Inheritor

  "Did the paidhi feel at all that his safety was threatened in the peninsula?"

  That was not a permitted question, by the ground rules that governed all news conferences. He knew that Tabini was going to hit the rafters over that one, and other reporters were disturbed, but he lifted a hand in token that he would answer the direct provocation.

  "The paidhi," he said calmly, and in meticulous Ragi, "has the greatest confidence in the good will expressed to him by honest people." The news service this reporter represented, whether by one of Deana's little legacies or a new inspiration of Tabini's enemies, was attempting to politicize itself — implying (because a retaliatory strike by Guild members would have to follow a line of direct involvement) that the paidhi or lord Geigi had a connection to the assassination. He had no compunction whatsoever about derailing the effort in a rambling, time-using account. Two could play the games of a live, limited-time broadcast.

  "Let me recount to you the scene as I left the plant, nadiin, as the goodheartedness of the workers brought a crowd out the doors, brought them carrying flowers toward the cars. When my plane dipped its wing and came about toward Shejidan I saw, beside the cars of my local escort, flowers of the springtime of the peninsula pass beneath us. So, so much generosity of the people, so much care of the vastly important task under their hands and so generous an expression of their belief in their task. Their hope for the future is visible now. Tangible." They'd edit when bits of this replayed, and after what had been asked, he was careful to give them only positive, felicitously numbered statements. The paidhi did not intervene in atevi internal affairs. That was what they were trying to get him to do, so he played the uninvolved innocent. "I was greatly impressed, nadiin. I tell you, I was impressed so much that I believe as they believe, in the felicity of this project, in the felicity of this nation, in the felicity of the aiji who has been foresighted in making this reach toward space at a moment when all these fortunate things coincide."

  A second reporter rose. "Have you authorized, nand' paidhi, the direct exchange of messages between the island and the ship-paidhi, in your absence?"

  What in hell was this? A second out-of-line question?

  "I have not forbidden it, nadi."

  "Can you, nand' paidhi, confirm a death in the ship-paidhi's house?"

  There was a leak. There was a serious leak. It smelled of Deana. If he could figure how — and methods including radio did occur to him.

  Damn it, he thought. He'd meant to report it, because with servants aware of something, informational accidents could happen, and he didn't want speculation getting ahead of all the facts he had. But he'd meant to report it after Jase had talked to his mother. The death on the ship implied infelicity.

  And he could either shut down the interview right now on these two rude and unauthorized questions on the very plain point that they violated protocol — he could signal his security to create a diversion; or he could handle the problem they'd posed and then loose security on the matter of who'd put them up to it.

  "I can," he said, "confirm, nadiin, that there is such a sad report; as best I am informed, an accident of some nature. I will try to obtain that information for you. But that is not officially announced, and the release of that information could cause great pain to Jase-paidhi, who has borne the effort and worked honestly to bring good fortune to atevi as well as humans. I'm certain that isn't your intent."

  Sometimes his own callous response to situations appalled him. Atevi would wish to know. Number-counters would wish to know. All sorts of people would wish to know for good and sensible reasons, for superstitious reasons, and just because they were justifiably curious about human behavior.

  The next two questions, which he took from the major news services, were routine and without devious intent. How was the space program meeting the engineers' expectations and was the design translation without apparent error?

  "We are developing a set of equivalences between the two languages which render translation of diagrams much easier. We're dealing with a scale of measurements which has a scale of directly comparable numbers"— Atevi ears always pricked up at that word —"which renders the operation of translation much faster. Atevi engineers are actually able to read human documents where the matter involves written numbers, and to perform calculations which render these numbers into atevi numbers with all the ordinary checks that these skilled persons perform."

  Not of significance for a human audience, but for an atevi audience a real bombshell of religious and philosophical significance. If the universe was rational and numerical, numbers were a direct reflection of its mathematical dependability; numbers could predict, safeguard, direct, and govern. No project would succeed without good numbers; the ship on which the design was based had flown, the human numbers were therefore good numbers, felicitous numbers, more to the point — since numbers could be felicitous or infelicitous, leading to success or disaster — and to have the news that atevi engineers could make clear sense of human engineering diagrams was the sort of thing that would actually fight with the peninsular assassination and the death on the ship for space on the news, at least briefly. He'd meant to drop that later, but it was capable of knocking Jase's tragedy right out of the headlines, and that was, coldbloodedly, what he intended.

  He answered four or five questions at the limits of his own mathematical ability, and took his leave of the reporters, with the (he said to himself) not unreasonable notion of the leisure to go back to his apartment and work through the translations he had to have ready before — the next duty he had on his agenda — he briefed the aiji's aides, who had to go to the various departments to present the paidhi's arguments before — step after that — the paidhi had to go before the off-session legislative aides to answer questions so that when, step three, the legislatures reconvened, they did it with good information before them.

  But there was a far more immediate item on his agenda.

  "We have a problem," he said to Banichi as they walked toward the lift, and as the junior security held the curious at bay, out of ordinary hearing. "I don't know how that information on Jase's private business got to them, I don't know whether there's a leak somewhere, but my own thought was that either there's a leak on the aiji's staff — or ours — or that they're broadcasting that on the news on Mospheira and somebody on the mainland follows enough of the language to pick it out."

  "Such persons who know Mosphei' that fluently are all official," Banichi said under his breath, informing him of something he'd wanted to know, and now did.

  "There is," Banichi added, "nand' Deana." One was respectful in a public venue, and accorded a name its honorifics, even when one proposed cutting the individual into fish-bait. "And I can tell you, Bren-ji, there has been illicit radio traffic."

  They'd reached the lift. He gave Banichi a sharp, alarmed look.

  "How much else don't I know?"

  "Oh, much," Banichi said. The door opened. "The names of my remote cousins, the —"

  "Banichi, my salad, the truth."

  Banichi escorted him inside and delivered an advisement to hall security above that they were coming up. And Banichi grinned, not looking at him after the salad remark.

  "The paidhi is still alive," Banichi said, "and we keep him that way. But the details are his security's concern."

  "Not where it regards Hanks!"

  "Ah. Humans do proceed to feud."

  "With this woman? Damned right." The door spat them out into the upper corridor, that with the porcelain bouquets. "Unfortunately the Guild has no offices on Mospheira. — And I need to know this, Banichi-ji."

  "It seemed at the time to involve only atevi, on this side of the strait," Banichi said, "and Tano and Algini didn't know. Had Jago and I been here, our rank would have obtained that information for you. Yes, there has been such traffic between Mospheira and the coast, in Ragi, definitively her voice."

  "Nand' Deana." Deana, who had had such widespread contact with all the wrong peo
ple, until someone had kidnapped her from Shejidan, someone whose identity both Ilisidi and lord Geigi had to this day declined to reveal, nor had he ventured to ask his own staff too closely. The embarrassments of the great houses were a volatile subject.

  And when a rival paidhi was at issue, perhaps, he'd decided last of all, they were uncertain how he'd react and whether he'd be able to, in human shorthand, forgive the atevi responsible.

  "Where was my female colleague lodged when she was not in the Bu-javid?" he asked Banichi as they walked. "May we now ask officially, and for the record?"

  "With lady Direiso."

  He was not utterly surprised. To say the least. "And Geigi simply walked in there?"

  "Guns were involved, but not seriously. Direiso-daja had launched her greater hope without guns, simply in her acquisition of Hanks-paidhi."

  "She took her away."

  "Without serious resistance."

  "One thought so. And getting Deana back — was there bloodshed?" That defined a level of seriousness in most quarrels. Not in this, he thought. "Did Direiso resist?"

  "No bloodshed," Banichi said. "Against fear of her own harm, she saw there was nothing left but graceful acquiescence to the aiji-dowager and the hope that Tabini would soon be a dead man. And that you would be. That would leave Deana Hanks as paidhi. And if Direiso's wishes had proved to have stronger legs, it would have led to her in possession of the ship-paidhiin — which again would have made her powerful. Hence her easy capitulation on the day in question."

  That was a plateful of information. Direiso had folded when Ilisidi, whom Direiso had regarded perhaps as rival and as ally, had walked in at gunpoint and demanded Hanks be turned over to her. Direiso had still hoped to reach the descending capsule and get her hands on Jase and Mercheson-paidhi.

  But she hadn't won that race. They had.

  So Direiso had lost Ilisidi's support (realizing perhaps at the last that Ilisidi would have cheerfully put a dagger in her back, perhaps not even figuratively, rather than see her as aiji.) And now it was possible Direiso was courting the Atageini after an assault on Atageini pride last year, which had destroyed the lilies, perhaps by accident or perhaps not.

  "Was not Direiso's son with Tatiseigi of the Atageini at that moment?" he asked Banichi. He recalled hearing that.

  "That he was, Bren-ji."

  "You exceed my human imagination. Why?"

  "If I knew that for certain, Bren-ji, Damiri might be lord of the Atageini at this hour."

  Serious news. Banichi suspected Tatiseigi of existing on the fringes of Direiso's conspiracy, and the son's presence there as not without Direiso's approval. "You suspect Tatiseigi was with Direiso, at least in the attack against us in Jase's landing?"

  "We suspect everything." They had reached the doors. "We act on what we know."

  "And she's still plotting against the aiji. Hence the business in the peninsula."

  "True."

  "And its timing?"

  "One can only guess, Bren-ji."

  He was talking to the entity both best and least informed on the matter, the one who'd most likely carried out the strike against Direiso's ally Saigimi.

  While he guested with lord Geigi, who'd seemed Direiso's ally and then Tabini's.

  One needed a flow-chart. One truly did.

  But probably the atevi thought that about humans.

  There were things they had never admitted to one another. Radios belonging to the atevi government listening to transmissions. Jamming. On both sides of the strait. Phone lines that went down every time a stray cloud appeared. Banichi had said it once: an old man in a rowboat could invade the island. Or the mainland.

  If Hanks had been transmitting to Direiso, there were atevi working for Tabini who would intercept those messages — and Deana and those behind her were just clever enough to plant what they wanted planted: poison, no matter the recipient, poison, whether in the hands of Tabini's people or Direiso's.

  "Damn," he said, envisioning listening posts up and down the coast, on which atevi could pick up whatever short-range transmissions the conservative faction on Mospheira wanted to send. It wasn't just Direiso's cause such hateful broadcasts might incite, if Deana and her supporters wanted to see bloodshed.

  The fact that such conservative humans hated atevi was in no way skin off Direiso's nose. The fact that Direiso hated her was no skin off Deana's. Both the conservative atevi that wanted Tabini dead and human technology restricted — and the conservative humans whose varied agendas just wanted humans to stay technologically superior to atevi — shared the same agenda: restrict technology getting to Tabini. Tabini in power and Bren Cameron in office meant a rapid flow of tech into atevi hands. So get rid of one or both.

  The door opened. The servants received them. Junior security, having used the same lift on its return trip, overtook them before the doors shut and rearmed. He wasn't acutely aware of his surroundings.

  That Banichi told him what he did was indicative at least that he was being told truth on a high level. Atevi no longer kept the paidhi, who was acting in their interests, more ignorant than other humans, who were working against those interests.

  That was useful. It was one step deeper into the situation he was already in.

  It didn't, however, stop Deana Hanks, whose agenda he didn't believe he entirely guessed — and he couldn't act upon his suspicions until he could hear exactly what she was saying and what she hoped to provoke.

  And there'd been no atevi offer yet to provide him that information.

  Damn, again.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  « ^ »

  "The matter we were discussing," Bren said to I Banichi as they entered the apartment, as servants converged and he began to undo the buttons of his coat. "Can you prepare me a more extensive report on the problem, Banichi-ji? And report to the aiji regarding the reason for my question, regarding the interview? I want the text of what she's been saying."

  "Yes," Banichi said in that abrupt Ragi style, which was an enthusiastic yes, and went immediately to the security station, where, Bren said to himself, there was about to be a very intense, very serious session that might well extend feelers next door, and might end in a reporter finding himself in serious dialogue with the aiji's security. Reporters on Mospheira questioned government agencies with a great deal of freedom and were lied to routinely. But on the atevi mainland, the concept of instant news was under current consideration by the government, the way the inclusion or non-inclusion of a highway system had gone under consideration by the government — and been rejected as socially destructive. Similar airy assumptions that what had worked for humans was good and right for atevi had started the War and killed tens of thousands of people.

  In that consideration Bren didn't like what had happened down in that interview. He saw interests at work that didn't lead in productive directions for atevi — atevi interests that wanted Tabini dead and someone else installed as aiji.

  But the implications of a person like Deana Hanks, a person trained to deal with atevi, working by radio purposely to destabilize the atevi government — that was against every law, every principle of the office. He was on shaky moral ground with the State Department because of the decisions he'd taken, but dammit, he was trying to keep the stability of Tabini's regime. His way was sanctioned by the people that had sent him here; and sent him back here by means so desperate Shawn had secreted the new computer codes under the cast on his arm and hadn't even told him he was doing it.

  He wanted a Mospheiran newspaper, dammit.

  He wanted to know what was happening on the island in details on which the government couldn't lie.

  But in an atmosphere where people were afraid for their lives, as some clearly were on Mospheira, including his mother and his brother and his former fiancee, he wasn't sure of getting the truth even if he got such a newspaper, or the unrestricted datafeed. So much for Mospheira's supposedly free press.

  The situation
scared him, deep down scared him — for his family, for atevi, for everyone on the planet.

  And he himself had argued with Tabini-aiji not to detain Deana Hanks on the mainland: to ship her home, safe and sound, mad, and dangerous. If things had gone that wrong, he had fault to bear. He could muster excuses when atevi politics were at fault. In this one, he could by no means blame the atevi government.

  He smiled for the benefit of the servants who put away his coat, and he accepted their polite questions soberly: he didn't lie to his staff, who had to handle touchy situations, and who had to fend away importunate and unauthorized persons of sometimes ill intent. "There was a difficulty at the interview, nadi," he replied to the question of how it had gone. "A subject which should not have been brought up: nand' Jase. We know the staff here didn't release the information, but it is out."

  "One will inform nand' Saidin, paidhi-ji. One is distressed to hear so."

  "Thank you, Sasi-ji. — How is he doing?"

  "He's speaking to his mother now, nand' paidhi."

  "Thank you, Sasi-ji." He went aside immediately to the security station, into the usually open doorway and straight into the monitoring station which lay just inside.

  Tano was there with an ear-set, as were Banichi, Jago, and a junior security operator, all listening.

  Tano didn't say a thing, just surrendered his earpiece to him, and Bren tucked the device in his ear.

  "— don't know what else I can do," he heard, Jase's voice, speaking the language of the ship, and a long pause followed, where a reply should be.

  "I know," a woman's voice said finally, sad-sounding. "7 have no way to help you. I can't. And you can't. Except to get back as soon as you can."

  "They say it's making progress. That's all I can say."

  "Can you call again?"

  "I just don't know. I'll try. I will try."