Inheritor

  Going fishing, Bren thought in disbelief. Going fishing? They had a young man under interrogation for invasion of a perimeter only slightly less touchy than that around Tabini himself, Ilisidi talking about lord Geigi joining them, and Deana Hanks talking to two atevi on radio who were probably Direiso's agents, and Jase asked were they going fishing?

  His roommate, however, was neither clairvoyant nor briefed on matters, and the last statement he'd heard uttered regarded lord Geigi and a boat.

  Ilisidi never batted an eye as she looked in Jase's direction and said, "Perhaps."

  Oh, God, Bren thought, feeling that the conversation was going down by the stern. He tried to catch Jago's eye, or Banichi's, and got nothing but a stare from Cenedi as uninformative and sealed as Ilisidi's was. He looked the other direction down the table, at Algini, and Tano, and a cluster of the dowager's young men, as she called them, all Guild, all dangerous, all doubtless better informed than he was.

  "I would like the Onondisi bay, nand' dowager," Jase said. "I've heard a great deal about the island. I saw it from the air." r

  Ilisidi quirked that brow that could, were the Guild under such instructions, doom a man to die, and smiled at Jase.

  "We may, I say, go north, nadi."

  Bren dropped his knife onto the stone floor, necessitating a scramble by servants to retrieve it.

  "Foolish of me," Bren said with a deep bow of his head, and allowed its replacement with a clean one without comment. "Perhaps it's the drink, nand' dowager. May I suggest my associate go to bed now."

  "Early start tomorrow," Ilisidi said. "These young folk. Cenedi-ji, were we ever so easily exhausted?"

  "I think not, aiji-ma," Cenedi said quietly.

  "This modern reliance on machines." Ilisidi made a wave of her hand. "Go, go! No one should leave the table before he's done, but get to bed in good season, else I assure you you'll pay for it tomorrow!"

  Jase at least comprehended it was a dismissal and, Tano and Algini clearing the bench for him, he was able to extricate himself. Bren worked his way out, having been similarly freed by two of Ilisidi's security. The two further benches rose in courtesy to the departing paidhiin.

  "Go, go," Ilisidi said to the offered bows, and gave another wave. "In the morning, gather at the front steps."

  "Nand' dowager," Jase said with a further bow, and not a thing else. Bren escorted him from the hall, up the steps, to their room, and inside, into the candle-lit dark and chill of an unheated room.

  Jase turned. Bren shut the door.

  Jase said, humanwise: "Trust you, is it?"

  "What's the matter with you? Were you trying to foul things up or was it your lucky night?"

  At least Jase shut up, whether in temper or the mild realization that things might be more complicated than he thought.

  "Do me a great favor, if you please, nadi. Go to bed."

  "Are you coming back?"

  "I assure you. Take whichever side you wish, nadi, and I will gladly take the other."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To try to patch up the dowager's good regard and find out what the boy from Dur is doing here, at the real risk of his life."

  He might have been mistaken by candlelight; but there was a little reckoning of that latter statement on Jase's part, and maybe a prudent decision not to ask a question he had in mind.

  "Will they tell you that?" Jase asked.

  "They'd have told you if you hadn't set the evening on its ear. You do not question the dowager and you do not question her arrangements! Jase, what in hell's the matter with you? This is your associate here, me! This is the person with an equal interest in seeing that ship fly! What are we fighting about?"

  He expected an explosion at least of equivalent magnitude. "Nadi," Jase began in Ragi, and then again, "What do I have to do to have you on my side, nadi?"

  "I am on your side!" He dropped his voice, moved close and seized Jase by the lapels long enough to bring his lips to Jase's ear. "Bug," was all he whispered, and Jase went wooden in his grip and very quiet.

  "Just stay here," Bren said aloud and let go.

  And left.

  Downstairs again, toward their makeshift banquet hall, where nothing had much changed except most of the security was on their feet, the servants were cleaning up, and Ilisidi was still seated, her cane, however, in her hands, and her chair angled at forty-five degrees to the table.

  "Well," Ilisidi said, as if he satisfied expectations by appearing.

  "Tano-ji," he said in passing, though it was an act of temerity to give orders to Tano, or to give orders to anyone in Ilisidi's hall, "keep an eye on Jase, please."

  "Yes," Tano said as Bren came to Ilisidi.

  "Dowager-ji," Bren said, "first, forgive my associate his lack of understanding."

  There was a nod, with amiable quiet.

  "And forgive me mine. But, nand' dowager, is there anything I may ask in confidence?"

  "What do you wish to know, nand' paidhi?"

  "Why is that boy here, aiji-ma?"

  Ilisidi braced the ferrule of her cane against the irregular stones of the floor and leaned forward. "A good question. Cenedi-ji, why is this boy here?"

  "He is young, he is intemperate, he lacks all finesse, and he believes he alone holds vital information about a threat to global peace."

  He guessed, then, what that information might concern: a dweller on the island, near the runaway transmissions.

  "Well-intentioned, then," he said.

  "One believes so."

  "Nandiin," Algini said quietly, Algini, who tended to pick up the small details, "he has repeatedly attempted to reach the paidhi — or the aiji. He seems not at all particular."

  "Well, well," Ilisidi said. "Let's have a look at him. Nand' paidhi, do you wish to hear the matter, or not?"

  "I shall gladly hear it," he murmured, "aiji-ma." His brain was racing meanwhile and he had Jago but not Banichi or Tano within the field of his vision. He thought that if there were a problem developing between him and Ilisidi he would see Jago's signal to withdraw once Ilisidi said that.

  But at a certain point he had to rely on them and their man'chi to Tabini. He had never quite so much realized what it might be to stand in the middle of a sort-out of atevi loyalties, blind in his human heart of hearts to what might be going on in atevi; but knowing emotionally, human-fashion, that his heart was with Banichi and Jago, that his duty insisted on Tabini, and that friendship, yes, friendship, wanted Tabini and Ilisidi both to listen to him and not tear the world apart.

  Stupid, stupid, to have it any other way, and he would not believe that Ilisidi was ready to make such moves, or that Tabini had so misread his grandmother in sending them out here.

  Cenedi had made a call on his pocket com, and in not very long black-uniformed security came in from the front door, among them Banichi and several of their own, among Ilisidi's; and with them, a figure in black — the fool, Bren thought — handcuffed and disheveled, and looking for all the world like a scared kid.

  "Nand' paidhi!" the boy said.

  "Young fool," Ilisidi said, and had his attention — at which point said young fool seemed to realize (surely he'd known the paidhi was here when he invaded the place) that he was in far deeper trouble. The boy grew quiet, and bowed as respectfully as one could in handcuffs and being restrained by two of the largest of Ilisidi's young men.

  "The paidhi-aiji has a question for you," Ilisidi said. "Perhaps you will give him the courtesy of an answer?"

  "Aiji-ma, yes, if it please your ladyship."

  "Nand' paidhi?"

  "Nand' Rejiri of Dur-wajran?"

  "Yes, nand' paidhi."

  "Why did you — ?" Attempt to fly into my plane? That was surely not the intent. That was just a pilot inexperienced at that airport. "— come to Shejidan?"

  "To tell the aiji there's treason."

  "Then why pursue me?"

  "Because your lordship could tell the aiji I wasn't a fool!"

&nbs
p; There was a circular argument.

  "I truly never expressed to the aiji that you were one." But the case was clear to him, now: the boy, humiliated, his plane impounded after near collision with the aiji's own plane, couldn't even hope for a hearing that wouldn't involve a plane, the ATC, and his father, a lord of the Association.

  And this was a very upset young man, as shaken and as distraught as he'd ever seen an ateva become. "So," he said to the young man, "the aiji-dowager is listening to every word. What will you say, regarding this treason?"

  And hope to God the treason wasn't something Ilisidi was involved in. The boy couldn't know, any more than he could, unless his information accidentally involved Ilisidi's associates or activities, which he truly didn't think.

  "Radios," the boy said. "And humans, nand' dowager. I'm not making it up."

  "Go on about these radios and humans," Ilisidi said, seated like an aiji in court, indeed, with her silver-headed cane in her wrinkled hands and her yellow eyes sharp and absolutely uncommunicative. "What do you say, nadi?"

  "That —" Having gotten permission, the young man lost all control over his breathing. "That a plane keeps going out and flying over the ocean, aiji-ma, and you can hear it talking with somebody who speaks Ragi, but who sounds like a human."

  "Female, nadi?" Bren asked.

  "On the radio — I don't know. I think it might be, nand' paidhi. One — one would hesitate to say —"

  Bang! went the cane on the paving-stones. "And you were where, when you heard these things?"

  "In my father's plane, aiji-ma."

  "So you immediately flew to Shejidan and scared hell out of the aiji's pilot."

  "Aiji-ma —" The young man was rattled. Badly.

  "Could you not have made a phone call?"

  "I was afraid — I was afraid it had to go through somewhere —"

  "You could have told your father, young man."

  There was a flicker of fear, real fear, in the young man's expression. "I stole the plane, aiji-ma."

  "Keeping your father out of the notoriety, are you, nadi? The hell you stole it!"

  "Aiji-ma, I stole his plane."

  The paidhi himself would not like to have been the recipient of that look, in that position; and he had been, both.

  "So," Ilisidi said, "what else do you know? Not from this plane. From your own sense and the gossip of your elders, what do you know?"

  "The man'chi of my house is to the descendants of Barjida, nand' dowager."

  That was a neat piece of evasion — to the Barjidi, meaning Tabini's line at the time of the War. Ilisidi was married into that line, not born to it, and it was a man'chi predating the present Ragi aiji but including him. He was in a damned machimi play and the kid was doing a piece of footwork either his father regularly did or that he'd seen on television, the classic cousin-to-the-line who turned out to have a knife on his person.

  But it wasn't television, and the smile Ilisidi gave him was a dangerous, dangerous thing, while — the human tumbled to the fact slowly, being dead to atevi emotions — he was in exactly the same position, appointed and protected by the Barjida's descendant, Tabini-aiji.

  Who had sent him here. Who had sent — God! Banichi and Jago — here.

  The same team the aiji had sent to kill Saigimi — here, inside Ilisidi's defenses. He'd seen this game before, the extreme gesture, this insertion of someone deadly dangerous as Banichi and Jago along with the very vulnerable paidhi inside Ilisidi's defenses — challenging the dowager to make an overt move against him.

  Or to take his pledge of alliance.

  It was hard to keep his calm. But he stood there expressionless, having realized exactly what he'd been playing with when he'd taken Jase to Ilisidi.

  He'd walked right into an operation of some kind, a thorn-patch where atevi could feel their way and he had to find it by sheer logic.

  Did it feel right to Banichi and Jago right now? Did it feel right to Ilisidi and Cenedi? Or were atevi on one side or the other reaching some pitch of decision that would come crashing down?

  Hadn't he said it? The ship would send another one. So would the island.

  No. No. Tabini couldn't count on anyone more on his side than he was if he shot Deana and demanded the backup to her. Which might say something about his own sanity — but it was an atevi consideration, for a species that felt something about man'chi and its direction: a lord didn't attack his own — ask them to die, yes, send them to die, yes, but not without gain to him and his partisans.

  Either Tabini was very sure of Ilisidi — now — or ready to take a loss that would not be inconsiderable to his power, a sacrifice of a very major piece for no gain commensurate with the loss.

  "So," Ilisidi said in a tone of restrained anger. "If your man'chi is to the Barjidi, if you have sought the paidhi-aiji, perhaps you will deliver your information to the paidhi."

  The boy's glance at him was instant and distraught. "I wish you to deliver what you have to say to the aiji-dowager," Bren said, "as a lord in whom I have confidence."

  Clearly the boy looked marginally relieved. But scared. And going through layers upon layers in his mind, surely. He bowed one more time."I heard people plotting against the aiji, nand' dowager. I haven't lied, nand' dowager."

  "Young and foolish," Ilisidi said. "What have you observed?"

  "This human person. These pilots. Radios that move about the countryside and operate on the trains."

  On the trains, Bren thought in surprise. Of course that would be one way to get a broadcast into some remote village, trains passing through, radios operating on the public bands, on or off by turns.

  But Tabini had to be aware of such things going on.

  So must Ilisidi.

  "Who would do such things?" Ilisidi asked.

  "People who say the aiji is turning us over to humans."

  "Oh, and one day, one certain day some internal computer chip will make all our machines fail as the ship rains death-rays down on us and the humans pour off the island to ruin us — have you heard that one, nand' paidhi?"

  "No, aiji-ma, I have not."

  "More rational ones say that the ship itself is meant to fail, to bring down the government by that failure, and that the means will be a technical fault introduced through the designs themselves."

  He had heard that argued soberly in the council rooms of the legislature. "There are numerous reasons that's not the case, nand' dowager."

  "One has confidence in your confidence, nand' paidhi. But you are so persuasive. — What do you say, young man?"

  "About —"

  The cane banged the pavement. "Your wits, boy! What were we talking about?"

  "About the aiji turning us over to humans, nand' dowager."

  Ilisidi leaned forward, her hands clasped on the cane. "Do you believe it?"

  "No, nand' dowager."

  "Does your father the lord of Dur-wajran believe it?"

  "No, nand' dowager. We are —"

  "— in the man'chi of the Barjidi."

  "And to all who support the aiji, nand' dowager."

  "Does birthing the ingrate's father settle me in the Barjidi man'chi?"

  "If you will it to, nand' dowager."

  Clearly the boy was losing his composure but not necessarily his wits. But a game of wits with the dowager was not one any boy could win.

  "Say that my ingrate grandson and I should have the same interest," Ilisidi said, leaning back, carefully skirting the question of whether she had an overlord, which was private and privileged information, but she admitted, for the first time he had ever heard, to association with Tabini. After years living among atevi a human could begin to hope he had the straight of it. "And say that your father, within the man'chi of the Barjidi, has sent his son to Shejidan —"

  "My father never sent me —"

  Bang! went the cane. "The hell, boy! Your father sent you when the assassination of lord Saigimi shook the inattentive out of bed from here to Malguri! You flew i
mmediately to Shejidan, accidentally arriving in the flight path of the aiji's plane, and were involved with the tightened security so you could by no means deliver your message, which you have regularly attempted to inflict upon the paidhi! Am I correct!"

  There was a small silence, a chastened demeanor. "Yes, nand' dowager."

  "Why now? Why not earlier?"

  "Because we didn't know the aiji might not know. Because if it was important, the aiji should know, nand' dowager."

  "Going quickly and by stealth through the skies."

  "Yes, nand' dowager." The boy bowed his head. "I broke the law. I knew I broke it."

  "And broke it again coming here!"

  "No, nand' dowager. I took the train."

  Rarely did anyone get a reaction from the dowager when she was in this mood. The brows went up and crashed down, hard. "I mean coming through the barriers, young man! How did you know to come here!"

  "It's all over —" The boy took a breath. "All over the province, all over the country, I think, nand' dowager."

  "You, young man, will go with my security, you will stay in your room, and in the stead of your father, who is in the man'chi of my ungrateful grandson, you will take orders from me, do you hear, or I will shoot you with my own hand."

  "Yes, nand' dowager."

  "Take him elsewhere!" Ilisidi said, and members of her staff collected the young man. "See he gets supper."

  The boy put up no argument about it. And Ilisidi, leaning on her cane, rose with a frown on her face.

  "By train, indeed. Before we took off this morning, the boy left the capital. And changed trains. — Nand' paidhi."

  "Aiji-ma."

  "Radios. Radios, do you understand?"

  "I have heard the rumor."

  A wave of Ilisidi's hand. "To bed, to bed. Don't concern yourself with tomorrow. We'll go riding. Perhaps we'll have a look at the sea and satisfy this intemperate young man you've brought me. He's beginning to be interesting."

  He hesitated, then thought better of questioning Ilisidi.

  "Aiji-ma," he said, and turned and went for the steps, thinking that he had to get a few minutes alone with his security.

  He heard someone behind him. He didn't want to look and find out until he reached the privacy of the floor above.