Visitor

  “Mani, he asks—”

  “We shall listen,” Ilisidi said.

  That was how he had found them once at Reunion, Bren recalled. He had been beyond worried about how things had been going, and he had come back to find Ilisidi and her great-grandson entertaining Prakuyo, having communicated in their own unique way.

  Admit she had understood one word of kyo? No. Answer the question as if she had not needed to hear it? Quite smoothly.

  One memory resurrected, a very good one, where Prakuyo was concerned, the moment Prakuyo had known he was free, and Prakuyo had become quite cheerful, talking to his fellows in quiet tones.

  Dishes had arrived, quietly, dishes that, served up, evoked that cheerful booming and thumping that had not been in evidence in last night’s long session. Bindanda had kept his own little notebook at Reunion, he had admitted it—being Guild, very likely had memorialized in Guild records the very recipes he had observed Prakuyo to enjoy.

  And they flowed from the kitchen in quantity now, a good start to a very critical day.

  • • •

  “Everything,” Jase called to say, in Ragi, “is being arranged. Handoff will be at our convenience, and we have suggested 1430, ship-reckoning, as a good time. Does that work? It’s all for you. We can move it.”

  “We can meet that,” Bren said, and settled back to work at the dining table, concentrating on rapid memorization. The devices had an optional disconnect from updates, which was useful right now, keeping the screen from jumping about as the group in the sitting area looked up and added words.

  He could have gone to his suite and shut the door. He could have separated himself from the gathering in the sitting area—which occasionally erupted in thumps and booms, and now and again in soft exclamations from Cajeiri.

  But it was good to hear. It was good to know things were on track and people were agreeing and words were arriving. The curtains were drawn back, and he had a view of the group at the table and they had a view of him, while the good-natured exchanges around that table constantly reassured him he was not, at the moment, necessary to the conversation.

  Ilisidi presided over that gathering, though her comments were few. Prakuyo and Cajeiri and Hakuut had the liveliest exchanges, with occasional low-voice words from Matuanu. “Add it to the device!” Cajeiri would say, and Hakuut would say, “One has done it!”

  One could worry about a little too much revelation going on over there, a little too much information slipping out on what met them on their return from Reunion—an account of the aishidi’tat’s problems was not an auspicious topic, unless it paid for similar information from Prakuyo on what had become of Reunion, or what Prakuyo had done in the interval. That was a question he longed to ask, but asking it led to places he was not sure they should go at this stage, with this limited vocabulary, and by no means did he want to open topics that might lead into a tangle of more topics.

  There were words he wanted. He ached to get up, go over there, steer the conversation in certain directions at certain opportune moments to get what he wanted, but he concentrated on structure; that was his immediate and fairly urgent need: the little words, the connectors, the directionals, the actions in time, what one wanted to do versus what actually happened . . .

  So, so many deadly shades of doing and being . . .

  He had found in the discussion, however, a significant equivalency of pronouns, or at least a handful of them. Ragi had he, associate of mine; he, associate of the second, third, fourth, fifth degree of associations; he, without association to anyone I know, and he, my enemy before one even got to he, the associate of my enemy and so on. And that was just one pronoun. But it was at least structurally predictable.

  Mosphei’ and ship-speak handled those situations mostly with tonality, body language, and facial expressions, precisely where atevi might go stone-faced.

  Kyo—had some sort of we, you, and they, and we moderated by particles into a we including you, and we not including you, we including others and you, we including others but not you, and we as distinct from others. Particles starting with you similarly designated an outside party. Or not. There was a word for I, but it seemed far rarer than we. There was a he, several versions of he, but whether there was also a distinct she or an it he had not yet discovered.

  We. That word Prakuyo had rejected early on. We had induced real upset, back at Reunion, when they had all been strangers. Emotional context, there. Possibly it had been, in that moment, just keep your distance.

  Prakuyo’s current association right now sat evident before him: Matuanu, who rarely spoke, and Hakuut, who occasionally spoke too much.

  Mirror, he wondered, himself, the dowager, the young gentleman? No, Prakuyo had identified Matuanu as a bodyguard and Hakuut as a computer tech.

  That left the question what was Prakuyo? They still had no sure notion.

  All the expressive booms and thumps that the teams on- and off-site were recording and breaking down remained just as inaccessible today as yesterday, an impenetrable system that might turn meanings in a subtle way, or turn an utterance absolutely upside down. They thought now they could identify happy sounds and he knew one—a deep penetrating hum—that was distinctly unhappy. They might be able to teach the kyo what human expressions meant. But emotion itself might be a difficulty. Kyo did seem very emotive. Atevi weren’t. It might be a cultural answer to a problem—but society depended on it. Mospheirans vented emotion, but the kyo might be making noise to conceal it, rather than express it.

  Could kyo deceive and lie, with those thumps and booms, or were they to some degree involuntary? They had controlled them—considerably—but not eliminated them.

  There were likely already mistranslations or almost-translations in the vocabulary they had from the kyo, assumptions equally foundational and profound, but nobody knew enough yet, on either side, to be able to sort those out. Neither side in that sitting area had yet a clue what the triggers were.

  But the good-humored exchanges, the occasional bursts of surprise and amusement—those seemed genuine, at least a foundation of good intent, lowering tensions—and raising expectations for fair dealing.

  Should one be surprised that the aiji-dowager, who had no patience with people wanting favors they would not outright name and far less with people persisting in trivial discussion, was sitting there, part of the interactions, smiling and seeming amused while Cajeiri and Hakuut settled on a definition of fast and slow.

  Oh, one should not in the least be surprised. She was expert at such meetings. And dealing with a power that could blow the station to hell kept her, oh, very alert, and one had an uncomfortable suspicion—entertained. Not a flinch, not a twitch, not a frown. She was the soul of willing hospitality.

  She was logging every transaction, every minuscule reaction in her own system of reckoning.

  Cajeiri, too, had been extremely careful of his answers and his questions.

  Until Prakuyo asked, “You have associates same nine years?”

  Bren, momentarily deep in possessive pronouns, heard it and took in a breath. And faster than he could think of a distraction, Cajeiri said, frankly, properly:

  “Yes.”

  “On the planet? Station?”

  Cajeiri hesitated. Hesitation on a yes-no answer was not a search for vocabulary. It involved truth. And credibility.

  “Reunioners,” Cajeiri said on his own, and a half-heartbeat before Bren. “Reunioners come on ship. We talk. Associates.”

  Bren never looked up from his study. Intervening too emphatically would indicate anxiety on the point. He listened, trying to hope the boy could handle it.

  “Reunioners here on station?”

  “Yes, nandi. All here.”

  God, Bren thought, wondering if a proposal for tea, and a general session, could derail the conversation at this point.

  But Cajeiri ad
ded, quick as a breath. “I go on the ship two years, go down to planet—I see my mother and my father—and new baby comes. I have baby associate. Small. On the planet.”

  That produced a ripple of sounds from the kyo.

  “The young gentleman has a new sister,” Ilisidi said, as if she had understood it all, and: “One is curious. Did Prakuyo also go home after we met, or has he come here from Reunion?”

  A boom and thump.

  One might not understand every sound kyo made, but Prakuyo had reacted to that question and shut it down.

  “Do you come here from Reunion?” Cajeiri asked.

  Prakuyo had his own heartbeat of silence. Then his own diversion: “Reunioner associates on station, young aiji. Yes?”

  “Yes. On station.”

  “Come see talk eat teacakes.”

  “Mani?” Cajeiri said soberly, probably realizing how deep the waters had gotten. “One believes he is asking whether my guests may come here.”

  Attack and counter. Prakuyo had dodged Ilisidi’s question—with a countershot.

  He should have intervened before now, Bren thought. Intervening now—God knew it was a shade too late.

  “Nand’ dowager,” Bren said, pushing back from the table, “nandiin.” He walked over to the sitting area, gave a little bow to Ilisidi, and quietly took a chair. “Prakuyo-ji,” he said, “I have heard. Kyo upset the Reunioners. Children upset. Mothers and fathers upset.”

  “Fix,” Prakuyo said. “Want fix.”

  Was that a proposal—in the direction of peace? Or was it a maneuver?

  That proposal wanted the kids’ involvement—and meeting with their own lifelong nightmare.

  “Aiji-ma,” he said, prepared to translate.

  Ilisidi lifted her hand. “My great-grandson’s guests have ridden mecheiti. A peaceful meeting with foreigners will not discomfit them.”

  That—was probably true. And the dowager had absorbed much more kyo than one had possibly thought.

  Cajeiri looked at his grandmother. “Reni would come.”

  “I think Gene and Artur would not let Reni come alone,” Bren said quietly. He should, he thought, be appalled. He should feel shame and guilt, and he did. But the dowager had conjured an image: mecheiti outside the bus windows—intruders in the house at night.

  The kids had done what the dowager reminded him. They had seen things he was sure they hadn’t told their parents.

  He could evade an explanation. But they had, at least, to advise the parents on this one, or forever lose the parents’ trust in him and every other authority involved. He had to explain how it was necessary. Critical.

  “I shall ask Jase-aiji talk to the mothers and fathers,” Bren said to Prakuyo with a little bow.

  “Say mothers children safe,” Prakuyo said. “No upset.”

  “Tell them we request it,” Ilisidi said firmly.

  These—were the youngsters apt to be advising her grandson on things human, if they all lived that long. And the risk was not the kyo in this room, or a youngster panicking. It was that ship out there, against which they and the planet below had no effective defense.

  “I shall advise them, aiji-ma,” he said, “that this is what they have to do.”

  Follow the dowager’s orders blindly, because they were hers? No. Follow them because the dowager was going to protect the planet, protect the aishidi’tat, protect her great-grandson, and protect those kids her great-grandson valued, for reasons she saw. She had spent the last hour and more taking in an impression of the kyo, reading what signals she could gather, and she was no fool, nor one to be pushed. She had an agenda. She had added the numbers and met Prakuyo dodge for dodge. And she expected kids who were someday going to stand beside her great-grandson to come down here and do it now.

  “Aiji-ma.” He got up and went far aside, still remembering kyo hearing, and used the pocket com. “Jase. Jase. It’s Bren. We need you.”

  “Jase here,” the answer came back.

  “We have a request from Prakuyo and from the aiji-dowager. Prakuyo wants to meet the young gentlemen’s three associates. We need to arrange that without alarming the parents. If the parents want to come down here, not to be in sight, but to be near, to know what’s happening—they can use the inner hall and observe from my sitting room. My staff knows a little ship-speak. The parents can have tea and hospitality and I absolutely guarantee no harm is going to come to those children. The dowager will be supervising, and she will absolutely protect those children from any harm, mental or physical. Can you talk them into it, get them down here?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Jase?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jase said, himself from a culture that had never had an ability to exempt children from risk. “They were at Tirnamardi. There was no time they panicked.”

  “I don’t think I’d bring Tirnamardi up to the parents just now,” Bren said. “Just tell them they’re under the aiji-dowager’s protection, and they’re being asked to attend the young gentleman in a state function, if you will. They will not be hurt.”

  “Got it,” Jase said. A briefer pause. “Give me half an hour.”

  • • •

  Study went by the board, given the turn things had taken. Bren settled next to the dowager in the sitting area, listening as Hakuut and Cajeiri pursued their own definitions of relations and associations—shades of the same word in kyo. His mind wanted to dive aside after the entire concept . . . but the here and now demanded absolute attention, absolute readiness to steer conversation away from anything that might bring another, more problematic request from the kyo.

  He dreaded any call from Jase in the interval. Half an hour, Jase had said. And if the parents refused, they had to gain the youngsters’ cooperation all the same—or bring the kyo up there. And if the youngsters themselves finally reached the limit of strangeness they were willing to tolerate . . .

  But the longer he didn’t get that call, the more hopeful he became.

  Cajeiri was describing his associates at the moment, in Ragi, perfectly composed and pleasant, rattling on about how he had met them on the ship—one grew just a little anxious when he reached the part about them reaching the station and needing to race down to the planet, but Cajeiri very smoothly said that he had told his associates that they would come down and see him.

  Which they had done. With that, Cajeiri leaped over all the untidiness of conspiracy and murder—untidiness which had not taken a holiday when the three Reunioner youngsters had come down to visit.

  Steady lad.

  All of them had been steady.

  There’d been no word what the Andressen boy had decided to do, or what that situation was. One regretted now having dismissed all that set of decisions from his slate. He should have told Jase—

  No. No way in hell would Jase bring Bjorn’s father down with the others. Artur’s parents, and Gene’s mother—all they had to be was, please God, quiet.

  Cenedi, in attendance on Ilisidi, said quietly, “The young people are on their way, aiji-ma. They are going to the lift.”

  “Well,” Ilisidi said. “We shall have a variety of teacakes, shall we not?”

  The kitchen, in their mingled household, was in the hands of the paidhi-aiji’s staff. And at Bren’s simple glance, Banichi nodded and made a call. Teacakes were on order. Water, in the samovar, was constantly hot.

  There was a little booming and thumping amid the arrangements, a little exchange of words, including the word Reunion, and ship, perhaps a discussion of everybody’s impression of what Cajeiri had just said.

  Narani was in charge in the apartment, Bren said to himself, with a very competent staff. If parents came down, and one thought they well might, Narani and Tano and Algini could show the parents exactly what was going on in their monitoring, and reassure them constantly that the youngsters were saf
e. He refused to worry on their account. What mattered was the youngsters’ nerve, the youngsters’ comfort.

  Kandana slipped out of the apartment and headed to the foyer doors without a word. That indicated their visitors were on the way, and a moment later all three kyo twitched a glance toward the right wall.

  The lift was stopping, Bren thought. He didn’t hear it. Banichi and Jago hadn’t reacted, perhaps because it was expected, perhaps because they hadn’t heard it either.

  “One believes they are here,” he remarked, and saw the kyo glance expectantly toward the door.

  If the parents had come down their voices would be heard, Bren thought.

  The outer doors opened. Kandana was in the foyer. So would several of the dowager’s bodyguard be in that foyer, perhaps with the Guild Observers.

  “Our kyo guests should know,” Bren said, “that it is the custom of atevi houses to have a hallway for servants to move about. We have invited the mothers and fathers of the children to come down, but they will come in by that hallway, to be near.”

  There was a little discussion on that matter—but the foyer door opened, and Cajeiri got up. Bren did. So did the kyo—to the sight of Irene and Gene and Artur arriving from the foyer, all three in atevi dress, advancing bravely and making their proper bows.

  “Nadiin-ji,” Cajeiri greeted them, and went to them, escorting them to the kyo and presenting them. “This is Prakuyo an Tep, about whom I have told you. These are his associates, Matuanu an Matu and Hakuut an Ti. These three are my associates, nandiin. This is Irene, this is Gene, and this is Artur.”

  There were bows on both sides, a little bobbing and booming, at which the youngster’s eyes grew very wide. Gene had Irene’s hand, held it fast.

  “Please come,” Cajeiri said, steering them to the left, toward his own chair, and Kandana and Cajeiri’s young bodyguard quietly moved chairs in, and little tables, so that they all could sit down.

  Bows to the dowager, a nod returned. The youngsters all settled on the edge of very large chairs, eyeing the kyo anxiously, as the kyo, bobbing and muttering, settled down.