Precursor (10 page)

“Languages,” Ilisidi echoed, and from her deliberate tone, he knew she’d seen the flaw in the reasoning. “To greet their own descendants. Does the human language change so rapidly, then?”

He had no answer to that. He and Jase had discussed the same question, had looked at Jase’s existence in ways Jase had never considered. Jase had said,
There are factions aboard ship
… and Jase had acknowledged some of those did not gracefully accept the current negotiations with the atevi.

Ramirez had authorized the birth of the children, had had them encouraged into those very skills that would enhance their ability to negotiate… that Ramirez had planned the children to negotiate with the atevi from the start, that Ramirez had had the vision to see beyond human arrogance to welcome aid from any source available… that had been well within Jase’s understanding of his captain-father, and well within the needs of peace aboard ship that Ramirez would keep such a purpose to himself.

But he couldn’t say that to Ilisidi. That was speculation of a nature he hadn’t even factual-basis enough to pass on to Tabini. But that Ilisidi, a veteran of subterfuge, had made the logical leap on her own… that he could well believe.

“So. Well,” Ilisidi, her point made, continued. “With these strangely trained children in tow, they went to this other station which had called and which had suffered great damage in their absence.”

“Exactly so. Ramirez questioned the station-folk there, and determined to come here, fall back to this base, thinking he’d find a large population and a thriving station. The ship was not happy in what it did find.”

Not happy, yes, but that Ramirez had been surprised… that, he and Jase had decided, was highly unlikely.

“One does imagine so.” Ilisidi silently finished a massive portion of the fish, and accepted a dish of spiced vegetables. “These are from the south. I’ve taken quite a fancy to them.”

“A very wonderful presentation.”

“—Does Mospheira continue to distrust the motives of the Pilots’ Guild? Or have they taken alarm at the idea of foreigners chasing the Guild here?”

“Mercheson-paidhi tried to persuade them to cooperate fully. And to trust the Guild’s modern leaders. Especially Ramirez.”

“Did she succeed in this persuasion?”

“Not wholly.” He made up his mind to give Ilisidi a little information, information that might reassure her, and that Tabini wouldn’t mind her knowing. “The delegation that’s going is suspicious. The Guild will have to work to convince them. They didn’t expect to go this early.”

“And now Trent Cope will attempt the same quick reconnaissance?”

“I don’t know if you can call it that.”

“And they take Jase.”

“Just so. If I can’t find a way to persuade Tabini to rescind the order.”

Ilisidi gave a laugh, a very rude laugh. It said her opinion of how likely Tabini was to backtrack.

He tried further. She was an ally, if he could win her. “ ’Sidi-ji, the Pilots’ Guild would be fools either to offend the aiji or to deal with Mospheirans in any preference. Nature put the resources in Tabini’s hands.”

“Nature,” Ilisidi scoffed.

“So to speak,” he amended that. “But they already know they can’t get a thing from the Mospheirans but workers who speak their language. A considerable resource. What they
don’t

comprehend is the danger of having atevi and humans in close contact. We’ve warned them. They still don’t comprehend because it flies in the face of experience. People who live together a long time should grow closer. Not more angry.”

“And the Guild originally was the party to respect atevi rights.”

“Just so. But they’re desperate now. As a human, nand’ dowager, and speaking with all my understanding of the situation, I believe that desperation is real, and that it may drive them to fear atevi less than they ought, or to listen to Mospheirans who may not be well-informed Mospheirans. Above all else, I know Jase knows the truth; it’s valuable they listen to him, but if they get him up there, where he doesn’t have current contact with information, we’re left with Cope, who can’t hold his food down, and whom I don’t find agreeable; and with some other stranger they’re going to drop in our midst, which I don’t favor. There are aliens. There is a danger. There may be small omissions in that truth, but I haven’t lived with Jason for three years without knowing he’s more valuable to us than he gets credit for. If you can intercede with the aiji, do.”

“Jason hasn’t lied to us. On that, everything rests.”

He swallowed a bite that proved just a little large, and took a slow drink to correct it, trying not to let nerves show. They might win. They truly might win. “I have no doubt of him.”

“Do you not?” She rapped the table sharply with her knuckles, shaking the liquid in the glasses and causing ice to shift in the pitcher.
“Do you not?”

He had not fortified himself against all her tactics. Some still worked, and this one could shake atevi out of their certainties.

It made him think twice, however, how very, very much relied on Jason’s truth: how much of their information came from Jason; how all their confirmation with the paidhi on the island did agree… but in all of it… in all of it… trust figured prominently.

“Nand’ dowager,” he said calmly, “I have asked myself that question for three years, the same I asked at the beginning. I know I’d entrust my life to him. But the responsibility I bear to the aiji and the association to be sure of the truth… doesn’t allow me to believe anything without question.”

“And this Mercheson-paidhi, whose associations you don’t thoroughly know?”

“Just so.”

“I’d thought a human might have a more exotic answer regarding trust and confirmation.”

“My own mother has associations I don’t thoroughly know, and consequently there are things I won’t tell her. Man’chi doesn’t apply, but gossip in the wrong places is a universal problem.”

Ilisidi laughed, that short, sharp laugh that said someone had, after all, taken a turn she didn’t expect.

“So does my
grandson
have associations of dubious connection,” Ilisidi said, still amused, and utterly serious. “Tatiseigi of the Atageini still rests uneasy. —Paidhi-ji, you never lose your edge.”

“I treasure the dowager’s good opinion.” God, were the gift-servants in his own household informing, however indirectly, the aiji-dowager, as he well knew even Banichi and Jago were informing Tabini? “I hope still to justify it.”

“Is your amorous bodyguard one of those items you don’t mention to your mother?”

He blushed. He knew he did… but Ilisidi had been in on this romantic intrigue from the first night.

“I try not to.”

“Deceiving one’s own mother.” The fruit had disappeared. Ilisidi laid down her utensil and leaned her narrow chin on an aged fist. Golden eyes caught the light, wreathed in wrinkles. “I take it, then, she
would
still disapprove. On the other hand… is
she
celibate? Or would she tell you that?”

His mother? He was shocked to think… no, she wouldn’t tell him. She was completely isolated, completely cut off from relationships outside the family… give or take Barb. She’d separated from his and Toby’s father and never had another man in her life that he knew. By now that was a fairly long record of no outside associations, but frankly, no, he didn’t know what his mother did when he wasn’t in town.

Ilisidi laughed, salacious amusement that was her wicked delight in a still active sexuality… in which he was relatively sure Cenedi figured somehow. He never understood atevi sensibilities in that regard. They had a great reserve outside an association; an unnerving lack of verbal reserve within one—and he suspected he simply didn’t come wired to understand on what grounds she laughed—a fact which he was sure contributed to the joke.

“Your face turns an interesting color,” she said.

“I’m sure it does.” She’d learned the meaning of a blush: and in all the years of their association he hadn’t quite figured out the precise point on which his embarrassment both charmed and amused her. God knew, with ’Sidi-ji, there were far, far more dangerous relationships. And he always played the game… won her help, sometimes against very heavy odds.

“So,” she said, “are you embarrassed about Jago, before your mother?”

“My mother had far rather I’d married my former lover, who still courts her favor.”

A wry smile touched the dowager’s thin lips, inexplicable for a moment. Then: “Ah. Barb. And does your brother express an opinion?”

“He regards my staff very highly.” Liked them immensely, but there was no atevi word for that. “I rest assured in his loyalty.”

“Ha.” Ilisidi was delighted. “Has he asked particulars?”

He blushed—again, surely to her triumph.

“Only in the most general way, ’Sidi-ji, and I haven’t answered in any particulars.”

“Such a gallant lover.”

He didn’t know on what grounds or on whose behalf he had just been examined, but he found himself on an unfamiliar shore, high and dry, and took, at last, a political risk.

“I would never lie to you, ’Sidi-ji. And I do need your help.”

She smiled. Simply smiled. “Welcome home,” she said and, perhaps with a touch of the arthritis that plagued her, winced. “Supper is done. These old bones need a rest. I hate old age.”

She was not going to say a thing about Jase. And there was a time to stop, cease, let a subject rest where the person of higher rank had decided to leave it.

“I should withdraw, then,” he said quietly, “and give you peace. In all high regard for your rest and well-being, nand’ dowager. —But if you will I stay, I shall.”

“Oh, flatterer.” Thin fingers shooed him from the table. “Go. Out.”

“Nand’ dowager,” he said, rose, and excused himself toward the door, attended by the dowager’s servants, by Cenedi as well, who brought him to the foyer where Banichi and Jago waited.

“How is she?” he dared ask Cenedi. The dowager being the age she was, he did worry. He never knew; he never knew whether she would intervene or not.

“As ever,” Cenedi said… no young man himself, but as indefatigable.

“And Jasi-ji?” He never remotely expected Cenedi would betray a confidence, he knew asking had a risk of offense; but pass him a message the dowager herself could not in dignity relay, that Cenedi might do.

“He was here,” Cenedi said, “and now he is outside our security, paidhi-ji. We can’t reach him. We are concerned.”

“So am I,” he said, having no answer. “But not for Jase’s motives.” He passed that word under the table to Ilisidi, who probably would ask Cenedi if he had said anything; and went out, with Banichi and Jago, out into the general hallway, in an area of elegant marble, antique silk carpet, carved tables, and priceless porcelains.

Then he heaved a sigh, finding the vodka had taken the edge off the day; the bruising encounters were at least at distance enough. But if he couldn’t get to Tabini… then he’d go back to the space center, keep a promise… sleep tonight wasn’t likely.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said to him as they walked, “the aiji has just requested your presence.”

He had his audience. He didn’t know but what Cenedi might have sent word through; he thought Banichi might have asked.

Or it was equally possible Tabini had his own agenda, and waited for the end of this supper—knowing Ilisidi had invited him.

Or there was collusion. That was possible, too.

The aiji called. There was no question he had to accept the invitation.

«
^
»

Eidi, the major domo of the aiji’s household, admitted them to those historic precincts with minimal fuss, and just as smoothly Banichi and Jago, who knew the territory, knew the staff on a familiar basis, disappeared just past the doorway and went aside to the security station as Bren now knew few others would be permitted to do—Banichi and Jago were from this staff, originally, and maintained their ties.

So, technically, was he from the aiji’s staff, once upon a time, and still technically was on the staff, in respect of feudal loyalty. Any other lord of the Association might have, as he and Ilisidi had discussed, extraneous ties of man’chi, but he did not, and the welcome over the years had varied very little. Eidi provided him a chair in the small side chamber and whisked up a cup of tea, welcome after Ilisidi’s vodka. He sipped that while Eidi went to inform the aiji he had arrived.

A small commotion returned down the length of the foyer. It reached the door, and Bren rose.

Tabini came in still dressed in his court finery, black and red colors of his heraldry, and waved Bren back to his chair. “Well, well, Bren-ji. And how is Grandmother?”

“Very well, as I saw her. Complaining of her age.”

“So. So.” Tabini dropped into a chair. Tabini was a young man: aiji and paidhi-aiji, chief translator, were both young men. In a certain sense, they had come up together, together survived the tides that tried to wash civilization back onto known shores. “A blindingly quick flight from the hinterlands, and she complains of her arthritis. —Sip the tea, be at ease. I’ve no need of any. And how did the trip to the island go?”