Convergence

  Things are changing. Things not only have to change—things have already changed. But I haven’t forgotten.

  The door opened ahead of them: Narani had arrived back in his place, and resumed his duties as major domo, no question at all.

  “Nandi!” Narani greeted him, and there was a mild, decorous uproar of welcome from inside. There was food, there was the whole staff back together again, the ones from the station and the ones in from Najida and the ones who had stayed to keep the apartment in good order during his weeks of absence. There was an astonishingly empty message bowl—likely his secretarial office had handled anything that had to be handled: rare the person who had missed the news that the paidhi-aiji was not on the planet.

  And there was wine. He let himself take a glass, and, amid the celebration, took it to his office, and picked up the phone, and asked the Bujavid operator to put him through to Najida.

  Right before dinner time. No way would the staff send off Toby and Barb without one festive supper—and no way would Toby leave the harbor until he knew that the shuttle was safely down and that there would be no need for him to serve as emergency contact between the President and Tabini.

  Getting to Toby before he did leave dock was, however, imperative.

  “Is nand’ Toby still there?” was his very first question, impolitely abrupt, but there was a noisy party outside his office attempting to find him, and he needed to know that one fact from Najida staff before he took any congratulations from anybody on anything.

  “Yes, nandi,” was the answer. “I shall find Ramaso.”

  “Find Ramaso and find nand’ Toby, nadi. I need to speak to him.” He took a sip of wine. He needed to be in three places at once. Here, instructing his staff. At Najida, talking to the President on the most secure communications available. And on Mospheira, dealing with the situation and presenting that document before politics could muddy the waters.

  A mild outburst from the hallway, followed by calls to hush, nand’ Bren was on the phone to his brother.

  “Bren?”

  Toby himself was on the line. Out of breath.

  “Toby. Good to talk to you.”

  “Good to hear from you. Are you home?”

  “Home, and everything’s in good shape.” Never trust that a Bujavid phone was absolutely secure. Guild could get a message to Guild in security, and he could have gotten a message to Ramaso, but it was Toby he needed.

  “Need you and that boat, brother. How’s the bilge pump?”

  “First rate,” Toby said.

  “Fuel full and stock the galley,” he said. “Me and four. Meet me on the noon train. Bring the baggage truck.”

  “Got it.” Toby couldn’t possibly have a firm notion why he wanted a truck as well as the bus or why on earth he made a special note about the aishid that was always with him, but Toby had to be making guesses, and fairly accurate ones, that he was going out on the boat, that the probable interest in his boat had to do with the communications gear it carried, with accesses to President Shawn Tyers, and that if they were fueling full up, it was not a day trip or a fish dinner he had in mind. “Everything’s ready.”

  “Put Ramaso on.” He was sure his Najidi major d’ wouldn’t be far from the phone, and he was not surprised when Toby immediately handed the phone off.

  “Nandi,” Ramaso said. “Are you well?”

  “I am exceeding well, Rama-ji. Nand’ Toby will tell you everything he knows. I only wished to be sure you were in the current, and I thank you in advance. Nand’ Toby will explain. Please congratulate and thank the staff.”

  “I shall, nandi. Welcome home!”

  “Thank you, Rama-ji. I shall go now. They have given me wine and I believe there will be supper.”

  He hung up, with due courtesies. Toby was there. Toby would meet him. That was an immense relief. He wanted contact with his brother. He needed contact with his brother. He needed to be grounded—with what was Mospheiran—before he tried to slip back into that mindset.

  Now he had to break it to Narani and Jeladi that he was leaving and this time might not take them with him—Narani was an elderly man. Along with Jeladi, he had already voyaged to Reunion and back and dealt with the kyo on two occasions. But a Mospheiran venture . . .

  He rose and opened the door: Tano and Algini were out there, guarding his privacy even in the midst of festivities. From the sitting room, from the dining room, there was activity, laughter, even a waft of music.

  “Call Narani and Jeladi,” he told Tano and Algini, and retreated again into his office; and when Narani and Jeladi arrived: “Nadiin-ji, you have earned a homecoming and a rest. The aiji’s orders send me and my aishid to Mospheira, for at least seven days of meetings and dealing with the Reunioner problem. We shall go by boat. I can take Koharu and Supani . . .” Those two, his valets, had served in Narani’s place here, while Narani and Jeladi had gone with him aloft.

  “One has always longed to see the island,” Narani said.

  “If you do wish it.” It was a heavy load for the old man, seeing to court wardrobe with no assistance. But Narani’s good sense and calm demeanor was an asset.

  “We shall manage,” Jeladi said. And Jeladi was a young man.

  “If you wish, then,” he said. “I know you are up to the duty. Koharu and Supani may continue to manage the household here. We do not know what we shall face in terms of services, but take a cleaning kit and a press: we shall manage the press in baggage, one benefit of the sea passage. Arrange the red car, if you can, or something apt, to arrive at Najida at noon. Advise the three I named. I fear staff will be up all night dealing with the cases we brought down. It all must go again.”

  “It will,” Narani said.

  “Yes,” Jeladi said. “We shall manage it, nandi.”

  “Bring blankets, for the boat. And enjoy this evening. Please. Simply give orders. I plan to enjoy the party and get some sleep. Everyone else has at least just come back from holiday.”

  “Do not fret for staff,” Narani said. “One recommends at least two glasses of wine, possibly three: medicinal, nandi. A good supper, and sleep, nandi, at an early hour. The rest will happen on schedule. A sea voyage. What could be better?”

  Clearly a good many things could be better. They could not be facing Mospheiran politics, for one. But the old man bowed, Jeladi bowed, they left, and there was, truly, not much else for him to do. If there were a dire message in the letters in the hall, Koharu and Supani would have told him, since they had been handling his mail. If there were a problem in the household, they would have handled it or brought it to him, and he had heard of none.

  The back end of the apartment, staff quarters, the laundry, the storage, would be a busy place for the next number of hours, and he was sorry for the short turnaround. But what needed to happen would happen, clothes would be cleaned and re-packed, right back into the cases, the cases that had just come up from the train station would be sent down again, and he, meanwhile would have dinner, enjoy the happiness of one homecoming, have that second glass of wine—and he and Jago would find a very pleasant finish to the evening, abed.

  Guild reports? The Guild Observer who had come down with them, and the dowager’s head of security, Cenedi—they would deal with such details. Even his aishid could relax for one evening.

  Tomorrow would be mild chaos, but once they got there—they could get away fairly expeditiously. There would be some little to-do porting the heavy cases down the winding stone path to the dock, and getting everybody’s baggage canvased and secure on the deck, but deck cargo was no novelty for Toby. They would manage—himself and Toby and Barb, Banichi, Jago, Tano, Algini, and now Narani and Jeladi. Seven plus Toby and Barb. Brighter Days could sleep that many, easily, even in bad weather.

  Which he also needed to check. A storm front was just rolling through the midlands. That usually gave them five days’
grace before another, in this season.

  God, he was looking forward to the front end of this business—the familiar routines of a simple train trip, the chance to see his household at Najida—he should warn them he would not stay, that they would load on their cargo and go.

  But Toby would do that. Trust Toby for it. Toby knew Ragi enough.

  Thinking of language, however, and what he had to communicate, and to whom—that advised him there was some personal packing he had to see to before he had that second glass of wine.

  The document, above all. Electronic tablets, station technology, with Ragi and the kyo language.

  One was his. One he would give to the University.

  He also had his own computer—the Mospheiran original, poor battered machine, had finally senesced beyond rescue. He had a new one of atevi manufacture, with a keyboard that could flick from one set of characters to the next and might someday, with a little effort, deal with kyo.

  It was also half a kilo lighter, with four times the storage. The old one languished on fading batteries, viable, but nothing he was going to take to Mospheira—there was far too much on it that he had no desire to have meet electronic intrusions on the other side of the strait.

  There were people he wanted to meet. Shawn was one. President of Mospheira and likely one of the best ones they’d ever had. Kate. Who’d worked with him building the space program. Tom. Ben.

  Industry had wanted them—badly. He’d had that from Gin. Industry and commerce had wanted what they knew, wanted their management skills. Wanted their expertise, during the ship’s absence, when they’d needed to communicate with the station, and with the mainland.

  But the whole year before this one had been a crisis—one that had set the Reunioners ashore on a space station that didn’t want them, and one that had started with Tabini in exile and a puppet in charge, a front for some people who wanted to take the aishidi’tat back from every agreement with humans.

  The people of the aishidi’tat had had a voice in that, once they knew Tabini was alive and the aiji-dowager and the heir were back on Earth. They’d fixed things, and there’d been a few adjustments since . . . principally uncovering how conspirators had managed to overthrow Tabini by force, and hang on to power for as long as they had. It had boiled down to one little old man in an antiquated Guild office, a man who’d moved Guild assignees like chess pieces, putting them where the conspirators wanted. He’d been Ajuri clan, related to the aiji-consort, Cajeiri’s mother. Cajeiri’s grandfather had gone down, assassinated, possibly while trying to warn his grandson . . . they might never know.

  It had been a busy year and a half. But that evil time was behind them.

  And to his mild surprise—the atevi-human entente hadn’t fallen apart. The most dyed-in-the-wool conservatives in the aishidi’tat had worked with salt of the earth Mospheiran fishermen and coasters, smuggling, sharing information by sign language and a handful of words like fight Murini . . . had gotten information to orbit—passing notes the University could decipher and getting information up to Lord Geigi, who had kept the conspiracy discomfited, building a satellite network, informing the rebel underground, and in a few instances, getting communication equipment into rebel hands.

  He didn’t know what he’d find, in that regard, whether new people had made headway with the old attitudes in the University, or whether new people had had no such luck. One thing offered a little clue to that—that Gin Kroger, attempting to deal with the Reunioner resettlement situation, had found herself profoundly ignored. She’d been ordered home from the station, her visa expired and not renewed, and, damn, he wished Geigi had stepped in to grant her one from his side of the divided station. But Tillington. Tillington. Tillington . . . stationmaster on the human side . . . had simply declined to renew it, and ordered space for her on the next shuttle downbound.

  An atevi shuttle, as happened. But that had been the transport available.

  She’d gone up this time on an executive branch appointment—the approach of the kyo and Shawn’s declaration of an emergency had enabled that move. And with a Presidential fiat in hand, she could issue her own visa.

  He really wondered whether it was all Tillington—or just how Gin’s dismissal had played out. He had his suspicions who might be agitated about Tillington’s case, or who might find it convenient for their purposes.

  Which was a very good reason to delay getting Tillington down to the world.

  He had not wanted to involve himself in that.

  But Tabini had picked up a chess piece and moved it. Onto the other side of the board.

  2

  Nand’ Bren was leaving again. Nand’ Bren had only just gotten home yesterday, and Veijico had heard it from Guild communications that nand’ Bren was sending baggage back down to the train station and he would be taking the Red Train.

  Today.

  So maybe, Cajeiri thought, nand’ Bren was going to the coast, because nand’ Toby was there, or he had been, and probably still was, so it was very likely nand’ Bren was going to see his brother and go fishing.

  Well, no, probably not for more than a day, but if it was going to be a short run out and back, maybe he could go along, maybe his father would let him.

  But then Veijico said, when the thought was only forming in his mind, that nand’ Bren was taking the same big wardrobe cases he had brought down on the shuttle. Court wardrobe.

  That made no sense at Najida, especially out on the boat. So something was going on.

  “Is he going to Najida?” he asked Veijico, and Veijico said, “What they say the paidhi is doing and what he is really doing may not be the same thing. The cases are not what one would need at Najida.”

  Veijico’s sources were not necessarily telling all the truth. But if nand’ Bren was going anywhere but Najida, or even if he was, certainly Father would know about it.

  And Father was in his upstairs office this morning.

  So he went there, knocked softly and opened the door.

  Father looked up from his desk and gave him an acknowledging nod.

  He came the rest of the way in, bowed. “Nand’ Bren seems to be going to Najida, honored Father.”

  “He is, but Najida is a waystop. He is going to Mospheira.”

  “To Mospheira!” That was a little scary. Nand’ Bren had not gone to Mospheira, ever, that he could remember.

  But nand’ Bren was on good terms with the Presidenta, and there was the treaty he had brought down.

  “Is he taking the treaty, honored Father?”

  “An excellent guess. Yes, son of mine. He is. He will relay our good will to the Presidenta, and he will prepare the way for your young associates to come down, and do all that needs to be done to make a safe place for the rest.”

  That was very good news, though far more remote than the trip to Najida he had hoped for. He regretted not going. But it sounded like more than a day or two. It sounded like something that could take a long time. He hoped not. He truly hoped not.

  “One thought, if he were going to Mospheira, he would fly there, from here.”

  A nod from his father. “Indeed. But nand’ Toby and he have a little to discuss. He will wish to know how Mospheira is, what currents run there. They will make a fairly leisurely crossing, and Port Jackson affords an easy access, so he says.”

  “Will it be long?”

  “A number of days, one would think. And he wishes to give this return to Mospheira a little leisurely, but respectful approach, with the treaty, with the meetings to come. If he flew, it would all be in great haste, with high security, with an atmosphere of modern haste and perhaps a sense of pressure. I think nand’ Bren knows exactly what he is doing, and the tone he sets. Do you not?”

  Toby’s boat pulling into Port Jackson, just like coming in at Najida—was a great deal different than coming in at the airport—Cajeiri had actuall
y set foot on Mospheira, very briefly, when he and mani and nand’ Bren had come back from space, and that had been hurry and worry all the way to the harbor, where, among a forest of masts of little boats, they had just gotten on nand’ Toby’s boat and been away and safe—at least for a while. The airport was a confused memory, haste, and worry—a great deal of worry about security.

  He understood, maybe better than his father, why nand’ Bren had wanted to come in on nand’ Toby’s boat—for quiet, for security, because there would be no need to watch his back for however long it took. The kyo were going away. And everything was safe. But he well understood why nand’ Bren chose what he did, just to have a few days of rest.

  “I think so,” he said to his father. “One only wishes one were going along. Except not to Mospheira. I would not like to be there.”

  His father gazed at him a moment in a way that said he had bad news. “There is an obligation, son of mine, regarding where you have been and things you have seen. Your great-grandmother will host a dinner, to which she will invite certain persons, like your great-uncle, who will listen to her. So it falls on us to host one for those who will not.”

  That required a little second thought. A dinner party. One of those that did not include mani, and probably included absolutely nobody he wanted to deal with.

  “So I should be there,” he said.

  “You are the one who can explain these things,” his father said. “Some of these people are skeptical that things in the heavens even exist in the way we say. But you have seen these strangers, and you have talked to them.”

  “I have,” he said unhappily. “When?”

  “The day after tomorrow. Giving certain of these people time to come in by train. You are tired, you have more than merited some days of rest, but the opportunity to meet these people and bend their opinions in a good direction—”

  “Is important,” he finished for his father, with a deep sigh. Completing his father’s sentence was impertinent, and mani would never tolerate it. So his father would not, under ordinary circumstances, but he had just lost an imagined chance to go to Najida, and now discovered he had a dinner party with people he wished did not exist. It was not going to be a good evening, and his father was trying to make him happy in the situation.