emergencies — I never meant to let it grow to this size."
"If the paidhi can concern himself with these papers, the paidhi's security can certainly value them."
"But answer them in stacks? Tano-ji, I've misused your courtesy."
"It's all quite instructive, paidhi-ji. I've learned who you contact, I've learned who are your associates and who are petulant and ill-disposed. I've learned that the paidhi considers the letters of ordinary citizens to be answered seriously. — So when I voted in the Guild, I also spoke about that, nand' paidhi. I'm not supposed to tell you that, but I did. Also Algini flew back from Malguri early, so he could vote in your behalf."
"I'm in his debt. Does the Guild call in absent members — for all proposed contracts?"
"When a contract involves matters so high as this, yes, it does, nand' paidhi: it goes to the total assembly of the Guild, as this had to, once members filed in opposition. I'm not forbidden to say that."
"Then thank you, Tano-ji. And thank Algini."
"You've become very well reputed among the Guild, nand' paidhi."
Some statements deserved wondering about.
But if "well-reputed" involved his staff and the dowager's staff speaking for him, he took it for a compliment. He finished his stack of seal-signatures, and gave it to Tano with the plea to see if, with the transferred funds which the paidhi had in the Bu-javid accounts, he might hire a temporary staff adequate to handle at least the citizen inquiries —
"At least for a few days, Tano. I'm not willing to impose on you further."
"One will inquire," Tano promised him. "But, nand' paidhi, I wonder if the letters will really abate in any number of days. They're holding two sacks of mail down in the post office, and most are from atevi children."
"Two sacks. Children."
"Many say, I saw you on television. The children, nand' paidhi, mostly ask whether you've seen spacemen and whether they'll send down machines to destroy the world."
"God, I've got to answer that. A computer printer. If I give you my answer — God, staff." His mind flew to the island-wide Mospheiran computer boards, the jobs-wanteds and jobs-offereds; but the Bu-javid wasn't an ordinary office and it wasn't Mospheira, and you couldn't just bring outsiders in. There had to be clearances. "I've never had to have staff before."
"I would suggest, nand' paidhi, if the paidhi hopes to answer sacks of mail, he certainly needs much more than the security post and a handful of household servants, however willing. He needs, I would guess — a staff of well above fifty, all skilled clericals, and a sealing machine. Most of the letters from citizens have subjects in common, fears of the ship, curiosity."
"Threats, probably."
"Some threats, but not many. — You've received two proposals of marriage."
"You're joking."
"One sent a picture. She's not bad looking, nand' paidhi."
"I'll — see if I can transfer sufficient funds. I may have to appeal to the Department." Not a good time to do that, he was thinking, and asked himself if he could secure atevi funding and decided again that such a source of funds wasn't politically neutral and wouldn't be seen as such.
He had, what? — his personal bank account. Which, lavish as it was for a man who couldn't be home to spend his salary and whose meals and lodging were handled by the Bu-javid, couldn't begin to rent and salary an office of fifty people for a month. "Thank you, Tano-ji. I value your advice. I'll find out what I can do. I'll draft a reply for the children."
"Shall I make inquiries about staff?"
"I don't know how I'm to fund it — but we have no choice, the best I can see."
"I'll consult the appropriate agencies. Thank you for the lea, nand' paidhi."
Tano excused himself off to that task. Bren settled to stare out at the mountains, trying to imagine how much it cost to rent an office, hire fifty people, and pay for phones and faxes.
Which he couldn't do. He simply couldn't do it on his own, not if the letters came in sacks.
He had to come up with the statement for the children. That wasn't entirely easy.
He had to come up with a report for the various committee inquiries he was facing, one of which involved lord Geigi, and finding some way to explain FTL for the Determinists, who had to have a universe in unshakeable balance.
He had to have lunch with Hanks at noon — and, God, he'd asked for a call from the ship at the time he'd invited Hanks to lunch. He didn't know how that was going to work. But it might be an escape. Feed Hanks and dive off for a private call.
When he'd, given his leisure, like to go down to the library himself and spend the entire morning looking for astronomy references, until he felt he had some grasp of things he'd never had to wonder about. He was reaching into information he hadn't accessed since primer school — and it might be accurate: he didn't think astronomy had changed that much, but he didn't think a primer-school student's grasp of information was adequate to advise a head of state or argue with atevi number-counters, either.
He was drowning in details, none of which he seemed able to get to because of all the others, all of which argued he should have staff — but even having staff wasn't going to put enough knowledge into the paidhi's head to know where the ship might have been and how far it might have come or how he was going to explain it all to a province ready to erupt in disorder. The failing was in himself. He could use help from somebody like Deana Hanks, if Deana weren't an ass — which was an irrefutable condition.
He felt a mild headache becoming worse and called for another pot of tea.
And sent one of the servants, Dathio, on down to the library looking for references. The air didn't stir. Sometimes, in his experience of Shejidan summers, that heralded a hell of a storm.
But the one he expected at noon was sufficient.
Another bout of tape, a shower, a meticulous braiding of the hair — two servants to do that, who spent more time fussing than Tano would do, but Tano was clearly busy — Banichi and Jago the staff alleged to be awake, but both of them were immediately off somewhere about business. Algini was back, sore, stiff, preparing to take over the security station from Tano, who was off, Algini said, seeing about office space — so Algini had the post, and security had to be on duty if strangers were due in: Algini had certain inquiries to make just getting Hanks onto the third floor.
All of which left the paidhi alone and at the mercy of the staff.
If the paidhi had modesty left, at this point, he'd forgotten where he'd put it. He suffered the tape-up at the hands of pleasant and not entirely objective women, he had his shower, and thereafter abandoned himself to a pair of servants who thought his hair a complete novelty and argued over the job of braiding it; then a trio of dressers who, learning he was going to meet Hanks-paidhi, insisted on his best shirt, insisted on a little pin for the collar.
Last of all madam Saidin came to survey the result, disapproved of the pin and installed a larger, more expensive one the provenance of which he had no idea.
"That's not mine, nand' Saidin," he protested, viewing the result in the mirror, asking himself whether that jewelry was Damiri's, or some antique Atigeini motif he was going to catch hell for if someone saw it. He'd no reason to distrust Saidin. He'd reason not to trust all the staff, counting rumors that had drifted out to the dowager's household, but he'd hoped Saidin herself was Damiri's and not serving any other interest.
"It's perfect," Saidin declared with senior authority, and he was left with a feeling of being trapped into Saidin's judgment, once she'd taken a position contravening three others of the staff.
Perhaps he shouldn't be so naive or so accommodating. But it was only Hanks, who wasn't likely to discriminate a pin he owned versus one he'd borrowed illicitly.
So he let it stay and paced the sitting room, waiting for calls from space or an explosion from Hanks, he wasn't sure which. He'd drafted a letter to Mospheira, a letter to the President, which said, in sum, that atevi unease over the appearance in their skies had generated a flood of mail which was being directed to the paidhi, and which consequently required the paidhi to answer, and which the Mospheiran budget should pay for, as otherwise it compromised the Mospheiran nature of the paidhi's office.
The President was going to read that one several times before he figured out it wasn't a joke, and the man who'd just broken Departmental regulations, defied an order from the Department's highest officers, and revealed privileged and sensitive information to the atevi leadership in a nationally televised speech, was asking the Mospheiran government to fund an expansion of his office.
He heard the front door open. He forbore to go out to the foyer. He strayed deeper into the apartments, hearing the to-do he could detect as Deana Hanks, Deana's Tabini-imposed security, Algini laying down the rules of the house. Servants passed him at a fair clip, delaying for the bows that were the rule of this house, on their way to the kitchen.
He'd decreed the lesser dining room, an intimate lunch, a small staff, though he'd been tempted to install Hanks at the opposite end of the state dining table. And, coward that he was, he hoped Saidin's unflappable courtesy could at least take the edge off the woman — his nerves were not at their steadiest, he had too much on his mind to spare attention to a fool's bad behavior, and he thought Hanks might behave herself civilly, at least, without the provocation of his oversight.
So, having walked the length of the hall down to the library and the pleasant view from the windows, he walked the slow course back again, judging by the flow of servants, this time to the lesser dining area, that Hanks had made it that far without destruction of the porcelains and the bouquets.
He walked into the dining room — which forced Hanks, already seated, to rise, in strict atevi etiquette. She sat, which the servants couldn't but remark, her human face and pallid complexion in stark contrast to the whole world he expected to deal with. The dark coat did nothing to diminish the effect; dark coat, dark hair — in the requisite and modest braid.
He bowed. She didn't so much as nod, just sat there, sullen and sober.
"FTL," he said, still standing. "Shall we dispose of that, in Mosphei', and say we've said you made a mistake? Or have you an excuse for that, too?"
"What about it?"
"You mentioned it? Or did Geigi just add figures you gave him?"
Hanks' face remained impassive. "So?"
"So. Is that your excuse? So?"
"I don't have to stay here."
"You can go home in a box if you act the fool much longer. I'm still trying to save your neck."
"From a situation you created."
"I created." A line of servants was piling up at the door, bearing plates. One had to toss the fool into the outer hall or sit down and let the servants do their best to put a social patch on the event. He smiled. He sat. He gathered up all the calm and social grace he had. "Deana, you are amazing. I don't suppose you've devised a universe construct to go with it."
"With what?"
"You can only go so far on bluff, Deana. You're scared. Or you should be. I'd be, if I knew as little as you do. You've not made yourself popular and the servants in this house haven't received a good first impression, so smile." He changed to the atevi language. "Nice weather. Isn't it?"
There was no smile. "I don't have to stay for this."
"No, you can whimper your way home to your apartment." The servants were setting out the plates. "Ah, we've changed seasons today. And the kitchen is doing its best. I am sorry about the phone, Deana. I didn't intend that, but it was my fault."
That only seemed to make her madder. At least the frown deepened. But she stayed put, smiled grimly at the servants who offered her condiments and, the initial flurry of serving out of the room, filled her mouth with the kitchen's not at all bad cooking.
Certainly fancier than the Bu-javid kitchen's fare.
"I wanted actually," he said, "to get a list of persons you've dealt with and what promises you think I should honor. By the way, where's the seal?"
She laid down her utensil, reached into her inside pocket, and pulled out the small metal object. Tossed it at him, on the casted side.
He didn't even try to catch it. He heard it hit the wall. A servant left the doorway to retrieve it, and having looked at it in some dismay, offered it to him.
"Thank you, Madig. It's quite all right. Hanks-paidhi is a little on edge today. Would you deliver that to Algini and tell him what it is?"
"Yes, nand' paidhi," the servant said in a very quiet voice.
"You seem to have quite the life here," Hanks said sweetly.
"Yes," he said, in the atevi mode, unadorned, the sort of thing Jago was wont to do to him. "Quite frankly speaking, Deana, I'm sorry about the phone. I hadn't meant that, but it is my fault. If it were possible for us to ignore the politics that divide us —"
"Mosphei'," she said sharply.
"No, Deana-ji, I don't think our hosts can make sense of us without that critical point of information. I've made it clear we have political differences, I've some hope that after all our interests are the welfare of Mospheira and the Western Association, and I hope that we can manage to do some work together. As long as you're here, I'd like to offer you the chance to patch up our differences."
"Of course."
"I'm quite serious."
"So am I."
He looked down the table at a very nice human face with a very reserved and inoffensive expression, the sort you practiced along with the language.
"Fine. Do you know anything about the ship that I don't know?"
"I'm sure I don't."
"Deana."
"Bren, I don't know. I know you're in contact with them."
"Your sources keep you well posted?"
"I've no sources. Just occasional contacts."
"Like hell, Deana. But let's be pleasant. And let me tell you, if you embarrass the people who are dealing with you, you can make very, very serious consequences for them, not to mention yourself."
"Don't talk to me about dealing against regulations."
"I hadn't mentioned regulations. Regulations aren't what's at issue here."
"Damned right you don't want to talk about regulations. Let me make a proposition to you, Mr. Cameron. You get me contact with Mospheira and we'll see what we can work out. You get the guard taken off my hall. You get me a meeting with Tabini."
"I'd be lying if I said I could get that. You've offended the man, and there's no patching that without action on your part, not mine. I might relay a message of apology."
There was no greater friendliness. There was, however, sober thought.
"Tell him I regret anything that may have offended him. I was afraid he might have done away with you."
"I'm touched."
"Which is the truth, damn you. I didn't know when I came over here whether you were dead, delirious with fever, or held hostage. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I talked to people who might give me other than official information. I tried to get you out of whatever you'd gotten into, in addition to doing your job."
That was at least plausible. Even a reasonable answer. He stared at her, unable to figure if it was something she'd only just thought of or actually the course she'd followed.
"Meaning," he concluded, "you wanted to be a damn hero. The service requires the job, Hanks-paidhi. Just the job, adequately done, nothing flashy."
"So where in hell were you? Malguri? Hunting in the J»MI.I>, hills with the dowager? Playing the damn hero?"
Nailed him. He didn't flinch from her level stare, but he didn't find anything to say, either, but, "Yes."
"So?"
"Point taken."
A tone of contrition. "I'm terribly sorry I tried to save you."
"I have it coming. Thank you for trying. Now can I persuade you to fly home? I might be able to get you a travel visa."
"I don't think you can, point one. I think the aiji is keeping me in reserve in case things blow up with your negotiations, or in case the next assassin is on target. And, point two, I'm no use there to anyone."
"It's a fairly accurate assessment. I still think I could get you out as a personal favor."
"Don't use up your credit on my account. There's still point two. I'm not going."
In Mosphei': "It's your funeral."
In Ragi: "Funny. Very funny, Cameron."
"If you'd make yourself just halfway useful —"
"Oh, tell me how."
Assign Hanks the mail. Let her affix her name to it, as if she had the office he was bound and determined to see her out of? Not likely. There wasn't damned much else she could touch without being a security risk to Tabini.
"You could write the everlasting reports."
"I could make the television speeches."
"I'm sure you could. But you do have areas of expertise —"
"I write them, you put your own gloss on them and look good."
"You write them, I delete the nonsense and the speculation and if they're useful I may moderate the report I've already sent in on your actions."
"Son of a bitch."
"That's ruder in Ragi than in Mosphei'. You really should watch the cultural contexts."
"You just can't say a pleasant word."
She was quite serious. He had to laugh. The servants took that for a moderately safe cue to refill the teacups.
"I tell you," Hanks said, in Mosphei', after a mouthful of pate and wafer, "high scores and all, I think there's a reason you're such a miracle of linguistic competency. I think you dream in Ragi."
It happened to be true, increasingly so. He found no reason to say so. Hanks was heading for some point of her own choosing.
"Did you know Barbara was going to marry?" Hanks asked in Ragi.
"No. It wasn't one of those things we discussed."
"What did you think? She was going to be there whenever you chanced in, for the rest of her life?"
"Actually, we'd raised the question. But that's Barb's business, not yours."
"I'm just curious."
"I know you are." He had a sip of tea. "You'll have to stay in that condition."
"You know your face doesn't react? Even when you're on Mospheira, you're absolutely deadpan."
"You lose the habit."
A tone of amazement. "You've really adapted, haven't you?"
Nothing Hanks meant was complimentary, he had no doubt. He didn't like this sudden pursuit instead of Parthian retreat, but he had a notion he was about to get an opinion out of Hanks, and maybe an honest one.
"What are you going to do, Bren-nadi? When are you going to come home? Or are you going to come home?"
"I'll come home once I'm sure some fool isn't going to screw things up, Ms. Hanks."
"How do you define fool?"
"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."
"Oh, you've done more than wait." Hanks propped her chin on the heel of her hand and looked at him. "You're just so good. Just so fluent. Just so damned perfect. Look at you. You don't even question your ethics, do you?"
"Continually. As I trust you question yours."
"You're slipping, you know it? Going right over the edge. What happened to you in Malguri? What happened to the arm?"
"It broke."
"Who broke it?"
"A gentleman who didn't like my origins. That's always a danger."
"You'd rather be atevi, hadn't you?"
They were down to what she'd been stalking, he decided that: it was a tactic, it was no more sincere than the rest, but it still worked a little irritation- — there were the servants in earshot, the woman's associations were closet bigots from the outset, and he didn't want Saidin or the staff exposed to that human problem.
"Ms. Hanks, you're a guest. Try courtesy. You'll like the result."
"I'm perfectly serious. I'm asking what happened at Malguri. What they did to you."
"Ms. Hanks —" He was exasperated. And halfway began to suspect the woman was serious. "They were courteous, sensible, and generally but not universally careful of our small size. I'm sorry to disappoint your well-intentioned though prurient curiosity, but I enjoyed the hospitality of an atevi estate, I made the acquaintance of a very gracious lady, we had to run like hell when rebels hit the place, and doubtless my fluency and my riding and my grasp of atevi numerical philosophy improved under fire, but I don't view myself as other than conscientiously human, irrevocably dedicated to the same objectives of technological parity that Wilson and paidhiin before me pursued, and thoroughly convinced that parity will through no fault of our planning occur in our lifetimes. Speak to the ship up there about the schedule if you don't like it. It's given us no damned choice but accelerate and given us a damnably difficult balancing act not to disrupt our economy or the atevi economy. I recall you did your thesis on economic dualism, Ms. Hanks. Let's see you do some creative work on real numbers, real provinces, real production figures. I'll give them to you. Plug those into your computer, produce some changes, and let's see if you're as brilliant without Papa's research staff as you are with it."
"I resent that!"
"My God, the woman has a sensitivity."
"Linguistics isn't the whole picture, Mr. Cameron. Give me the contact to get the figures. Don't hand me your lame assemblage of data and then blame my results."
A phone line in Deana Hanks' reach wouldn't please his security. Or Tabini's. It didn't please him.
But Deana's one solid expertise — which wasn't his — was alleged to be finance.
Inherited it from Papa, some said. Or cribbed it from Papa's staff. He'd always believed she had. But the indignation was moderately persuasive.
Maybe there was actual, uncredited ability. Maybe there was substance.
"All right," he said. "I'll see what I can turn up for you."
"To put your name on!"
"Deana —" They were down to the bitter wafers and tea, and he swallowed one mostly whole and washed it down. "If you can work us out a course that won't shipwreck us, if you can even get a hint of acceptable schedule, nobody in the Department's going to think I did it. It's your chance, Deana. It's what you do that I can't. Points to your side."
"Damn you." Her clenched fist came down on the table, but it came down in prudent quiet, and the language was Mosphei'. "Damn you, you're promising them everything, you're giving away for free everything we have to bargain with."
"Naighai maighi-slii, Deana-ji. Urgent meeting. Prepare your damn vocabulary in advance." He kept his voice ever so calm, didn't look at her, and poured his own tea, no servant venturing near. "You give me the economic report out of the numbers I'll give you in such abundance your head will swim — you pull that off and I'll recommend you for an audience with Tabini, a council citation and a civic medal. Use university resources, use any source you like, atevi or human, that's not hot for profit on the situation, and put your theory on paper. I'll listen."
"I need the phone," she said in a civil tone.
"I'll talk to security." He took a large swallow, and switched, back to atevi. "But if you launch out on this notion, Deana-ji, and if you hold yourself up to the aiji as competent to do this and he extends you the credit and the contacts to try — you risk, should I fall down the stairs and break my neck, becoming the paidhi who couldn't deliver. Shortly thereafter — the ex-paidhi. Possibly the late, dead, deceased paidhi. Does that worry you?"
"No," Hanks said sharply, though there seemed by now a little prudent fear in that tone. "Not your breaking your neck and not my ability, Mr. Cameron. I want the phones to work. This afternoon."
"I'll do what I can. Note, I don't say I can. On this side of the strait, it's best to hedge one's promises. You should learn that. But you're in it. Good luck." He stood up, having decided that lunch — and his patience — was over. Hanks stood up, and he walked her to the door.
Jago was there. Jago, who delivered him an absolutely impassive stare and stood aside for him to show Hanks-paidhi to the foyer, into Algini's keeping.
He felt Jago's eyes on his back the entire time. She'd been here again, gone again, and came back, specifically, he suspected, to stand in the hall and listen to the negotiations with Hanks-paidhi, who had not made a good initial impression on Jago, not down in the subway and not by any behavior Jago had just heard.
"Algini-ji," he said to Algini, when he reached the foyer, and the station where Hanks' security, likewise Tabini's, waited. "Hanks-paidhi will go back now. — Good afternoon, Deana."
He offered his hand. He didn't think she'd take it. She surprised him by a light, strong grip and, in Mosphei', "It's Ms. Hanks, Mr. Cameron, thank you very much, I'm not your sister. Try smiling. You look so much nicer that way."
He didn't smile. He didn't appreciate the insulting coquetry, in front of staff, but she escaped with that. He wasn't interested in warfare, now, just the cursed numbers however she came up with them.
And interested in keeping her busy. Giving her a way out with her credibility intact. She had to know that it was an honest offer. It was a critical time, and paidhiin weren't that easy come by: the Foreign Office had years invested in Hanks, and she might learn — if she learned fast enough.
Noon had come and gone and he hadn't gotten his call from the ship — which, when he realized it, didn't improve his mood. There were a thousand possible reasons, including procedures aboard the ship, including long debates, including a ship that ran exactly like Mospheira, with no one willing to make a decision.
All the same, he'd hoped for sane and rapid agreement. Tabini had hoped. Doubtless the Space Committee would have hoped, and he had that committee scheduled for this afternoon.
He'd almost rather have Hanks' company instead. And that was going some.