Invader (7 page)

'They might simply decide our objections were irrelevant."

"Unfortunately they don't need to do a damned thing — excuse me, aiji-ma — but rebuild the station and sit up there to preempt atevi
ever
achieving the future they might have had."

"So? Would this not benefit you — even your fisherman — in the long run?"

"Aiji-ma, we came down to build factories and make roads and transgress the lines of atevi associations with no sense of the damage we were doing. But that ship up there — that's not a chemical rocket. Believe me that it's just as disruptive of my world."

"Not your world."

"Then we've
nowhere
to belong, Tabini-ma." They'd gone past what he intended and he'd said far more than he meant to. He wasn't sure now what impression he'd created that he couldn't undo. His head was throbbing. He felt a wave of dizziness and nausea. He picked up the teacup, controlled action, trying to control the information he passed. "I
want
to go into space, understand, Tabini-ma. I want that — personally, for me, I want so much to go up there I can't explain it. But I won't sell atevi interests to get that ticket, and I won't sell Mospheira."

"
Sell
them?"

"Sell out. A Mosphei' proverb. One sells melons in a market. That's proper. But one doesn't sell one's duty to people who aren't qualified to have it."

"Sell one's duty. A curious notion."

"I said — for us it's not biological. Because it isn't, it can be sold, aiji-ma, for money, for other considerations. But good humans will
never
sell it."

"What then do they do with it?"

"They give it away, very much — but not quite — as atevi do."

"These not-quites are the very devil."

"They always are, aiji-ma."

"Indeed." Tabini set aside his empty cup and rested his chin on his fist. "Indeed. For this very reason I demanded you back, Bren-ji. You are a treasure. And yet you want me not to shoot Deana Hanks. Why?"

Pale, pale and oh-so-sober eyes. Tabini was calling him a fool, by atevi lights. And asking an honest question. There was everything at risk. And it was time to take the debate aside.

"Well, for one thing, Tabini-ma, — it would make one hell of a mess with the State Department."

Tabini gave one of his rare, silent laughs. "Don't divert me, clever man. You've given me nightmares of death rays. Let me spoil
your
sleep. Grandmother is in residence."

"God, I'd have thought she'd want to get straight home."

"Oh, this is
home
, Bren-ji. As much
home
as Malguri, at least in title."

"Is the situation in Malguri Province then quiet, aiji-ma?"

"If you mean have my forces stopped the gunfire, yes. If you mean have all the rebels come around to my way of thinking, and is there absolutely no likelihood that certain folk both noble and common would gladly assassinate you and me with one bullet, I fear the answer is no. Doubtless my grandmother will want to talk to you. Bear in mind her associations with the rebels. You have such a generous, unsuspicious nature."

"I'll remember that."

"Beware of her. I tell you, there are far too many people in the world who would wish to silence you."

"Has anyone filed Intent?"

"No. But I tell you this, nadi, I may be utterly mistaken, but I fear some of those individuals may reside on Mospheira. And do I understand, on Mospheira they don't have a law requiring a filing?"

He'd believe in betrayals of other kinds, perhaps, but not in physical danger from Mospheira.

Though silencing him need not be physical. He had sufficient reason for misgivings in his successor's presence on the mainland.

"Tabini-ma, I honestly — honestly don't think even my dedicated detractors would want to give up the only means they have of talking to you, now that they know you won't talk to Hanks. Not when —" He didn't know what happened to him. There was a black space. He wasn't holding the cup all of a sudden, and made a grab for it as it fell on the priceless carpet. It rolled — unbroken, but tea stood on the immaculate designs. He was appalled — he seized his napkin and flung it down on the spill, trying to bend to see to it himself.

But Eidi was there instantly, to recover the cup and to mop up the damage.

"Forgive me," Bren said, intensely embarrassed. "I've had terrible luck with teacups."

"Bren-ji, it's only carpet." Tabini made a furious wave of the hand, dismissing Eidi, dismissing the whole fuss. "Listen just this moment more. I need you as soon as you can possibly bring yourself up to date with this crisis, to go before the joint legislatures, explain these strangers in our sky and translate die dialogue between Mospheira and this ship. End the speculation. More — tell this ship the things atevi have to say to them.
That
is what I need of you, Bren-ji. Do you agree?"

"I — have no authorization to contact them, aiji-ma, not even to translate, and I would prefer —"

"You have
my
authorization, Bren-ji. The Treaty document said, did it not, there shall be one translator between humans and the atevi? Did it not say, the paidhi shall interpret humans to the atevi and atevi to the humans? I take this as the basis of the Treaty, Bren-ji. No matter the division in your Department that sends me
two
paidhiin, no matter they're in violation of the Treaty —
you
will make this contact and render our words honestly to these strangers."

"Tabini-ma, I need to think. I can't think tonight. I can't promise —"

"I requested Mospheira to send you back. Surely they aren't so simple-minded as to believe I wouldn't use your abilities, Bren-ji. Can you place any other interpretation on it?"

"But it may not be straightforward. That we do use audio records is going to slow linguistic drift, but the vastly different experience of our populations is going to accelerate it. I can't be sure I'll understand all the nuances. Meanings change far more than syntax, .and I've no wish to —"

"Bren-ji, linguistics is
your
concern. The Association is in crisis. There must be some action, some assertion of the legitimate human authority. Every day you spend preparing — we may lose lives. Don't tell me about your problems. Mine generate casualty figures."

It was true. He knew what delay cost. He tried not to think too much on it — when worry only slowed the process. The human brain could only take so much. "Tabini-ma," he said. "Give me tomorrow to get my wits about me. Get me the transmissions."

"Bren-ji, understand, there's nothing in the world more dangerous than politics running without information. I have heads of security, heads of committees, clamoring at my doors. There's a meeting of committee heads going on right now —"

"Aiji-ma," he began.

"Bren-ji, tonight, before this can go further in rumor-making conjecture, at least go down and address that meeting, only briefly. This woman — this Deana Hanks — has created speculations, panic, angers, suspicion. Be patient, I say, wait for Bren-paidhi. And they're waiting, but the rumors are already running the corridors. I know you're in pain. But tonight, if at all possible, at least assure these people I haven't deceived them."

He'd thought he'd finished his duty. He thought he was going within the next few moments to his borrowed apartment and to his borrowed bed. The arm hurt. The tape around his ribs was its own special, knife-edged misery, growing more acute by the minute, and he couldn't do what Tabini wanted of him. He couldn't face it.

But Tabini was right about people dying while experts split semantic hairs; and God knew what rumors could be loose, or what Hanks could have said.

"Paidhi-ji, lives are at issue. The stability of the Association is at issue. The aiji of Shejidan can't
ask
help of his associates. It would insult them. But so the paidhi understands, across the difficulty of our association —" Tabini couldn't imply his associates didn't share his needs — without implying they were traitors; Tabini was doing the paidhi's job again.

"I understand that," he said. "But I don't think I can walk far, aiji-ma." His voice wobbled. He felt irrationally close to tears. The shock of bombs in Malguri was still jolting through his nerves, the spatter of a close hit: not just dirt and rock chips, but fragments of a decent man he'd grown to like —

"It's just downstairs," Tabini said. "Just down the lift."

"I'll try," he said. He didn't even know how he was going to get to his feet. But Tabini stood up, and ignoring the pinch of tape around his ribs, Bren made it.

To do a job. To make sense of the incomprehensible, when the paidhi hardly conceived of the situation himself.

«
^
»

A
cable lift
existed in the guarded back corridors of the aiji's apartment, a creaky thing, an antique of brass filigree and an alarming little bounce in the cables; but Bren rated it far, far better than a long walk. He went down with Tabini, with Banichi and with Tabini's senior personal guard, Naidiri, a two-floor descent into the constantly manned security post below, and out a series of doors which gave out onto a hall not available to the public.

By that back passage, one came to a small guard station with a choice of three other doors that were the secure access to separate meeting rooms which had, each, one outside general access. It was the closed route the Bu-javid residents used to reach the area where atevi commons and atevi lords met elbow to elbow, with all the vigorous give and take the legislatures employed.

On this route the lords of the Association, who held court at other appointed times, could reach their meetings safe from jostling by crowds and random, improper petitioners — and on this route one comparatively fragile and battered human could feel less threatened by collision in the halls.

More, the walk from the lift to the committee rooms was quite short, the room being, in this case, the small Blue Hall, which the Judiciary and Commerce Committees regularly used.

Jago and Tabini's second-rank security had preceded them down, were already at the doors, and briskly opened them on a noisy debate in progress among the twenty or so lords and people's representatives — the Minister of Finance shouting at the lord Minister of Transport with enough passion to jar the nerves of a weary, aching, and somewhat queasy human.

Perhaps they'd rather shout and finish the business they clearly had under consideration; and if he asked Tabini very nicely they might get him to his bed where he could fall unconscious.

But the debate died in mid-sentence, a quiet fell over the room, and lords and representatives of the Western Association bowed not just once to Tabini, but again to the paidhi, very clearly directing that courtesy at him.

Bren was taken quite aback — bowed before he thought clearly, and doubted then in muzzy embarrassment whether the second courtesy could be possibly aimed him at all.

"Nadiin," he murmured, confused and dizzy from the exertion, hoping only to make this short and not to have to answer more than a few questions.

Aides and pages hastened to draw out chairs and to settle him at the table, a flurry of courtesy, he thought, unaccustomed to the solicitousness and the attention, as if the paidhi looked to be apt to die on the spot.

Death wasn't an option, he thought, drawing a breath and feeling pain shoot through the shoulder, the wind from the air ducts cold on his perspiring face. But fainting dead away — that, he might dp. Voices came to him distantly, surreal and alternate with the beating of his heart.

"Nadiin," Tabini said quietly, having sat down at the other end of the table, "Bren-paidhi is straight from surgery and a long plane flight. Don't be too urgent with him. He's taxed himself just to walk down here."

Came then a murmur of sympathy and appreciation, the tall, black-skinned lords and representatives who set a lone, pale human at a childlike scale. A small tray with water and a small pot of hot tea arrived at Bren's place, as at every seat, then a small be-ribboned folder that would be, like the other such folders, the agenda of the meeting. He opened it, perfunctory courtesy. He wanted the water, but having settled at a relatively pain-free angle, didn't want to lean forward to get it.

"We were hearing the tape," lord Sigiadi said, the Minister of Commerce. "Does the paidhi have some notion, some least inkling, what the dialogue is between the island and the ship?"

"I haven't heard the tapes, nand' Minister. I'm promised to have them tomorrow."

"Would the paidhi listen briefly and tell us?"

The whole assembly murmured a quick agreement to that suggestion. "Yes," they said. "Play the tape."

At which point the paidhi suddenly knew, by the suspicious lack of special ceremony to Tabini's arrival, and by the equally elaborate courtesy to the paidhi, that the committee had almost certainly seen Tabini earlier in the same session.

And that the paidhi had just been, by a master of the art, sandbagged.

But it was a relief to sit still, at least, after a long day's jostling about. Even in the brief spell of sitting he'd had in Tabini's apartment, he'd exhausted himself, and the Council of Committees demanded nothing of him more than to sit in this late-night session and listen to the week's worth of tapes he urgently wanted to hear and get the gist of.

Which made it necessary to keep every reaction off his face, while men and women of the Western Association, themselves minimally expressive and capable of reading the little expression which high-ranking atevi did show in public, were watching his every twitch, shift of posture, and blink.

So he sat propped at his least painful angle, chin on hand, facial nerves deliberately disengaged — the paidhi had learned that atevi art early in his tenure — listening to the numeric blip and beep that atevi surveillance had picked up from Mospheira communications to the abandoned space station, machine talking to machine, the same as every week before the ship had arrived out of nowhere.