Uncle, for one thing, supported proper manners, and thanks in no small part to the coup, a lot of young lords had taken over clans with less preparation in the traditions than they needed. Manners were in danger—and traditions were threatened, which were a strong issue among Conservatives. But they were not the only issue, and some of the issues the Conservatives backed set them apart from the townships. A few years ago, Uncle might not have entertained people on his lawn and listened so seriously to a candidate even younger than some of the lords who tried Uncle’s patience.
Ajuri and its townships and villages desperately needed a lord to represent them—and a lord strong enough to sort out the internal mess Shishogi had created for them. They needed a lord who would represent the ordinary people and do things the way a lord should. Mother was in line to inherit the lordship of Ajuri—and the fact that no Ajuri lord had died of old age for at least five generations was why Father did not want Mother to step in—but then, the Conservative lords did not favor Mother as lord of Ajuri, either. They remembered how she had flitted between Ajuri and Uncle’s house more than once and they called her unpredictable, for one of the kinder names, married to the aiji who had pushed for television and the shuttles and the space station, which they entirely distrusted.
The Conservatives had pressured Uncle to make a nomination off their list, and grown quite noisy about it. That was why Uncle had nominated somebody he knew Father would veto, someone down in the Honors section of the list. That was Uncle’s opinion of the matter—or as Uncle put it privately, he did not dislike any of the people at the top of the list quite enough to name them to the office, so he named a fine old man just for the honor of it, confident that Father would veto the nomination, then retired to Tirnamardi to have peace and quiet—since it was unprecedented to offer a second name in nomination after the first was refused. So without violating tradition, the Conservatives would have to pester someone else into making a nomination, someone Father would probably not hesitate to refuse with less politeness. It was like chess, threatening with a Rider, on the oblique.
And just to keep the gossipers entirely off-balance, Father had sent him, heir of the aishidi’tat, to pay a family visit and support Uncle Tatiseigi, making clear to everybody that Uncle was not in any disfavor with Father, that the old scholar Uncle had nominated was in no disfavor, either, and that Father would veto the old man for reasons not to do with his character or Uncle’s actions. Father, one understood, would instead assign the old scholar to some prestigious honor, an academic status that he could enjoy without doing much work at all.
Politics was just crazy sometimes. A year ago he could never have understood the maneuver Uncle had made, and he would not have understood why Great-grandmother had gone off to Malguri, not touching the situation at all—more simply, she was another powerful Conservative leader, and Malguri had no phone system, so she could not be pestered, either.
What it all had led to was him being here, and Uncle being honestly delighted to have him as a guest.
And on the very first day he had been entirely happy, too. He had really, truly expected a holiday to spend riding his mecheita and being fed far too much north country food and talking, really talking with Uncle, without mani or nand’ Bren or any other adult to bring him back to the present day. That would have been almost the best time in his life.
But then of course Nomari had shown up—and right after Nomari, Great-aunt Geidaro had arrived on Uncle’s doorstep saying ugly things about Nomari, demanding to have Uncle nominate her choice for Ajuri instead and throw Nomari out.
Great-aunt Geidaro was an unpleasant woman. She was always unpleasant. That was no change. And she surely had not expected Uncle to do anything she asked, since they hated each other.
But in that moment, seeing her claim to speak for Ajuri, uninvited, under Uncle’s own roof, and acting as if she really were in charge, he had realized she could be dangerous.
She might have been Shishogi’s hands inside Ajuri. She could have been, and possibly directly, involved in the murder of Nomari’s family. It was certainly because of Shishogi’s people in Ajuri that Nomari had been forced to flee and take up a life working on the railroads. And it was even possible Great-aunt had had something to do with Grandfather being killed, while pretending to be sympathetic to Mother.
That made him mad. That made her his enemy. Personally.
So thus far in what should have been his riding vacation, he could only slip out to the stables with his aishid right before dinner, and then had to go back indoors again. He was not as upset about that situation as he might be, because what was going on really might produce a reasonable lord of Ajuri.
And that might settle a great deal that was wrong. It might get Great-aunt Geidaro set down for good . . . maybe retired to a nice village somewhere in the cold mountains.
So he found Nomari interesting for all those reasons, but almost more important to him, almost, Cousin Nomari knew things from inside Ajuri that he desperately wanted to know—not just stories, though some stories that Nomari could tell about his working in the Transportation Guild were interesting enough. No, the questions he wanted answered were serious things. Things about Mother—because Nomari had known Mother when she was young. And there was a lot of her life that Mother never talked about. There were some words one could not even mention without adult doors suddenly being closed. There were secrets Mother kept about Ajuri, and there were years of her life that Mother had never, ever talked about, maybe never even with Father, like the reason she had run away from Ajuri and then run away from Tirnamardi.
Nomari might know things about Mother as a little child, and about what had made her leave Grandfather, and about all the nastiness that had gone on in Ajuri, when the Little Old Man, Shishogi, was alive.
Uncle Tatiseigi had already told him that Mother had been stolen from Tirnamardi by Grandfather just after she was born, and that Mother’s mother had died under very suspicious circumstances, in a riding accident, when she had had no business riding at all.
Mother had lived in Ajuri until she was mostly grown, then run away to Uncle’s tent during a festival in Shejidan. Then she’d gotten mad at Uncle and run away again and met Father, and they had gotten married—permanently married, not just Contracted, which nobody in Father’s family had ever done. It had apparently surprised the whole court.
But there was so much about Mother even Uncle did not know, the things that had gone on in Ajuri, and he wanted to know about all that. He desperately wanted to know whether it really was an accident that had killed Grandmother, and what had made his mother so suspicious and angry and so inclined not to talk about herself at all.
“Jeri-ji?” Antaro’s voice cut into his thoughts and he realized suddenly that he was standing, just standing and that servants had come and were waiting politely, but a bit nervously, for him and his aishid to move so that they could go about their business.
He felt his face go warm. “Nadiin,” he said politely, and nodded. They bowed, and motion in the hall went on.
He duly went to the washroom, scrubbed his hands, then took the servants’ corridor to the central stairs, and ascended the steps to the big hall.
• • •
Shots of the halls on the human side of the station.
Shots of little restaurants on human-side, which operated on credit chits, and were the gathering places and the food distribution system, a genteel sort of operation that let people imagine they were on a suburban street on Mospheira. People sat in cafes on that make-believe street and talked, with apparent title to stay there and take their time. The walls had vid available. Music played.
“Mospheiran workers have food included in their stipend. The restaurants are designed to look like a street in Newport. You slip your card in, you punch buttons to put in an order, choice of five items. The menu changes daily. The computer tracks your orders, estimates your ca
loric intake, dispenses appropriate supplements. Choice of beverages, even alcohol. The population is mostly young, mostly single. Children are not permitted on station. No provision was made for them.”
His aishid was interested, never mind the narration: it was an aspect of station life they hadn’t seen.
Contrast that, sharply, with people in rumpled clothes, standing in double lines to receive a recyclable bottle and an unwrapped sandwich. Contrast the restaurant tables with people carrying water buckets, and sitting on decking in small groups, including babies in arms, eating and drinking, not happy or animated.
“This, by contrast, is life in the Reunioner section,” the voiceover said. “This is food distribution, one choice. This is life in the Reunioner residential sections even before the section doors were shut. People arrived from Reunion with no station credit, no certifications, and no papers. Station established them on a marginal existence and generally gave them nothing. They have no jobs, or have temporary employment, which affords some station credit. There is no special provision for children on the station, but Reunioners arrived with children, some of them unescorted and simply assigned, for administrative purposes, to the nearest adult on the rolls.”
The image flashed to a small, orderly two-room apartment, a few pictures on the walls, photographs of home.
“This is the current standard of living for a Mospheiran on station.”
Then a shot of a very bare cubby with molded-in furniture, no cushions, laundry hanging, a sort of wall-tap of uncertain use, and a stretched tarp for a privacy screen. “Reunioners have been assigned to a section of the station unused and shut down since the construction. While many things in space don’t age as they do on Earth . . .”
Shot of a puddle on the floor.
“. . . seals do age. Water leaks in the system have been a problem and a safety issue in the Reunioner section, especially when combined with electricity. These are the conditions Mospheiran station residents don’t ever see. Five people—a family of three and two unrelated men share this space, in shifts.”
Shot of one massive section door, with a group of people standing near, providing scale. “The Tillington administration shut this huge door as an alarm sounded, warning residents they had fifteen minutes to clear. People were caught out separate from families. There were serious injuries as people tried to reach relatives. This only happened in the two Reunioner sections. The rest of the station was merely given an advisement to shelter in place.
“Once the doors shut, things got markedly worse.
“And Stationmaster Tillington issued a statement on the situation.”
One minute into Tillington’s speech, Bren realized he’d made a mistake. He should never have allowed curiosity to win out over prudence. It was nearly time for dinner and this vid was not a dish to consume hot, but rather ice cold . . . and well-tempered with brandy.
“Supper is due to arrive soon,” he said, and tapped the pause button. “We’ve ordered in the fish and it will be here shortly. There is no need to have Tillington-nadi spoil our supper.”
Multiple sets of golden eyes lit up in anticipation. Fried fish, in the style of Mospheiran street vendors, was his aishid’s favorite of the new flavors they’d discovered on the island. Humans had to be so very careful with atevi food and drink—alkaloids were an issue in some items—but the converse was not true. Dinner had been a nightly experiment. His aishid and his staff tried everything.
And when, a moment later, the phone rang, Bren picked it up himself, his staff not admitting any facility with the Mosphei’ language. It was, as expected, the guard station downstairs, advising them that dinner was coming . . .
And that a large envelope was coming up with them.
“Thank you,” Bren said, mildly. His temper was already up, after the video. An envelope had arrived. And waited. Yes. It had waited.
He’d spent a tedious, idle afternoon waiting for that envelope. So Francis House security had stopped a packet he could have been working on. Probably they’d only let it wait for the expected dinner delivery, so it was one easy trip up the stairs for somebody. Possibly it hadn’t been a long delay at all.
Entirely reasonable, if one was Mospheiran. Nothing was ever in that much hurry on Mospheira if it didn’t have a siren attached. He fairly surely knew what it was and if he was right, it could wait, now that it was this late, but he had repeatedly advised security to send official packets directly up.
“Supper will arrive,” he said, “and one believes Tom-nadi has finally sent us the Heyden Court blueprints.” Tom Lund was an ally, managing University contacts, wringing speed out of University procedures, where it regarded permissions, papers, and contractors. “But we will not let supper go cold. Fried fish, nadiin-ji, has arrived.”
“Ah,” Tano said, particularly pleased.
Francis House had made a special effort. This evening, a car had run down the hill to Harbor Street, and brought back genuine Port Jackson street food, from an authentic cart vendor.
He’d promised them the real thing this evening, independent of Francis House’s chef, who had, yes, done a lovely job. But, he’d explained, he wanted his staff to experience the ordinary of the streets, that the people ate. They’d made a very large order.
And after this much arrangement, and his exercise of diplomacy with the chef, hell if Tillington or the blueprint packet was going to intervene in their native Mospheiran dinner.
4
Off the great hall of Tirnamardi in various directions, amid the gilt and marble, were lower-ceilinged alcoves that constituted rooms of their own, apart from the central space that served as a large assembly room. There was a breakfast room, a reading room, and Uncle’s office—and, largest and taking up the whole far side of the space, the lesser dining room, which was being set tonight for Uncle’s evening meal.
Cajeiri did not come to dinner alone. He never arrived alone. He had both his sets of bodyguards in attendance, his younger four, and the four gray-haired seniors. As he walked into the lesser dining area, they broke apart, each to an assigned station at various places around the three walls, while he took the eastern end of the table, which was set, this evening, for three. The serving staff poured his tea, and he had time to drink only a few sips before another figure appeared across the grand hall, escorted not by his own bodyguard, but by Uncle’s Guild security.
That was Nomari, who had come in from the tents. He had changed to his good clothes and washed up, likely in the same hall where Cajeiri had just washed his hands.
“Nandi,” Nomari said politely, taking his seat at the midpoint of the table.
“Cousin,” Cajeiri said, equally polite, assuming, as seemed likely, that Nomari really was who he said he was. But Great-grandmother would definitely caution him—if Nomari was who he said he was, which was indeed one of the continuing questions.
Guild security apparently thought it was safe for him to be at table alone with Nomari, despite the table knives. They would forbid it, else, and never let Nomari near him.
Nomari was not a dangerous-looking young man, but he was rough and wiry. Nomari had spent his years doing hard work, holding his own with hard labor and rough people. His hands showed it. His face showed it. The way he walked showed it. He had not spent that time learning to be subtle as Shishogi—just wary in the way ordinary people could be wary, uneasy in the echoing spaces of Tirnamardi, aware he was being watched.
Honest? They were still trying to judge that.
But Nomari certainly was not stupid, which was to his credit. And he was respectful of tradition and manners, also a credit. Nomari watched and learned, and he did his best to refine himself. He had been young when he had left Ajuri—and the slightly chancy way he managed lace cuffs and condiment picks in Uncle’s elaborate table settings agreed with that.
Servants moved to pour wine—fruit juice, in Cajeiri’s case. br />
“Was it a good day?” Cajeiri asked.
“A productive day,” Nomari answered. “You, nandi?”
Not such elegant grammar, either. The Guilds sometimes made up their own rules. But productive? That was what mani would call a provocative word, inciting curiosity when manners dictated one could not ask on any sort of business at the dinner table.
“A quiet day,” Cajeiri said. “But I have indeed enjoyed it.”
After dinner was when they both might get answers, if Nomari could manage to direct the conversation around to it, and if Uncle was ready to allow productive talk. Mani would certainly try to get information then, if she were here, but she was not. It was just him. And Uncle.
Uncle was arriving now, not leaving them long together, which was a relief, because he was out of casual topics except the weather. It was clouding up to rain. But what could he say beyond that? Everything he really wanted to talk about was far from casual. He would ask—how do you think you can deal with Great-aunt Geidaro? He would ask—how are you going to stay alive? And—who do you think you can trust inside Ajuri? But none of those were appropriate questions at this point.
Nomari stood up as Uncle came to take his seat at the head of the table. Cajeiri stayed seated—receiving such courtesies as his father’s designated heir was still new, and he felt uneasy in it, but it was proper, and Uncle above all people was happy with it.
So he sat, and nodded politely to Uncle. Nomari bowed and sat down, and a servant moved in to fill Uncle’s glass.
“Well,” Uncle said, “well, we have a fine dinner tonight, fish from the coast, caught this morning, arriving on the noon train. And I have had all the same sent out to our other guests in great abundance. We shall manage a good breakfast tomorrow, too, and all subsequent days, the peace of the neighborhood permitting. Supply has arrived!”
They had been feeding the people on the lawn with picnic food since they arrived, breakfast rolls and sandwiches and boiled eggs, as much of that fare as the people could wish, but today the truck had gone out to the train station and come back, and then gone out again in the other direction, to Diegi, getting supplies for proper meals. The kitchen, for its part, had been working since daybreak, baking bread and making soup and pickle in great quantities.