Inheritor

  Look not to his clerical staff for fault, and not to Manasi, he strongly felt, rather to the aiji's staff on the coast, at Mogari-nai, where the great dish drank down messages from space and relayed them supposedly without censorship to him and through him to Jase. There had been politics at Mogari-nai, somewhere in the administration of that facility, which had withheld information from him on prior occasions, even against Tabini's orders. It was a tangled matter of loyalties which one hoped, but not trusted, had been rectified last fall.

  Look even — one could think it — to Tabini himself, who might have ordered the interception and withholding of that message for various reasons, including the reason that Bren-paidhi wasn't at hand to handle the matter and they couldn't know how Jase would react.

  But Tabini would certainly have no difficulty reaching Tano and Algini if Manasi thought Jase was about to blow up.

  Information stalled in the system? Some message lying on a desk awaiting action? Perhaps. He was sure that the messages at Mogari-nai were gone over meticulously by atevi who could translate — and any personal message to Jase, as opposed to the usual routines, would raise warning flags, and possibly go to higher security, which could appreciably slow down transmission.

  "Nadiin," he said, because he knew the extreme good will of these two men, and the conflict it might pose them, "if this thread should go under the aiji's door, advise me but leave it untouched. It will be my concern."

  "Bren-ji, one will immediately advise you if that should be the case."

  That from Tano, with no demur from his partner. Their man'chi was to Tabini, to him only through Tabini, and what they said was with the understanding, unspoken, that he knew and that they knew that certain atevi damned well understood Mosphei' and the dialect of the ship.

  He suspected most of all that troublesome elements existed somewhere within the defense organization that protected the coast; and that such might have interfered, again, at Mogari-nai — or here, within the walls of the Bu-javid.

  Tabini himself understood more Mosphei' than he let on. Threads that went under the aiji's door — or the hypersecret establishment of Mogari-nai — might cross and recross multiple times.

  But an information slowdown could allow a critical situation to become a disaster. It also could signal a situation of man'chi; and that had to be fixed.

  "That's all I need," he said. "And don't scant your own rest, nadiin-ji. Have some junior person begin the inquiry tonight. Pursue it tomorrow."

  "Yes," Tano said, accepting orders which Bren feared he would not follow, nor would Algini. They slept on questions no better than he did.

  The question was always — how did atevi interpret what humans asked, and how well did they forecast human actions? The War of the Landing hadn't happened because both sides had meant to go to war.

  So he sat, in the sitting room, in his robe, at a small, fragile desk, writing by hand in the formal court script, for Tabini:

  Aiji-ma, Mercheson-daja has informed nand' Jase of his father's unexpected death, causes unknown.

  Bearing in mind your other imminent concerns —

  No, that wouldn't do. He struck that last line: one left the aiji to the aiji's concerns and didn't express opinions on paper regarding Saigimi's death being any concern to the aiji at all.

  I have informed my staff regarding nand' Jase's normal behavior in such instances and inform you, aiji-ma, that I foresee a time of tension in the household. I am also concerned for meanings behind the failure of that message to get through to him or to me in a timely fashion. It seems to have come to Mercheson-paidhi first, which should not have happened, as Mercheson is not Jase's superior, as the ship authorities well know. It was embarrassing and distressing to him to have heard such news from a source who should have been less well-informed than he was. If this was the choice of the ship's officers, there may be implications in their behavior regarding this matter: this could have benign causes, in either too great a zeal to protect Jase from knowledge of his

  r

  family's distress or knowledge that I was absent from the premises and therefore that nand' Jase was alone. Not benign, however, would be the determination of the officers of the ship that nand' Mercheson should obtain quicker and more up-to-date briefings than they allow to nand' Jase. These negative implications are certainly possible conclusions he might draw, and I am concerned.

  Seeing, however, a third choice, that the withholding of information might be action emanating from your office, I have set my staff to learn the facts so that I may be accurate and prudent in assessments I present to you.

  That, to pave the way for Algini and Tano.

  Lest you concern yourself regarding nand' Jase, —

  Beyond any doubt, Damiri's staff reported to her regularly, and Damiri reported what seemed useful to Tabini, right next door: so it was inconceivable she didn't know by now everything the staff knew; Tabini probably knew, and he was sure both Jase's behavior and his plus the fact he had called his two chiefs of security in for a conference had been amply reported.

  — his behavior considering the extreme stress and my absence has been restrained and circumspect. Laboring under what may be a serious blow, he has nevertheless held himself for days from displaying feelings extremely difficult for a human to repress under far less strenuous conditions, all to obey my order not to display inexplicable emotion near atevi. I am greatly distressed that I was absent at the time and unable to provide advice or assistance to him, but he behaved very well indeed.

  He disliked dissecting Jase's private feelings. He truly disliked it. But he tried to be clinical, for the information of the one man — and the woman — who most needed to understand how well Jase had actually performed: Jase had occasionally upset the serving staff, who had witnessed prior explosions and must wonder what was the difference in the paidhi they knew and the one who came from the ship.

  But staff storms settled, once staff was reassured that it was not their fault. Even in that, Jase was doing a very good job. Atevi had never seen the temper-storms even the most well-trained paidhi-candidates threw when language-deprivation set in, back in the university on Mospheira; and they didn't see it in Jase — Jase's were mere verbal explosions, restrained perhaps because of Jase's own upbringing, or because the atevi world around him was so very quiet and void of anger.

  But he did hope that Tabini's good opinion would affect Damiri's, and that Damiri's would in turn become the staff's judgment of Jason Graham. It would certainly make life easier in this apartment. He hoped, too, that it might ease the strain on Jase if he could, through Damiri, encourage the staff to understanding. He knew that information flowed in and out by the servants. And one wanted a good reputation.

  Aiji-ma, I should add that he had exhausted himself In study to please me and to meet my schedule, unknowing to what extent news about to fall on him would challenge his self-control.

  I should advise you of the normal course of human reaction to such a loss — first to think about past time and missed opportunities regarding his relative. In such a time the future has no map for him; his present is full of responsibilities to relatives which, in his situation, he cannot satisfy. Frustration may well manifest, which may lead to anger with himself or with me, or even with the dead. But this anger will in no wise threaten harm to me or to the staff…

  God save us if he threatens the premises, he thought. He had only to look up and about him to see the contents of a veritable museum, the possession and the heritage of the Atageini clan, one of the most critical and dangerous alliances Tabini had forged, expressed in needlepoint draperies, in priceless carvings and fragile porcelain, in carpets which servants cleaned on hands and knees with dust-cloths.

  He wishes to visit familiar places. He does not believe in ghosts and he does not believe in their intervention as far as I understand his religious opinions. He is brave and strong-minded or he would not have

  come down here. I request and hope for answers to my i
nquiries so that I can provide him some measure of assurance and rapid contact with his mother and other relatives on the ship. I will monitor such conversations and be sure of the content of messages passed.

  I stand ready to report to you far better news regarding progress on the ship. Lord Geigi, who treated me as a very honored guest, and the manager of Patinandi in his district have shown me very encouraging progress; and likewise the laboratory at Gioli is making progress on the design of the engines and likewise on the test site. I have some concerns on the recent change of management at Ladisiri.

  That was the computer design. The Determinists and the Absolutists were all but going at each other with knives, and the two most talented designers had been literally having tea with each other as two of their aides met in the hall in a set-to that other aides had had to break up by main force.

  I have personnel recommendations which may separate and isolate members of the development teams at two sites rather than having discordant persons within the same facility. I do suggest that you assign persons to look into the issues involved, which are beyond my grasp, but which seem bitter and divisive and which are not, by advisements I have received, following the design specifications.

  Freely translated, intervene in Ladisiri, aiji-ma, before someone gets killed.

  And considering the province was dualistic in philosophy, with no felicitous third, the aiji might threaten to move the research to a rival institution. That might get the attention of the two staffs. Certainly the two senior directors were oblivious to the quarrels, being lost in a probably productive debate on a design that, God save them, might be useful in advanced theory but was not going to fly on this ship.

  I also urge, aiji-ma, that the needs of the aeronautical engineers should have precedence over further theoretical research at this time.

  I consider this a matter of great delicacy and

  great urgency, which I shall manage according to your orders or leave to more tactful persons at your discretion.

  It was the one truly unmanageable problem they had with the project, give or take a few operational difficulties which were not at that level. This one — the aiji might have to straighten out by calling in the lord of the province and having an urgent discussion with him.

  He was, however, finished with letters. He rolled the missive, slipped it into his message cylinder, and sealed it.

  And chose to get up and walk the darkened hall to the lighted foyer and security station at the other end of that hall in search of a messenger rather than calling staff to carry it to security. He had no desire to have them disturb Tabini's evening with it, and he could advise the junior staff to advise Tabini's staff to that effect. As much as anything, he wanted to see whether the light was showing from under Jase''sdoor, to know whether Jase was asleep or awake, and by that —

  Well, he didn't know, entirely, but he wanted to know Jase's state of mind, whether he was still awake, which might indicate he was still debating matters with himself; and that might indicate he should try to speak to him.

  He'd looked in that direction, seeing no light. He looked where he was going and found a towering pair of shadows between himself and the distant foyer light, one very broad-shouldered and not the willowy silhouette of one of his staff.

  He spun and ran for his lighted bedroom and slammed his door. And shot the bolt.

  And kept himself from standing in front of the door in doing so. He had a gun. He had it in the bureau drawer. He wasn't supposed to have it. Surely staff had heard the disturbance. If they were alive.

  Came a footstep on the carpet outside. A gentle tap.

  "Bren-ji?"

  A deep and resonant voice. A familiar voice.

  "Banichi?"

  "One is impressed with all your actions, Bren-ji. If you have the gun in hand, kindly put it back in the drawer."

  He had no doubt then it was Banichi. And the other would be Jago.

  "Have you been well, nadi?"

  "My life has been dull and commonplace." He said it as a joke, while his heart resumed a normal rate. He thought in the next breath it was true. He was firmly convinced that the day's events in the peninsula and Banichi's return weren't without relationship. And here they were, back with him, and just in shooting the bolt back to let them in he found his hands trembling.

  He wanted so much to throw his arms around both of them.

  But that would appall Banichi and Jago would be puzzled, and the most wonderful sight in the world to him was as he looked up — considerably — at two atevi in the silver-studded black of the aiji's personal security.

  "One hadn't meant to alarm the house," Jago said earnestly.

  "Although it would have been better for you to call out an alarm," Banichi added, "since you were behind the wall — not, one trusts, against the paneled door, paidhi-ji."

  Light had come on in the hall. Servants arrived in nightclothes and robes from the rear halls, along with Algini and a couple of the junior security staff from the other direction in far calmer, knew-about-it attitude. Tano arrived from the same direction as the recently sleeping servants, in a bath towel and carrying his pistol: Tano hadn't known.

  Jase's door opened. Jase appeared in his robe, behind the line of servants, looking rumpled and confused.

  "It's quite all right," Tano said to everyone. "It's quite all right. No alarm, Jasi-ji. Banichi and Jago are back."

  "Have you had supper, nadiin-ji," Bren asked, instead of hugging both of them, "or should the staff make up something?"

  "We ate on the plane, nadi," Jago said.

  "But being off-duty now," Banichi said, "and being in the place where we will sleep tonight, one might sit and talk for a bit over a glass of shibei if the paidhi were so inclined."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 7

  « ^ »

  Jase had gone back to bed and, one hoped, to sleep. Tano and Algini said they had business to attend to.

  Business, at this hour, Bren asked himself; and couldn't decide whether they were occupied with his request for the message trail on Jase's business, heating up the phone lines to the earth station at Mogari-nai, or whether it was some new duty Banichi had handed them as he came in, but whatever the case, Tano and Algini kept to the duty station.

  That left him Banichi and Jago alone for company, and oh, he was glad to see them. Banichi made him feel safe; and Jago — Jago, so proper and so formal — she was the one who would talk to him with utter disregard of protocols, the one who'd try anything at least once, including intimacy with a human. It hadn't happened: the time had never been right; but it could have happened, that was what he didn't forget.

  Tonight was like picking back up as if they'd never left — and yet he had to realize, truthfully, for all the difference they'd made in his life, they'd been with him just that few weeks of the crisis preceding Jase's landing. Then they'd been gone again, a reassignment, he'd been told, a fact which had saddened him immensely, and put him in a very hard place with Tano and Algini, who were wonderful people — but who weren't the two he most —

  Loved.

  Too valuable to the aiji, he'd said to himself: he'd no right to assume he could keep them in his service. He was damned lucky to have Tano and Algini, whom he also —

  Liked very well.

  Maybe it was just a visit, maybe just a temporary protection to him during the latest crisis. Maybe they wouldn't stay. He was halfway afraid to ask them. He wanted to, as he wanted to ask Tabini whether he could have them with him permanently, but he felt as if he would be asking for something the worth of a province, and to which Tabini would have to give a state answer, and think the paidhi had gotten just a little forward in recent months.

  They sat, they shared a nightcap in the sitting-room — that, and the warm stove with the window open wide to the spring breezes — the extravagance of the rich and powerful, a waste of fuel with which Bren had never reconciled himself morally, and which in prior and simpler days, he would have reported
and protested to the aiji.

  But there was so much he had never reconciled with himself — morally.

  "Dare I ask," he began with them, "where you've been?"

  "One might ask, but we can't say," Jago said. "Regretfully, nand' paidhi."

  He'd come very, very close to going to bed with Jago — well, technically, they'd been in it, sort of — a fact that had crossed his mind no few times in the last half year, in the lonely small hours of the winter nights. She'd been there, in his imagination, at least.

  She'd either be offended — or she'd laugh. He thought she'd laugh, and dared a direct look.

  He got nothing back. Atevi reserve, he said to himself. Guild discipline, and just — that she was atevi.

  Forget that for a starting point and, God, couldn't one get in a great deal of trouble?

  She probably wasn't even interested any longer. Probably had a new hobby.

  "One hears," Banichi said, "that Jase-paidhi has had unhappy news given him by improper channels."

  "True," he said. Banichi had a very incisive way of summing things up. And, summoning up the fragments of his wits at this hour, dismissing the question of Jago's reactions, and meanwhile trying to be as concise: "I'm concerned for three things, one, his human feelings, two, his isolation, three, the way atevi minds might expect him to act. I asked Tano and Algini what was ordinary reaction for an ateva, and it didn't seem far off the way humans react." He let that echo in the back of his mind two seconds, added, recollected, revised, definitely under the influence of the shibei, and said: "Four, sometimes when the difference between ship-humans and Mospheira isn't that apparent, it surprises me. And, felicitous five, complicating things, Jase is trying to restrain his reactions in front of atevi."

  "How is his fluency lately?" Banichi asked.

  "Improved just enough that he can get out of the children's language and into serious trouble. He's learned the words that pertain to this apartment and to the space program and engineering. His vocabulary is quite good for 'where is?', 'bring me food' and 'open the window,' and for 'machining tolerance' and 'autoclave.' Still not much beyond that — but acquiring felicitous nuance."