Protector: Foreigner #14
Read Protector: Foreigner #14 Online
Authors: C.J. Cherryh
C.J. CHERRYH
THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE
FOREIGNER
PRECURSOR
INVADER
DEFENDER
INHERITOR
EXPLORER
DESTROYER
CONSPIRATOR
PRETENDER
DECEIVER
DELIVERER
BETRAYER
INTRUDER
PROTECTOR
THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE
REGENESIS
DOWNBELOW STATION
THE DEEP BEYOND Omnibus:
Serpent’s Reach
|
Cuckoo’s Egg
ALLIANCE SPACE Omnibus:
Merchanter’s Luck
|
40,000 in Gehenna
AT THE EDGE OF SPACE Omnibus:
Brothers of Earth
|
Hunter of Worlds
THE FADED SUN Omnibus:
Kesrith
|
Shon’jir
|
Kutath
THE CHANUR NOVELS
THE CHANUR SAGA Omnibus:
The Pride Of Chanur
|
Chanur’s Venture
|
The Kif Strike Back
CHANUR’S ENDGAME Omnibus:
Chanur’s Homecoming
|
Chanur’s Legacy
THE MORGAINE CYCLE
THE MORGAINE SAGA Omnibus:
Gate of Ivrel
|
Well of Shiuan
|
Fires of Azeroth
EXILE’S GATE
OTHER WORKS:
THE DREAMING TREE Omnibus:
The Tree of Swords and Jewels
|
The Dreamstone
ALTERNATE REALITIES Omnibus:
Port Eternity
|
Wave Without a Shore
|
Voyager in Night
THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF C.J. CHERRYH
ANGEL WITH THE SWORD
A
Foreigner
Novel
Copyright © 2013 by C. J. Cherryh. All rights reserved.
Jacket art by Todd Lockwood.
DAW Books Collectors No. 1619.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics Co., Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
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DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
To Jane and Lynn—above and beyond.
L
ace was back in fashion this spring—starched and delicate at once, layers of it flowing from cuffs and neck. It was a damned bother at a formal dinner, but there it was: the Lord of the Heavens had to be in fashion, and a state dinner in the court of Tabini-aiji meant a new coat, no question about that. So Bren Cameron arrived at Tabini-aiji’s door, accompanied by his four black-clad bodyguards, in a mode quietly equal to any of the lords present.
This new coat was a subdued beige-and-gold brocade, able, in this sparkling crowd, to fade into the background, and Bren Cameron—paidhi-aiji to that same Tabini-aiji, the ruler of the aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi—liked it that way.
Paidhi-aiji. Official human-language translator—at least as he’d signed up for the job years ago. Back then he’d been the interface between the human enclave, restricted by treaty to the island of Mospheira, across the straits—and the atevi, native to the planet, who ruled the rest of the world.
Things had changed since then. Humans were in space, now. So were atevi.
And the paidhi’s office? The paidhi-aiji had become both diplomat and courier—become, in fact, paidhi in the sense in which atevi had always interpreted the office, long before the word
human
entered their vocabulary.
Translator
had ceased to be much of his job at all, since humans and atevi interfaced daily on the space station,
with
free access to the once-forbidden dictionary. Mospheira now worried far more about the space station orbiting overhead than they did the vast continent immediately across the water from them.
There had been a profound psychological shift in the attitudes on both sides of the strait. The earthly power that had threatened Mospheira in the past had ceased, at least in Mospheiran minds, to threaten them in any direct sense. The current worry of the human population on earth was the power of the human population in space versus their own insular ways and aims, most of which involved their comforts, their economy, and their sense of self-government.
Atevi were a presence onworld and off, had always been there, would always be there . . . and would always be different from them. Politically ambitious Mospheirans had little to gain these days by pointing out that obvious fact. Much more to the point, the meager trade that had gone back and forth between Mospheira and the continent for two hundred years had suddenly become a large and important commerce, linked to space in a triangular relationship.
Business
was now
interested
in what happened on the continent—deeply interested.
But Mospheiran businessmen knew they had no control over it. They could only watch the ebb and flow of the market and adjust accordingly. Production once based on the direct advice of the paidhi must now flux according to a true supply and demand market.
The island government was also on its own these days. They no longer controlled the paidhi-aiji—who remained conspicuously human, in any gathering here on the continent, but who had all but ceased to represent Mospheiran interests. Translate at need, yes. Advise, yes. But circumstances . . . and ultimately his own inclinations . . . had made him an intrinsic part of the atevi world.
He’d gained property on the atevi side of the straits. A title. A seat in the legislature, too, if he wanted to press the point. He didn’t. He had more power, in terms of influence with the most powerful people in the atevi world, than that seat could ever wield . . . something he found it wisest not to advertise: those to whom it mattered—knew.
His
official
niche in the court, a unique position, with Tabini’s—and Tabini’s grandmother’s—backing, was still that of paidhi-aiji, but in gatherings such as this, he preferred to style himself lord, not of the ill-defined Heavens, but of Najida peninsula, a quaint little rural section of Sarini Province, out on the western coast, not all that far from the island on which he’d been born. Lord of Najida gave him social cachet in terms ordinary atevi more easily understood, not too high nor ancient a title, but a respectable title over a little peninsula whose ruling family had died out, a title granted for services rendered the aiji, and to all of the aishidi’tat.
Accordingly, he chose to wear beige, a no-color, amid the colorful rivalry of atevi clan heraldry, and he persistently tied his queue
not
with the starry black ribbon of the Province of the Heavens or even the more approachable blue of Najida, but with the paidhi’s neutral white . . .
I am not part of regional matters. My standing is through the aiji.
It was a language every atevi understood without a moment’s conscious thought.
“Nandi,” his senior bodyguard said, by way of parting as they reached the door. The four tall atevi who were as close to him as family—closer, in point of fact—were not given a place in the gathering of lords and ladies milling about beyond the foyer, not this evening. The only bodyguards allowed in the gathering tonight (and indeed a veritable wall of black Assassins’ Guild uniforms guarded that door) were the aiji’s security. There was, for one thing, limited space—and for another—
For another, all security anywhere belonged to the Assassins’ Guild, and the fact that the only armed guards present were the aiji’s own bodyguard freed the
rest
of the members of that secretive Guild to disappear the same way Bren’s did, down that inner corridor toward the deeper recesses of the aiji’s apartment—and into a meeting far more important and more critical than the state dinner going on in the front rooms.
It was a state dinner being held in honor of one Lord Geigi, Bren’s sometime neighbor on the coast and current house guest, here in the Bujavid. Bren entered the packed room alone: Geigi had been invited here early, and was doubtless still with the aiji, back in the private part of the apartment.
Lord Geigi, provincial lord of Sarini, having helped straighten out a significant mess in that province, was headed back to his preferred post in the heavens, that of stationmaster on the atevi side of operations. Sarini was quiet, even improved in security, and the prospect of peace and trade and profits sparkled in Geigi’s wake. It was a happy occasion, this departure, a triumph, and the lords and their consorts—and the paidhi-aiji—had assembled to wish Lord Geigi a good flight and a safe trip back to the station.
Unfortunately, where power and profit bloomed, power brokers had a way of getting into the game. That was precisely why the not-so-clandestine Guild meeting in the back rooms was so critical, and why, while the lords and ladies were smiling and sipping drinks and offering politenesses to each other, most were likely wondering how
much
their own bodyguards were going to be told about the recent events and current situation in the south and the west coast, and how far they themselves, consequently, would be drawn into the loop . . . or deliberately excluded from it.
His own bodyguard would definitely be in the loop. The aiji’s bodyguard, most of whom were on duty out here, ironically would
not
be. And that uncomfortable situation—
Was politics. Pure and simple. Or rather neither pure
nor
simple. And that exclusion was one additional matter that might well be a topic in that meeting, at least among the most senior bodyguards.
“Nand’ paidhi.” As he passed into the crowd, a servant offered a selection of drinks on a silver tray. Bren took the white wine, a safe choice for a human, and walked among the tall black-skinned lords and ladies, with a nod here, a word there. He was comparatively comfortable tonight, despite the stiff new coat and stiffer lace, since—in present company, and with his own residence just next door in the ornate halls of the Bujavid—he could go without the damned bulletproof vest that had been mandatory since the Marid affair . . . but he had to navigate, as did everyone, on his own.
Of course for him it was slightly more challenging a feat than for most of the others assembled here. He was a tall human, but that was still a head and shoulders shorter than the average atevi. It meant looking up to talk to anyone he met, and it meant looking between shoulders to spot someone he was looking for. It meant being able to turn up at someone’s elbow relatively unnoticed, but it also meant watching out for people taking a step backward in crowded conditions. Dark-skinned and golden-eyed, wearing generally bright colors, they all towered above a fair-haired, light-skinned, quietly dressed human, who walked in a canyon of taller bodies.
His aishid would normally weave him comfortably through such a crowd. But he managed. He smiled, he talked, he kept his eyes open, and noted who was talking to whom . . . so far as he could see, until, finally, he did spot two others who did not tower. One was the aiji’s son Cajeiri—who at eight was already as tall as the paidhi-aiji—and who was holding a stemware glass of, one trusted, plain fruit juice. The other, the ancient lady with him and only a little taller, was the aiji-dowager herself, Ilisidi.
Notably absent was Ilisidi’s chief bodyguard, Cenedi. If there had been any exception to the rule of no-attendance tonight, it would have been Ilisidi, because of her size and her age. But then Cenedi was likely the main source of information backstairs. Along with Banichi and Algini—of Bren’s own bodyguard.
“Nand’ Bren!” Cajeiri waved at him, and several lords looked and spotted him, while the aiji-dowager gave her great-grandson a sharp word and resettled that cane of hers with a thump Cajeiri would feel even if he couldn’t hear it in the general festivity.
And indeed, Cajeiri immediately resumed official propriety. He’d grown so mature in so many ways, had Cajeiri, though his enthusiasm still overwhelmed him from time to time.
And there, the tall old man in green and white, was Lord Tatiseigi—right beside the dowager, depend on it. He was Cajeiri’s great-grand uncle, or however many greats one had to work into it: atevi were extremely loose about such niceties, even in the same sentence, so he was uncle as often as he was great-uncle. Lord Tatiseigi was Atageini clan—a member of the family on Cajeiri’s mother’s side—
and
a sometime lover of the aiji-dowager, grandmother to Cajeiri’s father.
Cajeiri’s little exclamation had turned Tatiseigi’s attention in Bren’s direction—no problem there—but it had also let a lord he had
not
particularly wanted to have corner him on a particular issue—notably his vote on the cell phone issue—draw dead aim on him.
A light bell rang. The dining hall doorway opened on salvation in the form of Lord Geigi. The attention of the lord in question turned immediately away from Bren in favor of Lord Geigi, who embodied a far rarer opportunity.
Geigi, rotund sun around which half a dozen such lesser lords immediately orbited, reached past them all to snag the new proxy lord of Maschi clan—and so of all Sarini Province—a proxy Geigi himself had appointed during this visit. He headed for Bren with the new man in tow—and his little planetary cluster following in his wake.
The new lord of the Maschi, a lean, elderly fellow, was a little countrified and old-fashioned in dress—which by veriest chance was halfway
in
fashion, in the latest trend. The man seemed very overawed by the attention, and engagingly delighted to see Bren, whom at least he recognized in the crowd—how could he not, even had they not met before.
Haidiri was this new lord’s name.
“Felicitations, nandi,” Bren said.
“I have told nand’ Haidiri,” Geigi said, “that if he has any difficulties, any worries, he should contact your office directly, nand’ Bren.”
“Indeed, without hesitation, do so,” Bren said. “I
am
your neighbor, after all, at least when you visit Kajiminda. Since this will be your first sitting in the legislature, the marshal of the legislature should be in contact with you, and if he is not, let me know, nandi. Do not hesitate in the least.” He discovered two lords in sight: Haijdin and Maidin, strong supporters of the aiji, on the liberal side of the legislature. “Let me introduce you, nandi, to two gentlemen you very much need to meet. Lord Geigi, your indulgence.”
“Go, go,” Geigi said. “I shall pay my respects to the dowager before we are called to dinner.”
In point of fact, Lord Haidiri was definitely going to need the paidhi’s help—and the aiji-dowager’s, and the help of the two gentlemen ahead, and likely the aiji’s help, too, if Tabini could be persuaded. Important issues directly affecting Haidiri’s clan, Sarini Province, and the peace of the region were centermost in the current session of the legislature, and this country gentleman had many of the keys to the situation in his district. One was certain Haidiri was well aware of those keys—Geigi would not have appointed him otherwise. But having the keys and having the associations to best utilize that knowledge were two different matters.
Bren made the introductions. There was a round of bows. And there was, by opportunity, as a third man strolled into range, another name to add to the new lord’s resources, Paturandi—a scholarly, middle-aged man, unhappily as long-winded as his notorious predecessor, Brominandi, but a goodhearted fellow who had suffered socially from his predecessor’s reputation. Paturandi was happy to make any new acquaintance who would engage him socially—and as lord of a small southern district he definitely had a regional interest in this new lord in Targai estate.
“Such a great pleasure, nandiin,” Paturandi said, and went on to join Haijdin and Maidin in asking about trade negotiations with the newly-opening Marid, right at Targai’s doorstep.
Those
introductions were a thorough success.
Bren wended his way back to Geigi, to effect a rescue of the situation should Geigi and Tatiseigi have crossed glances . . . those two gentlemen being long-time rivals for the dowager’s attentions. Tatiseigi was a jealous sort, and a conservative, which Geigi, a Rational Determinist who denied the validity of numerology, certainly was not.
But at that very opportune moment the servants reopened the dining room doors and the major domo invited them all in for the seating.