Tracker

How that relief had been administered aloft, he was no longer sure.

Disquieting thought.

Tillington distrusted Braddock. That was a given. They had all distrusted Braddock. Unfortunately the move onto the station had not isolated him from the rest of the Reunioners.

But Tillington had, from the outset, not let the Mospheiran and Reunioner populations mix. Security concerns. Rules. Regulations. The Reunioners had never passed screening, had no security clearance. Records were supposedly in the ship’s storage—at least they had been. But either they hadn’t been released to Tillington’s administration—for reasons that might lie in ship politics—or Tillington had them and it didn’t matter. Tillington still would not let the Reunioners merge into the station: they lived in special sections. Didn’t have clearance to enter operational areas . . . and how the station defined operational areas was nebulous. A few Reunioners found employment, but most, he had learned during the children’s visit—waited.

Waited for a general solution to their status. Which was tangled up in a general solution for the entire refugee population.

And Tillington backed moving the Reunioners out to build at the lifeless ball of rock that was Maudit, with all the delays and costs and risks involved.

He himself had thought of setting up a new colony at Maudit as a slow process, a first-in team, a habitat to build a structure, to set things up, a process taking years, while the Reunioners found employment on the original station manufacturing elements of the new station and running their own operation. He hadn’t, he thought with some disquiet, liked the notion of Braddock’s involvement, but it had seemed to be what the Reunioners themselves were pushing . . . a process too preliminary as yet even to talk about the need for the Reunioners coming under the Mospheiran treaty with the aishidi’tat . . . which he was firmly determined they would, for very solid policy reasons.

Not so, apparently, not in the way Tillington was pushing to have all the Reunioners sent out there right now—which was apt to lead to more hardship.

He didn’t readily dislike people. Dislike was not useful in his job, wherein he occasionally had to deal with the difficult, the problematic, and the entirely objectionable. Jase himself had felt out the matter to the last—felt his way through a cultural interface last night that, indeed, did make Mospheirans and ship-folk two different questions: he detected that.

But he did trust Jase to tell him the truth, even if Jase had to go against Sabin. And the awareness that had flickered into Jase’s eyes when he’d expressed the dowager’s position in Ragi: that sealed it. That was truth.

And the sudden recklessness, the fact that Tillington was playing into a known rift in the Captains’ Council . . .

Tillington’s interpretation of the kids’ visit, as all part of a plot . . .

All that came into focus, a complete unwillingness to shade anything in gray, that roused an emotional response of his own regarding Mospheiran politics, and the suspicion of an old, old division. He had detected the reaction in himself when he had to deal with Braddock, even at distance. He’d smothered it. Applied cold logic. Or tried to.

Both Braddock and Tillington were pushing Maudit—with haste. Emotionally.

And ironically they were doing so, in high emotion, with exactly the same aim.

Division. Separating the populations into us and them.

No, he wasn’t feeling charitable toward Tillington.

They’d been through the Heritage Party’s brief accession to power on Mospheira, when people had gotten on television to talk about human entitlements, and ownership of the station, and how nobody should trust the atevi, either. The Heritage Party’s view had been that war was inevitable. And that they should arm themselves, and get to space, and rain fire down on atevi civilization.

Shawn’s administration, succeeding that period of madness, had tried to keep that attitude off the station, when they’d populated it. They’d screened applicants. They’d tried.

But nobody could police thoughts and attitudes if the holder never stood up and said it, never threatened anybody—until a highly pressured situation changed a man in power.

Had Tillington possibly been a Heritage supporter before he’d arrived in office up there? Or had he turned under pressure? There’d been no skilled translator: no paidhi to interpret or explain what Tillington would have found strange and frustrating, and a robotic numbers transaction couldn’t explain intent or reasons. Had things gone that bad between Tillington and Geigi that Tillington’s thinking had just clicked over into old Mospheiran attitudes, focused now on resentment from a human event two centuries in the past, dead, gone, and buried—

Or was it just a habit of being in absolute power over Mospheiran affairs up there, and a frustration at having all the years of work suddenly down to rationing?

It was a good bet Tillington, if he was tending to the Heritage mindset, was not going to favor settling the Reunioners on Mospheira.

Braddock, on the other side, wouldn’t want his constituency divided and removed to earthly cities, either.

Those two were likely allies for completely opposite reasons.

Granted his own thinking wasn’t purely, abstractly altruistic, either. A planet changed things. Changed people. Changed politics. Not always for the good. But changed them. But five thousand people? Mospheira could swallow that with barely a blip in the polls. No question.

Communication, first and foremost. He and Jase had to have a long talk once he got up there—something they’d started that last night, and he wished they’d had the time and privacy to do earlier, without the kids who had a way of turning up unexpectedly.

Definitely, when he got up there, he would find that time. And not just with Jase. He needed to build trust—with Sabin, among others. With Ogun—if he could.

He needed to find out how serious the division among the Captains was. Ogun’s new appointment to a captaincy—Riggins—would be a fourth, inauspicious and paralyzing fourth, vote in the divided Captain’s Council. Atevi would never have set up a system that could go to stalemate in a crisis. Humans did it regularly to achieve balance.

Balance wasn’t quite working up there, was it? And in his preference, and by Jase’s recommendation, Tillington did not get to break the stalemate.

Did he believe in Jase’s motives?

Absolutely. Trust him?

With his life.

It didn’t mean, however, that the paidhi-aiji was through gathering information, either—just in case there was more to be learned. He had a side in this, too, and it wasn’t, at the moment, Mospheiran.

He sent an encrypted message up to Geigi.

Bren, paidhi-aiji, Lord of Najida

To Geigi, Station-aiji, Lord of Kajiminda.

One urges you ask Jase-aiji to your table, if you have not yet done so. He will bring you the seasonal reports from Kajiminda among other matters.

One regrets that I was not able to visit your estate during my recent visit to Najida, but the estate reports are encouraging of a good harvest this fall, and I have made it urgently his concern to convey those to you.

He will also, if he has not designated it to go to you already, send you baggage which the young gentleman’s guests cannot contain within their quarters. As a favor deserving the young gentleman’s gratitude, please store those things against a future visit.

I have included siai tea in the shipment which is for your use only. Please use it in good health.

The tea was a code word, which between them meant: read between the lines and act.

Geigi quietly detested that tea.

Please care for your health, and please enjoy your visit with Jase.

Could he say it any plainer?

Likewise assure him that I accept his very good advice.

I shall be coming up to the station on business soon, and look forward to the pleasure of your society.

As regards Jase-aiji, please tell him—

Now came a deliberate security test. The news could break now—or later—and if it leaked immediately, at any level—they would find that out through Jase, if no other way.

I shall be escorting elements of a regional Assassins’ Guild office to be set up within the atevi section, to operate under your authority. Its central function will be liaison and information-gathering for the Guild.

It is my task to interpret this new presence to the humans on the station, who may have questions about the nature of the office, and who, while they will not deal with that office directly under any ordinary circumstances, will need to understand and accept its function. It will be useful to have another atevi presence in direct communication with Shejidan, and the Guild will benefit from their skilled observation of situations. One hopes they may resort to you for guidance and assistance.

This should be a benign and beneficial presence, reflecting beneficial changes in Guild organization in the aishidi’tat. Its man’chi is now strongly toward Tabini-aiji.

I shall escort them to the station and explain to the ship-aijiin. Jase-aiji will be a useful contact preceding this process. And as always, I rely on your good will and your wisdom.

One understands there is some stress regarding the human situation. Please be aware, but let me deal with Tillington-aiji on my arrival.

Which was to say, talk to Jase, fast. We’ve got the Guild asking questions, launching a fact-finding mission, and there are things you desperately need to know before they get there.

Leave Tillington to me.

· · ·

Very good to talk to you, the message came back from Shawn early that afternoon, not a response to his couriered letter, which had left on the plane that delivered Shawn’s letter, but Shawn’s own state of the state message, in a letter crossing his.

And then the part that mattered.

The visit of the Reunioner children to the mainland has stirred controversy here. It was generally assumed that they—and a significant number of Reunioners in general—would not be able to live on Earth even a few days without difficulties. The extension of their visit and reports of their inclusion in official events have raised questions.

Stationmaster Tillington reports that the children were given a drug to enable this, and unfortunately this report has become public this week, elaborated into unrealistic reports that this new drug enables the Reunioners to land en masse. This frightens some people.

Good God. How do they land, in the shuttles we have?

Five thousand ordinary citizens, including old people and kids, a threat to a planet?

The petal sails all over again?

I am assuming your letter crossing this one may involve the Reunioner issue, and whether or not this is the case, an exchange of information will be useful.

Sanity. He drew an easier breath.

Tillington has reported that the Reunioners themselves have followed this visit with some speculation that the children will be taken from their parents and that all children will be taken away before the Maudit expedition.

God.

Tillington reports he has made statements strongly denying this, and he urges the legislature make a decision in favor of the Maudit venture, as the integration of Reunioners into the station population poses significant security risks. We have received Tillington’s very detailed proposal to send a small exploratory team to Maudit, to establish an orbiting station—for which Lord Geigi may be solicited for materials support. The proposal, in effect, establishes the Reunion colony at a remote distance.

I am not fully in support of this idea, and it is meeting opposition, again on grounds of security.

The pro argument is that the need for supplies to move to such a new orbiting station by Mospheiran supply ships will foster a necessary cooperation between the populations.

The counter-argument is that atevi will likely demand the treaty be extended to mandate equal atevi presence on that station and this is argued to lead to a separate arrangement between Reunioners and atevi if Mospheira does not send more personnel to balance them, and this would make an impractically large station at Maudit, far larger than the one now orbiting Earth. If atevi would count both stations together for the purpose of parity that might be workable. But even so, it poses difficulties.

We are now at the anniversary of the restoration of the atevi government and we understand that the aishidi’tat is now resuming programs once suspended. We hope that atevi attention to the Reunioner matter should become a priority, and we hope to work cooperatively to resolve these issues.

Tillington’s put a strong push on his own program, while the children have been down here. Interesting.

I have been hearing nothing but the Maudit proposal for the last year, as I think you have likely heard the details. I have advised Tillington previously not to press Lord Geigi for materials until there is a decision. We have no wish to stir up argument on an issue not yet decided.

Bet on it. Geigi is not going to say a thing officially until Tabini gets involved.

I say in confidence I am not convinced that moving the Reunioners farther from our centuries of experience onworld is the right answer. It is a solution attractive to some who believe their existence threatens us. But in my view our security is far more threatened by keeping this population unified by frontier hardship while we live in comforts they do not enjoy.

Bravo, Shawn.

If this new drug can let these people adapt to Earth I would favor it. I had rather see the Reunioners distributed across Mospheira, but there is no means to provide security for these people as scattered immigrants, which I regret to say could lead to difficulties in some areas.

He knew the areas—pockets of regional discontent that still spawned problems, where remnants of the Heritage Party had taken stubborn root.

I have a specific solution in mind. But there is a set of tech-based industries on Crescent Island, in which they could be valuable.

Space industry.

The environment is a little trying.

Humidity and torrential rain.

But there is employment, and a space-oriented population, which may better understand the environment from which they come.

The tech unions were going to have a fit.

I solicit your advice in these matters. I understand that you have shaped your position in the aishidi’tat and that you now serve unique functions in the atevi world. I do not urge your return to Mospheira in this context or at this moment; once we have settled the problem the Reunioners pose, that may be a good time.

Translation: you’re not that popular here, Bren, and if you should become tangled in the Reunioner issue, you could become less so.

I hope that your message, which necessarily crosses this one, does not present difficulties with what I have set out above.

Sorry to say, Shawn, it does.

I hope to renew our previous frequency of communication.

I remain hopeful that we can resolve whatever matters divide the people we guide.

I’m with you on that one, Shawn. God, I am with you.

But Tillington has to go. Next shuttle. Call him home. Find a reason. Any reason.

Next shuttle. Next Mospheiran shuttle. Two week rotation. And if it kept schedule, it had already gone up. The Mospheiran shuttle had never reconfigured its cargo bay in orbit. It could. Theoretically.

They either had to withdraw Tillington before he had a replacement, or get a replacement up on the next rotation. Neither was a good option.

Granted Shawn could get one.

· · ·

A phone call came at dusk. Bren took it, barefoot and in his shirtsleeves, interrupting his dressing for dinner.

“I have it,” Shawn said, first off. “God, what a mess. I understand. I’ll keep you posted.”

It was all they could say on the central matter, where the connection might be compromised.

“Good,” he said. And understood, by the careful tone of Shawn’s statement, it wasn’t something Shawn could do quickly or without political danger.

Heritage Party. The source of simple answers that always looped back to the same proposition. Humans first. And us first of all.

He and Shawn talked for a few minutes, then wished each other a pleasant evening and broke off.

God, Bren thought, laying the receiver in its cradle.

Three years of not dealing with human problems . . .

And there it all was again, same old theme, different verse. Them. And us.

It was a quiet dinner. He invited his aishid to join him, and to take brandy after, contrary to their habit. What he had to explain was convoluted, and needed interpretation.

And there were questions. But mostly they listened.

· · ·

“Tillington worries you considerably,” Jago observed later, in bed.

“Immensely,” he said. “I grew distracted, Jago-ji. I let myself fall out of close communication with the Presidenta. That was my first mistake.”

“You could not have visited Mospheira without comment—and not without speculation on this side of the strait, either. Messages that go back and forth occasion comment. There is no diplomatic bag that goes that the guilds fail to know it. Your staying here, throughout the restoration of the aiji, was important.”

Every breath he took, this close to the aiji, and involved as he was in politics with the Marid, politics with the dowager, politics with the northern clans, politics with the Tribal Peoples—everything was parsed by a dozen agencies for clues about his mood, and clues as to his consultations and his associations.

Message Shawn at every turn? There’d been no great emergency involving Mospheiran affairs.

But after a year putting out fires on the mainland, the fact that the heir had had a birthday and invited human children down from the station—Reunioner children—had hit the rumor mill over on Mospheira with a force he hadn’t foreseen, in a context he hadn’t been tracking as closely as he should. He’d had his mind on security, on the assassination of Cajeiri’s grandfather, and several attempted assassinations aimed in what turned out to be the youngster’s vicinity—not to mention questions about the integrity of the guilds. He’d been preoccupied. He’d been staying alive and keeping the kids safe and happy.

But he couldn’t drop stitches like that. He couldn’t rest confident that people outside the mainland were going to think to advise him of their crises.

Hell, he’d deliberately disconnected himself from Mospheiran politics, because he’d been working closely with Tabini, working closely with the dowager, and constant communication with Mospheira during that period of recovery would, as Jago said, have said something he didn’t want said. It would have undermined trust, thrown his loyalty into question.

But Shawn had said it: it was not a good time for him to return to Mospheira. He couldn’t help anybody if he became tangled in political issues on Mospheira, or, for that matter, aloft. He’d kept out of the Mospheiran upset over the Reunioners’ arrival, trusting Shawn to calm things down. The fact was that Mospheira and the station had been maintaining calm and keeping their treaty agreements as they should—one reason they’d been able to do that, he’d thought, was because he’d not roiled the political waters around them, and because the ship’s independent authority up there had kept the lid on things.

Well, he got Shawn’s signal loud and clear now. The Heritage Party hadn’t been a problem so long as the Reunioners were out of sight and removed from daily consideration. It was going to be a problem if they started landing. Tillington, likewise grounded, was going to find backers for his position, and he had to be careful with the situation. Use extreme finesse.

Finesse in the Guild’s terms—was one answer that leapt to mind, removing a man who wanted to play politics with kids’ lives, who wanted to create a situation that stirred up the worst in Mospheiran society. But it wasn’t a route he wanted to take. It wasn’t a route he ever could take, not remotely, and maintain any semblance of a link to Mospheiran society.

No, let Shawn arrange some sort of soft landing for Tillington, get him out of the way without creating wreckage in the system—or damaging his administration. That needed thought. It needed calm. And it needed, most of all, a little time.

Well-fed and content to retire was the best disposition for a man who’d served tolerably well—until the arrival of the Reunioners had triggered something in him that wasn’t at all pleasant.

Maybe a University sinecure—

No. The man should not teach. If he entertained Heritage ideology—he should not have students in his hands.

Ilisidi, with the Assassins’ Guild entirely at her disposal, had managed to find a spot for the former lord of the Kadagidi, supervising a textile mill. Well-paid. Quiet. Not political.

And under another lord’s thumb.

Solutions like that, unfortunately, weren’t readily to be had on Mospheira.

Not as secure, not as quiet, and not with that kind of well-watched certainty.

Unfortunately, sending Tillington himself to non-existent Maudit wasn’t an option.

7

“And was it a regretful parting?” Lord Tatiseigi asked, regarding the young gentleman’s guests.

“It was, nandi,” Bren said. The two of them occupied opposing green-upholstered chairs across a low table in the legislative sitting room, two days on from the exchange of messages with Shawn.

On the wall, a wooden scoreboard reported a slowly progressing tally of votes on the forestry bill—a certainty to pass. Half the people who should be voting were in the lounge at the moment having a cup of tea, but that didn’t include the representatives of the Edi and the Gan peoples, who were exercising their very first votes as members, and who were early on the floor to cast them in favor of something that would benefit the Edi district.

It was an auspicious beginning to the tribal peoples’ admission to the aishidi’tat. The bill established and funded a new open game reserve, land donated by the Taisigin Marid, the tract to be reforested on the western side, with game corridors that would improve three other hunting ranges in the direction of the Edi lands and the Marid.

The bill included restoration of species drawn from the other shore of the Marid, moreover, which was another popular new notion in various quarters—bringing certain trees and shrubs back to regions where they had once flourished.

Free land, a new spirit of cooperation from the Taisigin Marid, and a wide-reaching ecological repair. Those were attractive notions to party leaders on both sides of politics—especially when the more suspicious conservatives, in favor of all lordly prerogatives across the board, had had the aiji-dowager pushing them to approve the measure. Well, as Tatiseigi expressed the conservative sentiment, the entire forestry program would probably not be too high a financial cost to run, and, key provision, it improved the hunting, which improved the economy, which improved local chances of peace. Atevi might farm grain and vegetables, might have orchards, might run a business like egg-gathering, and fishing—but everything was seasonal. Wild game was how districts put autumn meat on the table—huge tracts given over to nature, and hunting.

Bren had cast his vote already; so had Lord Tatiseigi, both favorable to the measure. Not infrequently their votes cancelled each other out; but today they happily agreed.

And they had tea together.

“Did the youngsters seem sad to leave?” Tatiseigi asked.

“Indeed, nandi. They will miss the young gentleman.”

“One observed that they seemed sad to leave Tirnamardi.”

The old man was justifiably proud of his estate, his collection, his stables.

“They were delighted by Tirnamardi, nandi. They were entirely delighted, and there could be no better place in the world to show them so much of history and art. They will certainly never forget that first experience of your collection, so long as they live.”

Tatiseigi cleared his throat. “Well, well, perhaps we shall find time to host them next year.”

Now, that was the most unlikely thing in the world, that Tatiseigi should not only tolerate the youngsters, but miss them and court their return. The childless lord had demonstrated an unexpected soft spot for children—even, it turned out, human ones.

“Nothing would please them more,” Bren said. One suspected it was as much Tirnamardi’s lawns and open spaces the children regretted, as the baroque and gilt of the Bujavid’s great halls, or the collections of antiques and pottery—but so had Tatiseigi delighted them, personally. “They will miss you, too, nandi, one strongly suspects. They greatly enjoyed your stories.”

A second clearing of the throat. “Well, well, the staff certainly was charmed. They have inquired repeatedly after the children’s well-being.”

Not Lord Tatiseigi, himself, oh, no, not possibly would Lord Tatiseigi personally miss a handful of human kids.

· · ·

He had messaged Tabini, spoken to him once since his return—a pleasant conversation in Tabini’s downstairs office, and the topic had, beyond the Tillington matter, mostly been on operational matters and the legislative session.

But in his second such session with Tabini, after the vote on the forestry bill, and in Tabini’s sitting room, Tabini asked a more direct question:

“You just have exchanged letters and messages with the Presidenta.” Tabini’s information-gathering was markedly improved, since he had taken the dowager’s men as his security. “Does it regard the administrative matter you mentioned?”

One never knew, sitting down with Tabini, where a conversation might go.

“It does, aiji-ma. Tillington, and the Presidenta’s search for a resolution of the Reunioner situation, which is at the heart of the problems aloft. I have expressed quite firmly that the Reunioners must be counted toward the treaty balance, whether at this station or any yet unbuilt. The Presidenta is inclining to oppose the creation of a Maudit colony at all, and may be leaning toward bringing them down to Mospheira. But that solution would have to involve a very few at a time: there just is not room in the shuttle schedule, even with the Mospheirans increasing their fleet. It cannot be any faster.”

“These children? Their families?”

“One would not press for them to take priority without your direction, aiji-ma, and the matter is only theoretical. Should you wish them brought down first, however—the Presidenta would, I am sure, agree—even as a case separate from a general resolution. But politics—as usual, aiji-ma, politics will complicate any actual decision.” A deep breath, a decision. “The Heritage Party is not entirely dead, aiji-ma, and the Presidenta has no wish to see them find a foothold in this case.”

“And you will entangle yourself in these affairs?” The pleasant casualness faded. Became a frown. “For whom are you paidhi—when you go up to the station?”

He was caught unawares by that question. It was a fair one. “For you, aiji-ma,” he said. “One begins to feel one does not know all one should know, aiji-ma, to give good advice. I have become uneasy in my understanding of politics aloft. And I cannot advise to any good advantage without better information. If I can, in the process, solve a problem—”

How much dare he say? How much should he say?

“Clearly you are troubled, paidhi.”

“I cannot advise without knowledge. And that is my office. I ask your patience, aiji-ma, while I try to understand the politics which may be forming around the Reunioner issue. One does not wish to be caught unaware, and far less—to be advising you amiss.”

“Or advising the Guild amiss.”

“That, as well, aiji-ma. One would wish them to be informed—in the best way. If I and my aishid can help, understanding that the Guild advisors will be going up, I would wish, for one thing, your appointment to go with them, and mediate for them, and advise them.”

“Did you mention the new Guild office to the Presidenta?”

“No, aiji-ma. I did not. I shall, however, bring it up at an appropriate moment—with your permission.”

“Tillington,” Tabini said.

“Yes, aiji-ma. I have advised the Presidenta. I have urged action.”

“You believe the Presidenta will replace Tillington. He has the power to do this.”

“Aiji-ma, he has the power to call him home, and to send a representative to fill the office until there can be a legislative approval. And I have urged him to do it rapidly, before the aishidi’tat need take any notice of Tillington’s existence. I have not had his answer yet. But I hope you and he can work to relieve this situation in a good way.”

Tabini gave him that flat, expressionless stare that could unnerve councilors and make lords reconsider.

“Will such provocations cease if you bring these people down to Mospheira?”

“One cannot promise that, aiji-ma, but one expects cooperation from Tillington’s replacement to improve matters.”

Tabini nodded. “Do not believe my grandmother lacks resources. It would be well to deal with this in utmost urgency. And do not waste your talents in lengthy politics with this man. I have other uses for you.”

God. He knows.

“Aiji-ma. One is grateful for your patience.”

“Depose this troublesome human, paidhi. Observe the situation up there. Report to us.”

“With all my energy, aiji-ma.”

“If you are going up there,” Tabini said, “one does foresee my son asking to go.”

One did, indeed, foresee that, with no trouble at all. “I would discourage it,” he said. “I cannot predict events up there. And I shall need all my resources, and all my attention, centered on dealing with this man. I do not expect resistance, but there will be tension. I would urge against it, aiji-ma.”

“So would I, for reasons here,” Tabini said. “My son’s first actions after his Investiture are under close scrutiny. It satisfied public curiosity for his young guests to attend him here, as applicants for his favor. For him to go to the station to visit at this stage—is quite the opposite implication. He should never be seen to attend them.”

“One entirely understands the difference,” he said. “And I think, aiji-ma, that if you explain to the young gentleman in that way, he will understand.”

“You have great confidence in my son.”

“I think, without any flattery, aiji-ma, that your son has deserved my confidence. He will not be happy at being left behind. But he will understand, if you explain it to him.”

“He will not be happy,” Tabini agreed, “but this is likely the best decision. Of course my son could not possibly choose three young associates from Mospheira itself. Preserve these young people, paidhi. Keep them out of politics. That is a policy matter. I have signed it, I have set my seal on it. I trust that document is being conveyed to the ship-aijiin. That is absolute.”

“Am I to encourage your son in his hope for another visit here?”

A moment’s silence. “Oh, I think we are ultimately doomed to that event, paidhi. Not only do we have my son on his best behavior—we have my grandmother and Lord Tatiseigi on theirs. Together.” Tabini drew a deep breath. “One finds it frightening. Where do you look to settle these children—if they are agreed someday to land?”

He had in no wise gotten to that question, in his thinking. Or he had, but only in the vaguest way. “As to where—I have no idea. I cannot think it would be good to have them settle on this side of the strait. They cannot be separated from their parents.”

“No,” Tabini said. “It would not be good at this stage. But we have a decision to make. We must either take these three away from him soon, and permanently assign them residency on the station—or allow them and all their influences from now on, such as those influences may eventually be. If these children descend to live across the straits—shall we foster this association freely? Their connections may endanger them there. That is foreseeable.”

“It is, aiji-ma. One confesses it.”

“We shall have to protect them, on whatever side of the strait they settle. We shall have to see to their protection, lifelong.”

“One foresees that, aiji-ma.”

“Thus far their influence has seen my son become compliant and polite and patient. We have to wonder whether the mental strain of obedience is warping his character.”

Levity again. But quite serious, couching a world-affecting question.

“Do they wish this association, paidhi? Do these children remotely see what association with my son will cost them?”

“I do not know. I think they have some notion. And I cannot predict what pressure human politics may put on them or on their parents. Nor can I predict how strong this association may remain over time. They have a great deal of growing to do.”

“We cannot predict either, paidhi. My son has yet to reach that stage when he believes he understands all philosophy and reason. Baji-naji, my grandmother has set some sense into him. But, baji-naji, we shall not be in charge of him forever, either. We can only set the course.”

“I would agree, aiji-ma.”

“So,” Tabini said, “go up there. Shake this tree and see what falls out of its branches. Investigate the children as well. But I charge you—report, paidhi! No more of this secrecy. The Guild is approved to go up there. I could have stalled that. I might yet, if you do not wish to take the time.”

“If they can observe the several matters at hand, aiji-ma, if they can observe, and learn how things are done, and why things are done as they are regarding humans, it may be a better education than any explanation can provide. I by no means ask to know their secrets, but if they will hear why things are done as well as what is done—it would become an asset up there.”

“I shall have that understanding with them,” Tabini said, “and I shall receive their reports and compare them to yours. Be sure, when I do so, it is the Guild I shall be testing.”

8

A solitary lunch was rare. Bren’s aishid was about their own business. Banichi and Algini were downstairs in the Bujavid, in conference with representatives from the Guild on matters which no longer—thank God—involved the paidhi-aiji. Decisions ricocheted from Guild Headquarters to the aiji’s office, but not to the paidhi’s personal attention. The Guild was in the process of choosing its on-station observation team—and while the paidhi-aiji was interested in the outcome, it was not his choice.

The Guild was consulting the few Guild members who had experience in space, both about the physical demands of the flight up, and the nature of life on the station. That was why they asked Banichi and Cenedi—who would also tell them that mental flexibility would be an asset; and that assassination was not an option outside the atevi section, and would be dimly viewed within it. The Guild served as peacemakers as well as peacekeepers and security, and that would be their desired function, as well as information-gathering and communication.

Tano and Jago were likewise absent from the apartment, off conferring with the dowager’s staff just down the hall. Cenedi was busy with the Guild selection, but Cenedi’s second-in-command Nawari had scheduled time for a conference, a last information exchange prior to the dowager’s twice-delayed flight to the East.

There had just been, in Bren’s schedule, and in the dowager’s, two days of conferences with the Taisigi Trade Mission regarding the depth of dredging in the harbor the dowager was arranging in her district.

That issue was now settled, and there had been conferences with Geigi’s team aloft, interpreting data from orbital survey. They had the details nailed down. So the aiji-dowager could now escape the city.

The paidhi-aiji had no such escape.

Shawn delayed about his answer. There was, one could imagine, difficulty.

Politics. And shuttle schedules.

If Shawn had any encouraging word to send him—would Shawn not have sent a courier from his side?

Was it that damned hard to pull Tillington?

What kind of political allies did the man have?

What was being argued over there, across that narrow span of water?

Or was it simply down to shuttle schedules? God knew Tillington had gone up on an atevi-built shuttle, though from a Mospheiran port.

Politics would likely forbid he come down that way. No, Mospheira ran its own program now. Was fiercely proud of it.

He went back to his little office, unexpectedly snagged his coat sleeve on his fingers, of all things, and settled to sand down his fingers for the second time since he had been home. Even this many days after his vacation, they were rough—from handling harness, making fires, hauling on rope, and working with canvas—and, he recalled with pleasure, uncrating the paired stained glass windows for the new dining room, then crating them back up again to await their installation.

Not that he lacked help to do that sort of work, but he greatly enjoyed working with his hands. He had used to do far more of that. Much more.

And it was amazing how quickly callus, however long ago gained, came back at the least excuse.

Alas, no need of hauling rope here or splitting wood in the Bujavid. Here, within walls, in baroque luxury, his routine required wax-smooth fingers and the fluid use of a quill pen—a quill pen, for a script highly directional, depending on the flex and edge of the natural material for its thick and thin lines.

Atevi maintained a respect for calligraphy which the advent of humans and technology had never changed. The traditional system of written correspondence remained obstinately handwritten, wax-sealed, and formal. Even casual messages generally did not go by computer link.

Some messages, however, must speed along by modern means. The Messengers’ Guild, no fools, had been quick to adopt the convenience and speed of telecommunications, once such became available, so that most computer correspondence, such as letters from the space station, arrived in traditional little steel cylinders, in computer print, and under the Messengers’ own seal, since a seal there must surely be!

And one such message had arrived today, at dawn, from at least one party in a position to give answers.

From Lord Geigi.

And after the usual salutation:

Regarding the Guild observers, they will be welcome. I have an excellent office in mind for them, a residency near my own. I shall be pleased to establish an official communication with whatever persons the Guild selects.

Read between the lines, paidhi. I shall want to know where they are and what they are doing, and I shall be very glad to provide them reliable staff for clerical work.

Politics and policy as usual. There would assuredly be spying.

On the matter of children’s baggage, I am certainly able to provide wardrobe storage for the young people and also for Jase-aiji, who informs me that, as you say, their personal circumstances provide no space for such.

So what have you told Jase, Geigi-ji? What did you discuss?

I had a very pleasant dinner with Jase-aiji some days past and again last evening, but not yet with the children, whose parents have claimed them, quite properly jealous of their time.

Understandable.

But it’s a little worrisome, all the same.

Jase-aiji assures me that in the orders issued by Captain Sabin, and in response to the aiji’s official request, these three children will always have free access to reach me. I have ordered our security to admit them or any persons with them on any request, urgent or casual, and to notify me immediately, at any hour, of their arrival.

I shall issue invitations to the children and their parents for some future evening of their choosing, and look forward to hosting them, but Jase-aiji will surely advise me when will be a good time to make that gesture. He advises caution at the moment.

Jase and I had a lengthy exchange over brandy, and this renewal of association has been very enlightening.

Jase advises caution.

Caution in dealing with humans, was the likely interpretation. Caution in pushing anything. Or pushing back, if Geigi had gotten a whiff of what was going on.

Certainly Jase would have told Geigi that Tillington was coming under official displeasure. Would Jase have told Geigi all of it, told an ateva with an ateva’s emotional wiring, trusting Geigi not to react in an emotional way?

Geigi might also, given a good grasp of the situation, have decided not to write to Tabini and Ilisidi on that topic, but only to him, who had sent Jase to speak to him. Logical. But, God, how convoluted could it possibly get?

Well, he should assume what needed to be said had been said aloft. But he could not reach Ilisidi at the moment and he had every suspicion both Ilisidi and Tabini knew what there was to know, in a deafening silence.

What he did reasonably need to advise Geigi of, in the workaday world, was the details of the Guild office being sent up into his territory—a significant change for Geigi, about which Jase knew nothing and could not have forewarned him. Adding two and two and two more, an action as natural as breathing for an ateva, Geigi was doubtless putting together Jase’s information on massive changes in the Guild, information on the Tillington matter—and his sudden presentation of a Guild office on the station. Geigi had to be coming up with some very pointed questions he hesitated to ask. But unfortunately it might add up to a mistaken conclusion.

That was the downside of perpetually reading between the lines.

He didn’t know Geigi’s thinking. He could only try to signal that the decision to send the Guild office was due to local changes.

Ultimately he had to talk to Geigi directly. He had to signal him, however, that it was not forewarning of the assassination of the Mospheiran stationmaster.

Operationally, on his arrival up there with the Guild observers, there was going to be some head-butting, one could foresee it, with Geigi’s bodyguard, who were not suddenly going to regard the new office as their superiors, and who, being from the southwest coast, would not have quite the seniority and political clout of the Guild observers—in the minds of the Guild observers, at least.

He had to hope for the best in that.

He also had to figure how to break a new fact of life to the human side of the station, Mospheiran and Reunioner, before they drew their own conclusions about the Guild presence.

The short answer for the humans would be—never deal with the Guild directly. Go to Geigi. That was the way it should theoretically work, and that was all anybody on the human side ever needed to know. How complicated that office really was, under that layer—just wasn’t human business at this point.

And it would not, if he had anything to do with it, entail an assassination.

He wrote a short note to Geigi.

I have nothing of substance, nandi, about names, but I assure you that the Guild is attempting to become better-informed and more forward-looking than in the past, and they will greatly value any instruction you can give them.

This is an atevi matter which I have not yet explained to our partners in station operation.

Geigi would also know that once the Assassins gained an office on the station, other guilds would clamor to get a foothold in what amounted to a new atevi province in the heavens. He saw it coming, and certainly Geigi would. He could all but hear the swell of debate among the Guilds over who was to have what priority, since it would depend on space available.

Precedence by antiquity was the only criterion that would not provoke debate; and the Assassins, first up to the station, were in fact the oldest of all guilds, so at least that worked. Transportation and the Scholars were the most directly involved with the station. The Messengers—there was going to be a lively discussion, in a community intimately linked to computer communications. If they went by seniority, the Messengers would take a place in line behind Transportation and the Builders. But they would argue. Passionately.

Geigi could well figure that a riotous tide was coming in and details were going to have to be worked out.

Tabini was the one to moderate the Guilds—including the requests to go to space. The paidhi-aiji did not have that thankless job, though Banichi and Algini were discussing things downstairs with officers of the Assassins’ Guild at the moment. They likely would consult Tabini next—which was the way it ought to be.

Major changes are occurring and regional offices are being recognized in many guilds. This will place this office under your able supervision over procedures and associational boundaries. I have every confidence you will be pleased.

I look forward to our meeting with great anticipation.

That should relieve Geigi’s apprehensions.

He was watching the atevi shuttle schedule, with the notion that Shawn was likely watching it, too, watching both shuttle schedules, not wanting news to arrive ahead of a replacement, not wanting to advertise their intentions, not wanting to stir up debate in what, at least on an emergency basis, could be done by decree.

And where it came to his schedule, there was one final problem before he could insert himself and his aishid into the shuttle schedule.

That problem’s name was, as the dowager had said, Topari.

With deep resolution, he leaned forward, shook back his lace cuffs, and uncapped the inkpot. He positioned a new piece of paper on his desk and set the bridge on which the hand rested.

A Ragi document, this time.

Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, Lord of the Heavens, Lord of Najida

To Topari, Lord of Hasjuran, of Halrun in the Southern Mountains

Salutations.

From correspondence with Geigi, to a very formal letter to the lord of a weather-worn little train station, a highly diffuse population of less than seven thousand, and a ruling clan of about thirty-five people, whose land just happened to sit astride the only sizeable flat spot in the southern mountains.

We would be pleased if you would share our dinner table two days hence.

We shall be inviting your brother lords of the district as well—

He wrote it in the most florid calligraphy he could muster, and added the proper titles for the lords of the little mountain association, in absolute exactitude, before he gave it a ribbon and seal.

Two days’ grace would let Lord Topari and his neighbors hold whatever conference in advance they needed, let these rustic lords find the right wardrobe for formal dinner with the paidhi-aiji, and let them actually get to Shejidan if they had chanced to be at home in the mountains when they received their invitations, as could well be the case. He tried to impose sufficient burden of formality on them that would let them feel the weight of his office, impress on them the importance of his good opinion, leave them limited time to get an agenda together—and still manage to have them in a good mood when they arrived.

He wanted to deal with the railroad problems all in one group. He wanted to ply them all with food and wine and lay them out a fair and attractive proposal as a group before he dealt with Lord Topari in private—and, God! he so fervently wished he and his aishid had gone with the aiji-dowager to Malguri, instead.

She sat in her mountain fastness clear at the other end of the continent, where even a phone was a rarity—though it was not the case with her security office. She didn’t have a shuttle schedule to think about.

Lord Tatiseigi was headed for his estate at Tirnamardi tomorrow, having finished his work.

They were both leaving him to mop up. The essential major bills had sped through the legislature and they were off to deal with their own local problems.

He had his dinner party with the mountain lords.

And a railroad deal of great importance to the dowager’s trade proposal with the Marid hanging in the balance.

9

The dinner party small talk was, alas, and as Bren had feared, an indelicate series of business questions insinuated at table, and the affair extended into completely blunt questions during brandy afterward.

But one could consider it a moderate success.

Far too much brandy proved to be the answer. When voices rose and the objections of private interest became wildly unreasonable, Bren signaled and staff kept pouring until the conversation descended to incoherency, and sober bodyguards—two apiece—took the befuddled guests safely down to the Bujavid train station and back to their hotel, probably confused as to whether a deal had been made.

Lord Topari’s enthusiasm for the project had, however, only increased. He was the one who had begun a heated argument with his neighbors and—in Lord Topari’s evident opinion—subordinates, and he had seemed to be winning his points. That the argument might continue back at the hotel seemed very likely.

Twice in the days following the dinner party, Lord Topari positioned himself beside the only door of the Transportation Committee conference room, to pounce when Bren exited the committee meeting, wanting this and that addition to the agreement.

Two four-man bodyguards stood at right angles to such encounters, one Guild-trained, the other composed of leather-clad high country hunters armed with pieces of, Banichi said dryly, a caliber hard to come by in Shejidan’s shops.

“Have you heard from the aiji-dowager?” was the daily refrain, referring to Lord Topari’s new requests: he wanted to extend roads from his domain into those of his neighbors, making the rail station in his district the center of a hitherto primitive transportation network.

It was not an unreasonable notion. It was even desirable—but a road was still a lower priority, a matter to be dealt with once the station itself was approved and underway. It was, however, a moment at which Topari had gotten the agreement of his neighbors—and Topari wanted the matter included and attached to railroad finance in the original proposal.

Topari might act the country novice, but he wisely wanted an agreement set in stone, sealed, filed in the national archive, and the agreement removed from his local politics, so that his neighbors could not change their minds.

· · ·

“I have something for you, indeed,” Bren was able to say, finally. He had anticipated the encounter, and had a member of his secretarial office in attendance with a set of papers. He smiled, showed Topari into the now-vacant conference room, and beckoned the young man with the briefcase.

The young man set it on the table, opened it, and drew out five, fortunate five packets, laying them in a fan on the table.

“For each district affected,” Bren said with some satisfaction in his handiwork, “indeed, nandi, anticipating that we might meet today, I have prepared a plan, with the requested road work, and there will be an adequate warehouse, and a Transportation Guild establishment in the station. You recall—”

“Foreigners are not acceptable!” was Topari’s immediate and negative response.

“Ah, but the Transportation Guild, in agreement with other changes going on within all the guilds, will recognize your local offices. Representatives of that guild will induct five local residents, one from each of your districts, train them, and then assist them to train other candidates for their guild, setting up a model establishment for others—completely local—to be set up in other districts across the Southern Mountains and southward into the Marid. The original representatives will return to Shejidan when training is complete, leaving your own people in absolute authority over operations at your station. And this office is budgeted in with the road-building, to be sure of that standard you ask.”

Local authority would be indoctrinated, trained, educated, and bound by Transportation Guild standards, regulations, and procedures—including road width. It was a training process that might take years, but he neglected to mention that. He pointed out for the lord, who was not adept with legal language, the salient points of the agreement.

“Local control,” he said, pointing to a paragraph of fine calligraphy. “Local authority—in your office, which will be the first and senior Transportation Guild office in the district, supervising all offices that later exist. You will have complete local control, and there will be no running to Shejidan for approval for matters involving the rail in your district. Your rail center will communicate decisions to subordinate stations, which you may decide to set up, or not. Your rail center will become, in fact, a central office.”

“Central of what?”

“Of whatever you instruct them to be, nandi. As the foremost clan of your local association, and as lord of the territory where the rail office is located, you may choose to negotiate a Transportation office in each of your member districts, but one assumes you will choose to keep the regional Guild office in your rail center, bound together by the several roads.”

He could see the glitter in Lord Topari’s eyes.

“They will be in direct communication with Transportation Guild Headquarters here in Shejidan, so you can be confident any matters you deem important enough to report will go straight to the highest level of the Transportation Guild in Shejidan, at the speed of modern communications—that is to say, instantly. And your report will go from them to the aiji, should there be any problem they cannot resolve. Any of your neighbors’ difficulties will be routed to your local office before being relayed to Shejidan.”

Topari listened to that, and his eyes began to sparkle. “Direct from Halrun to Shejidan.”

“At a simple phone call,” Bren said. “As will be the case, of course, with any other guilds you yourself deem useful to your district. Establish a local office in your district, and establish minor offices reporting to it from other members of your association, and you will be the center of such operations. One would recommend that the Builders’ Guild be among the first to operate on that level. Likewise the Trade Guild might be useful to you. I see that you are amply defended by your bodyguard. But perhaps the Treasurers would be useful, to be sure every report and record is proper and to the established standard. Many districts have found the Treasurers a great convenience, eliminating any confusion about accounts.”

“We are not on the gold standard!”

“Absolutely,” he said. Topari’s folk, poor in that resource, dealt in a mishmash of equivalencies and direct barter of everything from furs to foodstuffs. “Which is all the more reason to have your own local people in the Treasurers’ Guild, trained to deal with exchanges, knowledgeable enough to agree on fair values locally—and to be certain your standards are being observed when the value of items is translated to Shejidani currency.”

A worried and calculating look. “One of my associates will not favor that.”

“Each may have whatever offices he wishes to admit, under your authority—though of course if they want the full advantage of the system—ultimately—they all must deal with the offices in your district, nandi. It will be an advantage to them to have their offices directly connected to the rail office, and to the warehouses we shall build there; and to have them on site where the goods meet the rail in Halrun. So perhaps your lone objector will find the system to his advantage after all, as the operation progresses and profits flow. One is certain he will not want to be left out of your road system—and when he finds that your commerce is proceeding without delays and inquiries, he may wish to participate. Meanwhile your station will gain from rapid processing of exchanges, and if Halrun makes it most convenient for traders, Halrun will get the most benefits. Fortune and geography have settled a great benefit on your home district, nandi, and, as a coastal lord, I can add that with the improvement of the Najida spur, as the dowager and Lord Machigi intend, you will find those warehouses full of goods going not only north-south, but also coming up from the west coast. And of course your local products will always have direct shipment to the Marid and the west coast, rather than going down to Shejidan for packaging and shipping. Your district will derive a fee from goods in storage in those warehouses—fees which have hitherto gone to Shejidan. An efficient operation in your district, perhaps with additional warehouses, as lords become aware of the advantage of a central distribution point, can be very, very profitable.”

“Excellent creature!” Lord Topari exclaimed. “Excellently done!”

And Topari was out the door and off down the hall with his guard.

Bren drew a deep breath, aware of his own aishid around him, doubtless suppressing the strong desire to open fire.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said, choosing amusement, and experiencing a certain satisfaction, “your restraint is admirable.”

“You have inserted an Assassins’ Guild office into that territory,” Banichi said, in that dry tone of on-duty humor. “Manners must soon follow.”

“Creature!” Jago repeated.

“Views will change,” Bren said, “slowly. The man may even realize his slip—and worry about it later. Or his guard may.”

“It is important his guard know the problem, however,” Algini said, and Banichi nodded.

“Indeed,” Banichi said. “Tano.”

Tano left their company on his own mission, to pass a word to Topari’s bodyguard, namely that the paidhi had magnanimously forgiven the small slip in protocol, but that the paidhi’s guard strongly suggested that a reconsideration of vocabulary in private might prevent future incidents in public—lest he make that reference in the hearing of the aiji-dowager, or with some of the more conservative lords.

“A good lunch at home,” Bren said quietly, and started the three walking toward the main hall and the lifts.

The dispersing committee had long since moved on, thank God.

And attitudes toward humans had shifted to the positive during his tenure. Attitudes were still shifting, penetrating areas they had never reached. And change was now reaching the mountains, or Topari would not be dealing with him in the first place. Attitudes would change. A moderation of the language would follow. Excellent creature was already relatively benign as a description.

“I have concluded,” he remarked to his aishid in the privacy of the lift, “that Topari is, whatever his faults, an honest fellow.”

“But he is still a fool,” Banichi said, which was, unfortunately, true. And because he was a fool, unfortunate things would continue to happen in Lord Topari’s dealings with the great and powerful of the aishidi’tat.

The best they could do for Topari as a political ally was to insulate him, keep him safe in his mountains, between small experiences of the larger world, and keep him happy to be in his mountains. Of all the several mountain lords who could rise to head that association—Topari, who had the exploitable advantage of that tiny wide spot in the mountains, was also the most adventurous, the most willing to brave the modern world and its ways, and equally likely, Bren surmised, he was the one lord the others agreed couldn’t tell them a lie.

It was a time of opportunity in the aishidi’tat, a time of opportunity that a brave few were beginning to recognize. The shakeup in the Assassins’ Guild was proliferating scarily fast through other guilds, which had felt the pressure regarding regional guilds for decades and staved it off, saying there was no way to change the system. Things were suddenly possible that had not been possible since the foundation of the aishidi’tat.

Which was all the more reason to couple the Assassins’ move to space with his trip up to the station, and give that ancient guild a little peaceful time to settle in and learn the environment, so they could advise and temper the guilds that would come up behind them.

The new Guild office on the space station—which would quickly have to understand an array of technical issues and precautions—was part of a very large picture indeed.

Change was coming, and if they could just achieve internal peace long enough to see it all work, they were going to knit the Marid, the East, and the southern coast into the Western Association—and now the station—in a way that Tabini’s predecessors had only dreamed of doing.

Boundaries had always been vague in the atevi world. A common language across the continent, local trade and intermarriages and leaders based on that biological determiner, man’chi, worked against such absolutes. The formation of the aishidi’tat had fundamentally shifted that balance with a vast number of independent clans recognizing a central authority, the aiji. Man’chi, yes, was involved, but laws and the new guild systems reinforced that union, providing regularized commerce, communication—and peacekeeping based on efficiency and surgical precision, not numbers and brute force.

The aishidi’tat became a thing apart . . . until the marriage contract between Tabini’s grandfather and Ilisidi brought the Eastern Association into an uneasy alliance, and the boundaries began to blur once more. Thanks to recent efforts, those boundaries might soon all but disappear, as the political leaders of these four highly independent regions recognized the benefits of cooperation, and sought a compromise of Guild structure that would enhance their strengths and minimize their vulnerabilities.

The real change wrought since Tabini’s return to power was not in boundaries. It was in the lines of control that had, from the outset of the Western Association, centered so rigidly in the capital, in the form of the Assassin’s Guild. In the earliest days of the aishidi’tat, clan loyalty had made unity impossible. But arising from, of all things, the building of a railroad, guilds arose that transcended clan interests, that demanded man’chi to themselves, to the aishidi’tat, and ultimately to the aijinate. The Assassins were the first, the oldest of guilds—taking in applicants from any clan, but insisting on man’chi to itself and renunciation of any other loyalty. The Assassins assigned bodyguards to various leaders they wanted to protect . . . and removed those they wanted out. And the aiji in Shejidan, by one move and another, sheltered them, used them, bestowed their services on those he wanted to survive.

It had, in effect, built the aishidi’tat. But it could only build it so far—among clans of the midlands culture, the Ragi, who spread their power as far as the mountains and the sea.

Beyond that, in the generations since, other associations created their own such forces, and other guilds, paying allegiance, for reasons of politics, to the Shejidani guilds, but always excluded from the highest offices, and from power.

But the oldest of guilds, the Assassins’ Guild, retained the notion that it had created the aijinate and the aishidi’tat—and held that it could re-create it, should an aiji lose the Assassins’ man’chi.

And when Tabini had allied himself with humans, and began to site industry in some provinces and not in others, when he pressed ambitious building programs, some elements within the Assassins’ Guild began to move assets on their own, bent on setting another aiji in power, one who would take their orders, follow their programs, and purge anyone who opposed them.

When it was clear that Tabini-aiji had positioned his heir and the aiji-dowager out of their reach, the shadow elements within the Assassins’ Guild moved to kill him and set their own man in office.

Several things saved the aishidi’tat: the move Tabini had made, getting important people out of reach; the loyalty of senior Guild who quickly retired or disappeared, who began to work with the Mospheirans and with Geigi, up on the station; and the independence of the stepchild guilds, the regional guilds, whose attachment to clan and region, hitherto viewed as unfitness—held them steady in their opposition to the coup and their refusal to accept the new aiji.

The scattered edges of power had fought to get control of the Guild back into their hands, and to restore Tabini to office.

And now the Guild, restored, looked far more kindly on the regional branches—which served both Geigi and Ilisidi, which had just rescued the government. Now a third region asserted itself, the Marid, whose principle reason for rebelling from the aishidi’tat was the matter of regional guilds.

The rules changes the Assassins’ Guild were working on would beget a hierarchy of subordinate field offices, still controlled from the capital, but each with a certain local latitude for the unique issues the local office understood.

And they were going, according to Ilisidi, to Cenedi for advice.

Cenedi, notoriously regional, and backing, in the aiji-dowager, the second greatest power in the aishidi’tat.

And the Shadow Guild, that rogue splinter group off the Assassins, which had directed the coup against Tabini, was, one hoped, no longer able to have its way in anything.

If it had leaders still alive.

As for the issue of too much modernity and the space program, the new Guild leadership was, Jago said, computerizing Assignments and records-keeping, so that one clerk could not control a system his superiors could not access. That was a revolution in itself.

Other guilds were making similar changes.

The very air in the capital began to feel freer and safer for the changes underway. The revised Guild systems would be less centered in the capital, but paradoxically, the regional lords—the truly powerful lords of the aishidi’tat, who had maintained these somewhat illegal splinters of the traditional guilds under their close supervision, would be drawn closer to the aijinate.

It all was proceeding apace, disturbing some guilds and some lords, pleasing others.

Oddest result of that tangled Guild housekeeping, the paidhi’s bodyguard, all western, all trained in the Shejidani Guild, ranked next to the dowager’s. Banichi’s and Jago’s assignment to the household of the paidhi-aiji had started back when Tabini had been keeping a suspicious eye on him—and one of the first things Banichi had done was to hand him a very illegal gun.

At whose order? To this day, he had no idea.

Then Tano and Algini had arrived. Bren had no idea what Algini’s rank actually was, but he had a definite knowledge of the inner workings of the Shejidani Guild—and Bren held more than a slight suspicion that the Guild had assigned Algini to Tabini originally to keep an eye on Tabini’s doings. But Tabini had promptly shunted Algini and his partner Tano over to Banichi’s unit, possibly as a way of rebuking the Guild—or even of giving the Guild close access to the paidhi-aiji’s doings, and answering questions before they were asked.

Now Guild leadership realized it was in their interests to work directly with Lord Geigi—who had yet another regional-guild situation in his establishment, in a Guild unit that had ended up directing atevi operations on the space station.

And they were asking the paidhi-aiji’s aishid for advice on who to send up there.

Oh, yes, things in the aishidi’tat were changing.

Changing too fast for stability? He hoped not.

Now he had to make a decision of his own. He had upcoming committee meetings he was scheduled to attend. He had Lord Tatiseigi coming back to the capital for one of them. He had asked Shawn to fire the current Mospheiran stationmaster. He had to pick an upcoming shuttle launch and make arrangements.

Days had passed, and he had not gotten a response from Shawn, not found out whether Shawn was arranging to put the brakes on Tillington, or whether there was something preventing it. He’d hoped for a quick answer. The fact it had not been quick—said there might well be problems.

And he had to decide whether to involve himself in Mospheiran politics, or leave it totally to Shawn. There were sources he could tap . . . but he hesitated to do it and possibly stir things up that might further complicate the situation.

God, he wished he knew. If getting Shawn to move against Tillington was asking too much of Shawn or if it put Shawn in political danger—that worried him almost as much as the situation on the station. And he might need to hasten his own trip up there, to start the matter into motion.

There was a shuttle preparing to launch in a few days. The Guild team wasn’t altogether ready to go up on this one; he wasn’t ready, either. He only now had time to clear the decks and make plans.

But he did need to send to the Port Director and advise her they would be asking for the smallest of the passenger compartments on the next shuttle after this one. That let the Port Director shift cargo priorities about, to make sure that bulky cargo had room and that critical cargo still moved. There was still time to make adjustments, but he had to make his mind up and set a date.

That meant of all people he had not yet notified—the Port Director was definitely coming into need-to-know. Theoretically he could even launch from Mospheira under extreme emergency, the Mospheiran launch usually coming five days after this particular shuttle’s launch, with their single shuttle—but with the politics involved— no, he didn’t want to consider that option. He hoped Shawn had plans for somebody to be on that shuttle. But maybe the best thing to do was to get up there.

Time to call the Port Director.

Today.

But that was—

They stepped off the lift to a boom so loud he stopped in alarm, instantly thinking of an explosion of some sort in the building.

“Thunder,” Banichi said, amused at him.

He was amazed. Then he laughed and felt foolish They lived sealed so deep inside the Bujavid he could lose all notion of sunrise and sunset. And he’d been buried so deep in work, he’d paid no attention. “One takes it we are having weather out in the world?”

“A strong front,” Jago said cheerfully. “And fast-moving. We had an advisement from Najida last night. They are secure and battened down, and they were able to get the gable end closed and the tiles in place.”

“Excellent, that.” A second thump from the heavens sounded much more like thunder—but loud. It was unusual to hear it inside the Bujavid’s central halls, let alone feel it.

“Storms have spread all the way to Tirnamardi,” Jago said, “and reached as far south as Separti Township. The front has blown past the coast now, but the midlands are due a soaking.”

Weather that came across the straits and up from the southwest often came in with truly major force, and the thunder said this was one of those storms. He wished his apartment owned windows to fling open—to smell the rain, watch the lightning, feel the wind.

But he owned no windows to fling open, and it was a quiet afternoon of office work he had planned, letter-writing, mostly.

Cajeiri, he imagined, would have darted for his own apartment’s windows, drinking it all in.

· · ·

Thunder.

Cajeiri’s aishid was off having lessons. Boji had been misbehaving all morning, bouncing about his cage, knocking his water askew and making a puddle. Eisi had been putting the water bottle to rights, when the boom hit, and with that boom, Boji—

Boji had flown out past Eisi’s arm, up a hanging and up atop the rod of a tapestry.

Now he was perched up there on the rod, above everything but the chandelier, screaming his disapproval of the storm.

“Boji,” Cajeiri said sternly. “Come.” He held out his arm, patted it.

He could get Boji to come to that summons—sometimes.

Second big boom.

Boji flew across the room, wild-eyed, scrambling atop the buffet, his nails endangering the ancient wood.

And the sitting room door opened.

“No!” Cajeiri shouted. “Shut the door!”

He could hear his sister screaming in the distance. Boji shrieked and leapt from the buffet to the cage roof.

Eisi caught Boji by the leg, and Boji bit him.

Eisi yelled and Boji escaped, this time running in huge leaps back to the bedroom.

Eisi was bleeding, Boji was still screaming, the door was still open, and Mother was standing in the doorway. She stepped into the room and shut the door at her back.

“Honored Mother,” Cajeiri said, appalled. He sketched a little bow. So did Eisi.

A furious shriek sounded from inside the bedroom. Liedi came out, holding Boji by the nape of his neck. Boji struggled, waving his arms and kicking, showing white substantial fangs and the whites of his eyes and hissing like a teakettle.

Eisi held the cage door open. Liedi put Boji in and shut it, fast.

“Your servant is bleeding,” Mother said.

Eisi’s hand was dripping and Eisi was trying to contain the drip to keep it off the carpet. “Please go to the kitchen, nadiin-ji,” he said, and Eisi and Liedi quietly bowed and went back into the bedroom, where a servant’s passage offered a route to bandages that did not lead past Mother.

Boji went on rattling his cage and bouncing and screeching.

“One regrets the noise, honored Mother.”

“Is this the normal operation of your household, son of mine?”

“No, honored Mother.”

Thunder continued to rumble.

“Lighting has hit the Bujavid roof. One thought you might be alarmed.”

He made a very deep bow, trying to be a little touched that his mother had thought of him—but suspecting there was a hostile reason in her visit, likely involving his sister. There was always a reason, usually involving his sister. And if the roof were afire from that lightning strike, he was sure he would not be his mother’s first concern.

There was one sure distraction for her. He had found that out. “Is Seimiro safe?” he asked.

“Indeed. Beha is with her. And there is no danger. There may have been a little damage to the roof, but nothing that need concern us.”

“One is glad,” he said, ducking his head, still mistrusting the visit. “Thank you, honored Mother, and one regrets the commotion. Boji is not usually like this. He had overset his water when the big boom came. We were working with that, his door was open, and the thunder came again—”

“What are you hiding, son of mine? Did he bite you?”

He had his hands behind his back. He had not even been conscious of it. But he brought them forward reluctantly, showing his right cuff lace sadly ink-stained, and wrapped in a handkerchief, and, he suddenly feared hiding the fact that he had just distributed still-wet ink to the back of his coat.

“The thunder,” he said. “I was doing my lessons, honored Mother. The ink spilled.”

“Commendable, regarding the lessons. But what else was ruined? Let me see your coat. Turn.”

He turned, obediently, and turning full about, saw the answer in his mother’s frown.

“That will never come out.”

“One deeply regrets, honored Mother. One thought—”

“One thought?”

He had thought better of saying it, but found nowhere to go from there. “One thought for an instant it was artillery, honored Mother.”

His mother gave him that flat, unexpressive stare that might be disapproval. Or not. “We know,” she said. “Your father and I know. Such times these are, that my son thinks of such a thing! Did any get on the carpet?”

“No. No, honored Mother. It was a puddle on the desk. I mopped it and blocked it off with my handkerchief, but it reached the cuff. Nothing dripped, however.” He carefully unfolded his balled-up handkerchief, showing the limit of the damage, which was not much—except to his cuff lace and his coat.

“And why are your valets not seeing to your shirt?”

“Because my aishid is off at training, honored Mother, and my valets were catching Boji.”

“Such a household!”

“If my aishid were here, indeed they would have helped, honored Mother! But Boji was loose and we had to catch him.”

There was a moment of silence, and slowly, silently, his mother nodded, with just a hint of amusement.

“There is my son,” she said. “I have not seen him in some time.”

She confused him—except that her jealousy of Great-grandmother was extreme, and constant, and colored everything between them. He took a chance, and answered back, just a little shaken, but what Great-grandmother would call pert. “And I also see my mother,” he said with another bow. “One is very glad of it.”

“Her manners.”

“No, honored Mother. My manners. One is very glad you came. Thank you for coming to be sure I was all right.” He piled another pertness atop it all, but he meant it. “I would be happy if you would sit and take tea. Eisi will be back in a moment.”

“Oh, you keep glorious state here, do you? We should not repair to the sitting room, safe from wild creatures and ink?”

“The sitting room is my father’s sitting room. This is mine. My apartment.”

“Your suite of rooms.”

“Yes,” he said, maintaining a level stare. It was not his intention to argue with her. “It is just a suite. But my staff is good. And if you would like tea, I can make it myself.”

“With such hands?”

He wiped his hands with the better side of the stained handkerchief. “I can.”

“Then I would, indeed,” Mother said with a faint smile, “take a cup of tea.” That somewhat surprised him. He went to arrange the chairs—and remembering his dirty hands and still-damp cuff, he refrained from touching the fabric, and wiped the wood with his elbow where he touched it. He carefully arranged two cups, opened the tea canister and added tea to the ceramic strainer, then filled the pot from the spigot of the antique samovar, trying not to fingerprint it. His mother adjusted the chairs herself and took a seat—having inspected the chairs for ink. He set the pot and cups on the tray and added the sugar caddy. His mother preferred sweet tea.

He took the tray to the side table, and carefully served her cup, just as Liedi came hurrying back from the rear of the suite to take over.

“Thank you, Liedi-ji,” he said quietly. “Is Eisi all right?”

“He is very well, nandi,” Liedi said quietly, and offered the first cup to Mother, who took it with a careful smile. Cajeiri took the second, and Liedi slipped out of the way. Boji began to set up another fuss, but Liedi had wisely brought an egg from the kitchen.

“That is the hungriest creature I have ever seen,” his mother said.

“He will always behave for an egg,” he said. “He really will do no real damage when he gets loose. He only bites if you take hold of him by surprise. And he will come to me, most times.”

“He has an aroma.”

“He bathes every day. We bring water, and put down towels, and he washes himself.”

“Well, that is a good habit,” Mother said, with a sip of tea. Thunder rumbled again, and Boji, in his cage, looked up nervously toward the ceiling. “Such a storm. Your father is in a meeting downstairs. One believes his guard will have told him we have been struck by lightning.”

“But we are safe,” he said. It was a question.

“Oh, one is very sure,” Mother said, and then, pensively: “You were away on the ship for two years. While we were in hiding, there was a storm, a very bad one. Your father and I were sleeping in a storage shed. And the roof leaked. Then half the roof fell in on us, midway through the night.”

He was not sure he should laugh. His mother and his father had had Shadow Guild hunting them during that time and it had been very grim. “What did you do?”

“There was nothing we could do,” Mother said with remarkable cheerfulness. “We sat there. We could see the clouds and the lightning through the hole. But we doubted we would catch fire if we were hit. We were too wet.”

He still wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to laugh. Mother was like that.

“We had no breakfast either,” his mother said more somberly, taking a bit more tea. “I shall always remember that morning. I have never been more miserable than that night. But we were very glad to see the sun.”

It was the first story he had heard from his mother or his father about the days when he had been away on the ship and his mother and father had been hiding in hedgerows. Everybody in the Bujavid apartment except his mother and father had eventually been killed.

From those years forward he had attached man’chi very strongly to his great-grandmother, and also to his father, but not so keenly. His mother—

He had lost her, he thought distressedly. He had lost her when he had left the world. And she had been with his father, while both of them were being hunted through the north.

But he had missed all that.

Why did you come this morning? he wanted to know. But he was afraid to ask. It was too close to a challenge, and he did not challenge his mother.

There was a smaller peal of thunder.

Why are you here instead of with my sister? he wanted to ask. What do you want?

But that was a challenge, too. He found nothing he dared ask. Thunder boomed, distant and retreating. And he saw a brushy hill in his memory. And Najida’s lower hall.

“The thunder makes a noise and Seimiro frets and goes back to sleep,” his mother said. “She has no understanding of it. My son sees fire and smoke. And feels shells landing.”

He looked at her, disturbed. “It does sound a little like that.”

“Is that so?” she asked him. “Is that what you hear in the thunder?”

“Yes,” he admitted, disturbed, and tried not to let the inky cuff-lace touch the cup. “Yes, honored Mother.”

“One thought so,” his mother said, and took a sip of tea.

She was different than Great-grandmother. A great deal different. He had no idea what she wanted.

“An attack would sound like that,” his mother said. “Is that what you thought?”

“One did,” he said, “For an instant.”

“So,” his mother said. “So did I. For an instant. We have that in common, son of mine. We have both heard guns in the distance. We have both seen things we wish not to have seen. And your father is in a meeting and your bodyguard is at training. So I thought, My son might find a visit just now—comfortable.”

He was not comfortable. He had had Boji loose, he had ruined a shirt and a coat. He had put inky fingerprints on the tea-caddy, and the teapot, and might have inked his trousers as well—not to mention the chair arm, where he was doggedly remembering not to set his hand down.

“One greatly regrets the accident, honored Mother.” Boji would not stay quiet. Boji had finished his egg, and was now becoming a nuisance, rattling his cage.

“Thunder,” Mother said. “Just thunder. The coat is not your best one. The ink missed the carpet, did it not?”

“It did, honored Mother.” It was the second time Mother had asked that, and she didn’t make that sort of mistake. He wondered if there was a spot. “It never got to the edge.”

“So,” Mother said, and set down her teacup. “The storm seems to have gone over us. I shall go back to your sister—so long as you are well.”

She rose. He set aside his teacup, stood up and gave a little bow.

She went to the door. He hurried, before Liedi, to open it for her.

“Visit me,” she said. She only lived down the hall in the same apartment. They saw each other, and Father, at breakfast and lunch and supper, every mealtime since he had gotten home. It was strange to say, Visit me. But he felt it as a very solemn invitation.

“I shall,” he said. She left, and he shut the door.

His fingers had smudged the white paint near the door latch. He thought about rubbing the mark off, but that cuff was what had done it. He used the other elbow, the coat being beyond salvage anyway, then walked back to his room to change clothes.

· · ·

A second thunderstorm came rolling in half an hour after the first, with thumps that Bren swore all but made ripples in his teacup, even within the thick walls of the Bujavid.

Lightning had hit a pole and dislodged some tiles from the Bujavid roof, which rather well accounted for the initial boom. A work crew was up there assessing the damage from the inside. He thought they could have rather well waited in case of another strike—and he hoped they had run for cover as the second wave rolled in.

A report from Jeladi said that there was a handspan of water on the rails near the Guild District, by the old canal.

Power had been out for a bit in the east end of Shejidan, again due to a lightning strike.

Najida had gotten its share of rain from this system, Bren was sure. And the assurance the workmen had gotten the new wing roof sealed was good. He just hoped Jaishan was safe at dock and not in transit with the peninsula and its rocks alee.

The winds of an ordinary spring met summer and did ritual battle. It was a rhythm old as the hills—literally. And it was a warm and comfortable thing to have the city’s most solid walls between him and the storm.

He’d had lunch. Now he had those letters to write, and when the storm passed, a courier could go out to the spaceport by train, quietly, and without publicity of any kind, bearing his request for passenger space on the next shuttle after this one. He could surely manage to wrap up his business sufficiently in the next couple of weeks, and he rather hoped a quiet message had already gone up to Tillington from Shawn saying, simply, Make no statements whatever on the Reunioner matter, so that at least nothing worse would happen up there.

On his agenda, too, was a matter which achieved more significance with the Tillington matter afoot. Cajeiri had written to him this morning, a formal letter with only a few childish calligraphic shortcuts, reporting that everything was very well next door and would he please invite him to a dinner party soon.

But there was a second issue, and a more troubling one. Cajeiri added that he had written to his associates up on the station—and he had somewhat expected letters from his associates to come down on this current shuttle. He was worried, but he did not want to ask his father, and he felt that asking Lord Geigi would attract his father’s attention.

It would. It attracted the paidhi’s attention and made him ask why, a second time, was there possibly a problem with correspondence being delayed, and who was at fault?

Perhaps the children had just not written in time to get their letters included in the physical mail. But—all of them?

He was a little concerned. He had put off his answer to the young gentleman’s letter this morning only because he had had the committee meeting. But he intended a serious inquiry into the possibility of missing mail, and he sincerely hoped that the answer was a simple case of the kids missing the deadline.

But—missing mail had been a problem before this. And the fact that Tillington’s office was on a rampage about the children’s visit and the children’s ties to Cajeiri did occur to him in the question. If Tillington had taken it on himself to stop the children’s letters, a call to Jase was in order, and there was one more point in his problems with Tillington, depending on whether he wanted to go up quietly—or with forewarning of official displeasure. He had to decide on that matter.

But before he made that call, he wanted details from Cajeiri, to start with facts.

That was one issue on his mind, that, the letter to the port director, and the fact that, perhaps at breakfast tomorrow, he had to break the news to the boy that he was going up to the station and Cajeiri wasn’t. At least he could promise Cajeiri he would find the letters, if they’d been sent.

He hadn’t seen the boy since he’d been back, hadn’t communicated with him as he’d intended to do. He’d met with Tabini more than once, had been in the apartment, but the boy had evidently been told it was business and he should stay out of the way. He’d managed to talk with Ilisidi twice before she left. He’d managed to exchange a few words with Tatiseigi in the legislature before Tatiseigi left for his estate. He’d even exchanged a few words with Damiri.

But Cajeiri—no. Cajeiri hadn’t been accessible. He’d been telling himself for days he needed to make time to check on the boy—but problems kept coming up and the schedule kept pressing on him. Now the boy had had to write a letter to tell him something he should have known about, and beg him for a breakfast invitation, poor lad, now that all his other prospects had left town.

He’d had far, far better intentions than that.

A knock came at the office door. Narani entered, bearing the message bowl with a single cylinder.

“This just arrived, nandi.”

Not Shawn, which was the letter he had been waiting for. That would have been under Presidential seal, and in a diplomatic pouch, not a plain steel cylinder that meant the Messengers’ Guild had transmitted it.

That left few possibilities. Jase. Geigi.

He reached for it and opened it, extracted and flattened the message while Narani waited for a possible response.

It was from Toby. His brother, who lived aboard his boat.

Storms in the strait, he thought instantly.

God, are he and Barb all right?

Hi there, the typescript letter began. We’re fine, that first. We took a little bit of a beating two days ago, lost the antenna and a railing, not to mention both bilge pumps, which was the greater concern. We’ve just limped into Najida on the manual pump and they’ve offered help putting things to rights. We could make it back to Port Jackson now, I’m pretty sure, now that I’ve located a new bilge pump—I’m going to owe a local fisherman. The front’s moving past, but we’re real tired, and Najida was our safest choice. We got in an hour ago, still having quite a bit of wind here. Ramaso says we should stay as long as we want, but I think officially I should ask.

We’re fine. Barb was with him. They were both all right. They’d gotten to Najida.

He just hoped the boat wasn’t too badly damaged.

With your permission, we’re going to be here a few days. We’re likely going to do a little more repair, either locally purchased or shipped over. Ramaso says not to worry, that he’ll order anything we need and put it on your tab. But I’m going to arrange a transfer of funds to cover it; we’ll feel better. I don’t know how to convey that to Ramaso in a way he’ll understand.

You can’t, brother, and it’s not a language problem. Ramaso knows what I’d say about your paying anything. I’ll get the fisherman a new pump.

I’d love to see you in the meanwhile. Any chance you could take the train over to Najida for a couple of days?

Oh, damn, he so wanted to do that. Did he have time? He might—if he flew, and worked on the flight to and from.

“The storm damaged nand’ Toby’s boat,” he said to Narani, who was standing by for a reply. “Toby has put in to Najida for repairs and he asks whether I can come out there. One is very strongly tempted, Rani-ji. The trip up to the station—I have to arrange. But two days—if nothing else blows up—I could possibly spare that.”

“Indeed, nandi. There are a few meetings on your schedule, but those might be rearranged. You could fly, or even take the train, and the bus could have you at Najida tonight.”

“Meeting with the young gentleman. Answering his query. The committee meetings in three days. Lord Tatiseigi is coming back tomorrow. He could deal with the Transportation committee. He intends to be there, regardless. We absolutely agree on the issues.”

“Indeed he might chair them quite ably, nandi.”

God, he rarely did things on the spur of the moment, these days—or he did, but those generally regarded politics or the need for firearms. Doing something this self-interested was an entirely different prospect. He should, he thought, feel guilty for even considering going out there.

But, hell, Tatiseigi could deal with the meetings. And whatever Jase answered about the kids’ maybe-missing letters probably should wait for him to get up to the station. He wanted to talk to Tillington, get the measure of the man, personally, maybe impart a quiet understanding as to why Tillington needed to go home on the next shuttle and seek a nice job in the space industry, with no damaging fuss about it. That was by far the most constructive solution.

That left the Transportation Committee and that series of meetings—which he could come in on toward the last, if Tatiseigi was there to handle the initial phase.

Narani had his orders. He personally had just a few things to mop up, now. He needed to message the Port Director, confirm that he was indeed taking next rotation up. He had to meet with the Guild observers, everything as previously arranged.

And if anything critical came up in the committee meetings, he could be back in Shejidan by plane in a couple of hours.

He could do it. Fly out, fly back. No need of formality or any great furor, or any fuss with the wardrobe, not for informal Najida and working on his brother’s boat.

“Let me compose an official permission for his landing, Rani-ji. I shall send that before all else, just to have the legalities in order.”

“Will you indeed go there, nandi?”

“I think I shall. Tomorrow. I have a letter from the young gentleman, asking for a breakfast tomorrow morning.” God. “And he will be entirely put out if I go to Najida without him. I shall ask his father. It might salve the matter of the other trip, which he cannot take. And there are phones, after all. I can call Lord Geigi and inquire about his problem from there.”

“Indeed, nandi.” Narani let the bowl stand on the little table by the door and quietly left.

Bren spread out a new sheet and dipped his pen in the inkwell, in rising good cheer.

I hope the damage is by no means extensive. You are of course welcome at Najida as long as you need and I shall make every effort to free my schedule. I am sending off the necessary permissions for your landing, with notice to Tabini-aiji, and the Assassins’ Guild. If your schedule is flexible, too, we may be able to gain a day or so together.

If you need greater assistance of any sort, absolutely rely on me. I can locate supplies and repair items with no great difficulty at all and have them in your hands within a day or so.

Please take advantage of every resource Najida can offer for your safety and comfort meanwhile.

He hesitated at the last line. Always, always, there was politics, even within the family.

I hope that Barb is well. Give her my regards.

The letter would be physically delivered. He could pick up a phone and ask for direct contact, but if Toby and Barb were busy trying to bail out the yacht, he had no wish to call them up the steep hill to the phone. He simply spindled it, shoved it into one of his own official white cylinders, and rang for Narani to come back and take it. He could phone Toby tonight, perhaps, after everybody had finished for the day and had a good supper. Ramaso would see to that.

But express mail, couriered to the train, should make it by suppertime. And with luck—he could follow it after breakfast tomorrow and surprise Toby.

“To my brother,” he said simply, “on the regular train.”

“Nandi.” Narani took it, to be carried by one of the staff, who would pack an overnight bag and make it to the main train station from the Bujavid transport stop.

Thunder boomed and crashed, the storm had done with Najida, perhaps, but it had not yet quite done with Shejidan.

And if Cajeiri was to go out to Najida with him he needed clearance from Tabini. If they flew, on a charter, it would be quick, it would be secure, and if the plane waited, he could easily get himself and the boy back to the capital within an hour of any phone call.

He pulled down another sheet of paper, deciding that, hell, yes, he would clear his schedule, and he would go next door and see if he could liberate the young gentleman into the bargain, perhaps for dinner this evening, and have their breakfast on the plane at the crack of dawn.

Bren, paidhi-aiji

To Tabini, aiji of the aishidi’tat

A request has arrived, aiji-ma, from Toby my brother, who has had an emergency at sea. His boat took damage from the storm, and by my prior permission, he has put in at Najida for repairs. One begs you grant him an extended stay, of whatever length repairs require.

He also requests me to come visit him there, if this is possible. I am delighted to do this and believe I can do so without adversely affecting my schedule.

It also occurs to me that the young aiji would greatly enjoy a very brief—

A knock came at the door. Narani came in, bowed, and, without the bowl, handed him a second steel message cylinder.

This one did not have the Mospheiran color. It was plain.

Toby being in worse trouble was his first fear—but a message from his estate manager, Ramaso, should have the blue Najida band. He opened the cylinder, extracted the message, again one of those coded prints.

And not in Ragi.

Jason Graham, Captain, starship Phoenix.

Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, the Bujavid.

Unicorn sighted. ETA fifteen days. Operation here as discussed.

Reply requested.

His thought—if it was so coherent as a thought—was, Oh—my—God.

He read it twice. Looked up at Narani and didn’t trouble to keep the distress off his face.

“Rani-ji, the kyo are here—fifteen days out from the space station. All plans—my entire schedule—everything has to be suspended.”

It was more than a question of operations suspended.

All manner of operations had to be gotten underway—many of them not confined to the Earth.

And a very dangerous set of strangers they had met at Reunion was arriving to be entangled with the problems he and Jase had been negotiating.

Tillington. And the Reunioners.

The Reunioners were going to panic when they heard. The Mospheirans might well.

He couldn’t wait for another shuttle rotation. If he and his aishid had to ride up in the cockpit with the crew, he had to get up there.

He glanced at the calendar, in its nook on his desk. The current shuttle was launching day after tomorrow.

Narani was still waiting.

“I need to phone the Port Director, immediately, Rani-ji. I have to delay the shuttle launch, if at all possible. Call her, and let me tell her as much as she must know personally. I also need my aishid to report in, whoever is on the premises.”

“Nandi.” Narani left, and almost immediately after he had closed the door, footsteps went both directions down the hall. Narani was bound for his office to look up the spaceport code, likely—it was not one they routinely used; and Jeladi was likely headed deeper into the apartment, to advise his bodyguard they had a serious problem.

Fifteen days.

No trip to Najida. That was out.

Silly thought. The whole world was in danger. And he spared a thought for his brother, in dock at Najida, waiting for him, with no idea what had just shown up in the heavens.

The dowager needed to get back to Shejidan. She was involved in this.

He and Ilisidi likewise had a codeword for the kyo—but passing through Assassins’ Guild communications what was clearly a codeword that the Guild was not permitted to understand, at a time when they were trying to establish trust—

He had to play those politics carefully. Everything involving the guilds was new and no little touchy.

He had intended the Guild observers to go up to the station with him. He had to take them now, or have them arrive later, uninformed, in the middle of a situation, to try to figure out what they had done. That, or put them off indefinitely.

Tabini needed to know what was going on, immediately.

It was a nightmare. A damned nightmare, unplanned, unstoppable.

Jase and Sabin would have to handle everything on the station until he got there. Ogun, the senior captain, had no experience with the kyo. He might be in charge of the station, he might be senior captain and giving orders—but he was an unknown quantity to the kyo, and he fairly well was an unknown where it came to working with the atevi.

Sabin and the kyo had parted amicably at the last, if one dared use the word amicable. At least the kyo had agreed to let them evacuate the station before they removed the human construction from space they claimed.

In that meeting, the kyo had warned them they’d come calling, eventually, since, as best one could understand abstract thought across the language barrier—the kyo held that all things once joined were joined, or however that philosophy worked out in the minds of a species who didn’t share a planet or a history with them, had never dealt peaceably with another intelligent species—and didn’t want any strangers in their space.

Forever-joined could mean alliance.

It could mean some other type of relationship—not all of them happy thoughts.

But arguing abstract philosophy in a language where they lacked definite vocabulary posed dangers. Big ones.

So they’d promised a further contact. He’d known the time could be short—and everything he’d started to do since he’d come home was to try to fix what had broken while he was gone and set things in order. He’d worked, hoping the contact would come later. Even a lot later. That perhaps the kyo would have to digest what they’d learned, and maybe postpone it for decades, after a lot of scientific wrangling and debate.

Not—this soon.

He flexed his fingers, his hands gone cold with uncommon chill.

They had to be damned careful how they responded to these visitors, when they had so very little language to help them.

They had to hope, first of all, that it really was the kyo, and the same kyo that they expected, and that these kyo were in a peaceful frame of mind—because Phoenix had very little in the way of armament, while the kyo ship they had dealt with had at least enough firepower to blow Reunion into scrap metal.

They really hadn’t wanted to let the kyo know that their entire presence in space was one unarmed ship, posing no threat and having no defense. They hadn’t been able to protest the notion of the kyo coming to visit them—they’d had no finesse of communication to make discussion possible, or safe.

The kyo knew that humans knew where they lived. It was fairly reasonable, in human terms, that they wanted humans to know they knew where humans lived, and that they could get here.

Tit for tat.

But then it got complicated. Kyo had seemed to be amazed by the concept that humans and atevi, though different, got along. They’d seemed both interested and strangely upset by the notion. That was what he picked up—or what he thought he understood.

But understanding anything in an interspecies contact was like wandering around a strange building with one’s eyes shut, trying to imagine what was in the building and what its purpose could possibly be.

Interspecies contact was what the paidhiin were trained to do, however. It was the way he had been trained to think, the judgments he had been trained to make. He personally had the accumulated notes and observations of every paidhi since Romano. Studying that body of information, learning to decipher concepts that might run totally counter to all human expectation—that was how he’d begun. His original job had been a matter of a word at a time, making the dictionary larger, step by tiny step—assisting two very different peoples to understand each other and to keep their hands away from weapons, until—on his watch—the knowledge base had reached critical mass and events from the heavens had poured down on them.

Phoenix had come home, and he’d concentrated all his efforts on putting out the fires that had broken out in their absence. He’d gotten humans to understand atevi and vice versa. Moderately.

The kyo were completely off the chart. And dealing with them out at Reunion, on two ships strange to each other, and far removed from both their homes—that had been one thing.

Doing it here, with everything humans and atevi owned at immediate risk should he make a wrong move—that sent cold fear through him.

But in terms of negotiating—he was what the world had, for good or ill. He, and Jase. And Yolande Mercheson, and that small cadre of translators in the university over on Mospheira, who’d never spoken directly to atevi. Language was a field very few went into, one that no kyo had ever remotely conceived of going into, by all he knew. It must be a non-existent skill, where there was, for whatever reason, no surviving Other, no rivals, no memory of foreign contact.

Except there was another out there, by what they had learned, one other species who’d taken exception to the kyo, far to the other side of kyo space.

Enemies. Armed and space-faring enemies. The kyo had hinted such was the case.

That meant the kyo themselves were not the only visitors who could come calling on them. The kyo were the most likely. But not the only possibility.

He could not, however, afford scattered thinking. Wide thinking, yes. He was obliged to that.

But if there was one individual on earth who could not afford to panic right now—he was that one. Ahead of Tabini, ahead of Shawn, and all the ship captains, he had to think what to do, and how best to do it, because calm, accurate communication with that inbound ship was critical.

First things. Essentials had to be gotten up there. The dowager. Himself.

And—Cajeiri.

They were the three the kyo had met personally. They were the ones the kyo knew and expected. Somehow the dowager’s age and Cajeiri’s youth both mattered in the kyo view, calming apprehensions, perhaps, perhaps evoking something symbolic—they were far from analyzing such things in their exchanges; but the kyo had attached some significance to their presence.

So he needed them now.

A jet might not be available at Malguri’s airport to get the dowager here. He might have to dispatch one.

Cajeiri, however—

Steps hurried back up the inner hall. He swung his chair toward the door.

A knock, an immediate entry: Jago and Banichi turned up, silent, competent for anything. Tano and Algini came in behind them, and the little office became smaller.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said calmly. “The kyo—logically one believes it is the kyo—are fifteen days from the station. They are here.”

Immediate understanding—no consternation, no alarm, just—an understanding that things had to be done, plans had to be changed, priorities had to be adjusted. God, he loved these people.

“One assumes we shall go up there,” Banichi said.

“Yes. We have to alert the dowager. One hopes the Guild’s communications might be more secure than the Messengers.”

“Yes,” Banichi said, covering an immense territory in one word.

“The Guild observers probably should still go, if they are to understand this event from the beginning. But they must go now, whether we can use the shuttle at the port or whether we have to beg transport from Mospheira. And I do not know whether I can get seats for them.”

“We shall make that clear to the Guild,” Algini said.

The Guild’s internal communications turning reliable did make things much, much easier; and accurately informed observers directly connected to that guild’s administration could become an asset. One hoped—hoped things would never require their assistance up there.

“I have very minimal information at this point,” he said, “beyond a message from Jase-aiji, giving the code for an unknown in the solar system and putting it at fifteen days away at its current speed—which may change. At this point one hopes it is the kyo, and not their troublesome neighbors. But we shall have to go up there, we shall have to take charge of the encounter—and very unfortunately—we may have to do so with Tillington still in charge of Mospheiran operations, if the Presidenta cannot move fast enough to replace him. Assuming we are dealing with the kyo, I hope to take up that discussion with them where we left off. I am about to request the shuttle change its plans, offload all its cargo, install the largest passenger module—assuming the dowager will not come with a small staff—and fuel for an express run. And somehow we shall have to do this quietly. I do not wish to make the kyo presence public knowledge until we have a response in place.”

“Yes,” Banichi said. “Should staff know?”

About his own staff’s man’chi and the intent of their honest hearts, he had no doubts at all. His staff would have to arrange transportation and pack their baggage, creating some disturbance in routine, and they would likely need to deal with outside agencies that might ask interested questions.

Bet that somebody might not make an innocent mistake, trying to cover things—

“Nand’ Toby’s boat,” he said on inspiration, and with only a twinge of conscience, “has just arrived in Najida with storm damage. I was intending to go there to assist him. Let that be the story, for all outside agencies that have to know anything about my movements. Staff may be told the truth, but tell them that all any outsider should know is that I am taking the train to Najida to meet my brother, that I shall be taking the young gentleman with me, and that the dowager might join us for a holiday.”

He hated to use Toby’s presence that way and he hated to lie to the public. But it was cover they needed, to give them time to get some answers, and not to have a public furor interfering with their needful movements to the spaceport—which lay in the same direction as Najida.

But that also meant somewhere amid the confusion he had to get an honest word to Toby about what was happening.

That needed more couriers.

“I am about to talk to the Port Director,” he said. “Advise the aiji’s aishid I need to speak to him immediately, but do not tell them why. The rule is—anyone inside these walls may know the whole truth. Outsiders are not to be given any of the truth unless I personally and specifically give clearance.”

“We shall advise them,” Banichi said.

“Tell the Guild what you must, and use your own judgment. I shall try to reserve seats for the observers. One unit?”

“Four, yes.”

“Once they get to the station, they should understand they will be entirely dependent on Lord Geigi for briefings. I shall be occupied, to what extent I cannot predict; and you will be, likewise. We shall brief them whenever possible, but if we cannot spare the time, we cannot. Protocol with humans or atevi cannot be my primary concern on this trip. Make sure they understand that.”

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, without batting an eye. “We shall make very sure they understand that.”

They left. It lifted an immense burden, just knowing they were engaged with the problem—and that a certain part of it would not be in his hands.

But before the door had quite swung shut at Tano’s back, Narani swung it open again, quietly plugged in a phone and set it on his desk. “The Port Director, nandi,” Narani said quietly, “is waiting on the line. I have told her nothing.”

Different mental track. Logistics. Estimates.

And a need for immediate action.

He picked up the receiver. “Nand’ Director? This is Bren-paidhi.”

“Nand’ paidhi?”

“There is, nandi, a sudden and very critical need to get a large number of personnel to the station, and one now profoundly apologizes for what one must request. Can you possibly make a massive change in the launch preparation? We need the largest passenger module and we need an express flight—the day after tomorrow would not be too soon—but we cannot in any way compromise safety with this passenger load. Can you make an accommodation faster with this shuttle rather than by waiting for the next, or applying to Mospheira for their space? I beg you, tell me this can be done.”

A space of silence. One could hardly blame the woman. It had to have come like a meteor strike, amid a routine and orderly process that was within a day of completion.

But lading was the final process.

“We have not loaded but two carrels of cargo, as of this hour, nandi. That can be reversed. As to whether it is better to rely on the next shuttle landing—one can never guarantee that there will not be a mechanical delay with a launch preparation. Regarding Shai-shan, we have already had our inspection, so in that, Shai-shan is ready. To install the passenger module you request and deal with fueling, however, is a lengthy process.”

“One understands, nand’ Director.”

“Let me consult with staff, nandi. I shall make inquiries about time required.”

“Indeed, nand’ Director. Let me stress that time is extremely critical; so also is safety. We might, at need, manage with the mid-sized module and a greatly reduced passenger list. Or if absolutely desperate, one person, riding with the crew. But that would be our very last choice.” He could go up, alone, with only hand baggage, relying on his household aloft and Lord Geigi—but he hoped—he hoped desperately for more resources. “Please see what can be done. I cannot stress enough: safety is definitely an issue; budget is not. The shuttle schedule can be adjusted up and down the line.”

“Yes, nandi. One understands. One will do one’s best.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much, nandi.” He hung up. And propped his head on his hands and did rapid mental math, conscious of a headache gathering at his temples—pressure; fear; and a dearth of information.

The dowager’s minimal complement of servants and security, plus herself, would be about twenty-one persons, counting she maintained an ample establishment on station—a caretaker staff that managed her apartment. Many of her servants he knew were plain-clothes Guild.

But figure thirty-one for the dowager’s company. If they could get the larger module, they had room enough. Even for the observers.

The young gentleman’s company would be seven, if he brought his servants; five if he brought only his bodyguard, and it would be a good idea to have the bodyguards—but the young gentleman could easily do without his servants.

Himself—even with staff aloft, he ideally wanted Narani and Jeladi with him—he wanted their experience and cool competency, among other things. They’d been in space before and they knew the staff up there.

His aishid, like the dowager’s, was absolutely essential to the situation. Seven.

He wanted Asicho, who’d also been there. Bindanda. God, yes, Bindanda. He could not forget Bindanda.

So he and his staff were nine.

That was a number of outstanding felicity. But all together—it was a large number of seats. And they had the Guild observers.

Thirty-one, five, and nine. Forty-five. And the four Guild observers. Forty-nine.

Plus Guild equipment; and court wardrobe for three persons.

He started figuring baggage, a hopeless enterprise—they simply had to give priority to security and wardrobe and trust their bodyguards. He gave that up, opened his computer and started identifying files and codes he had to have.

The Port Director called back. He didn’t wait for Narani to take the call.

“Five days, nandi,” the Director said. “We can launch early on the fifth day from this. Can you give us that much time, nandi? I am looking at the weather. It should be favorable.”

“With no compromise of safety.”

“No compromise of safety, nandi. Be assured. The shuttle itself is completely checked out and ready. We have loaded only two carrels. We assume using the regular baggage module—that the passengers will observe regulation for baggage, regulation weights. We allot four carrels. That is the module’s regular configuration.”

“We will be within that limit.”

“We shall ask to have all carrel baggage in our hands on the third night, nandi. Launch before dawn on the fifth.”

“Excellent. Please express my gratitude to staff, and my hope, my trust and confidence that everything will be in good order. Please assure everyone that there will be both recognition and recompense for their efforts.”

“I shall, nandi. May we request a written order for this, specific paper for the records?”

“I shall deliver a signed order in person, on my arrival, with all appropriate seals, but I shall provide an interim order from the aiji. Please trust me on this until these arrive.”

“Yes.” The answer came, from a woman balancing her career on that choice. “Yes, nandi.”

“Carrel baggage will arrive the third evening or before, ready to go, sealed and attended by the Guild.”

“That will be extremely helpful.”

“There will be hand baggage within regulations. Needless to say, this is all highest security. Crews may know only that it is a station security emergency and that very high-level personnel are going up to deal with it. The less information you give out beyond that, the better.”

“I shall give those orders, nandi.”

Thank God.

Thank that woman.

“The aiji’s seal will be on this entire operation to confirm my orders, nand’ Director. Thank you. Thank you very much. My own staff will contact the Transportation Guild at executive levels on that day. They will be informed that it is a security emergency, and that a high-ranking team is going. If possible, use a technical malfunction on the station as cover.”

“One understands, nand’ paidhi.”

He ended the call.

Drew a breath. Stared at a blank wall and saw the deep of space, blackness, and somewhere out there, a blip.

A presence in the dark.

They had expected the kyo, yes. Sometime. In the future.

Considering what they’d come home to, thank God they’d had a year.

But then—what was the kyo intention? Was the timing, a year, the passage of a reasonably temperate Earthlike planet around a reasonably temperate star, significant somehow?

Other things the kyo had done weren’t what humans or atevi were likely to have done. Kyo had two legs, two arms, they breathed the same air and could eat the same food—with some sensible cautions. But there the similarities stopped. Their expressions were hard to read, their body language was obscure. They’d said they would come. Nothing more. Abstracts like why and what for were far too obscure for communication such as they had established.

And if the kyo were going to show up, he supposed a year was a reasonable time to wait. He might have thought so, if he had had time to think about the kyo in any great detail.

But he could quite easily think other things and draw other conclusions. The kyo might have used that time to go home, with some new information they had to talk over with their authorities.

Presumably the powers that governed the kyo had thought it over, discussed it—assuming there was a reason to discuss it—and likewise reached a conclusion that they should come visit.

If they were lucky, the kyo had sent the same ship. And only the same ship.

Assuming the blip out there actually was kyo, and not the kyo’s unknown enemy—which had indeed crossed his limited conversation with them.

God. Now there was a black hole of consideration.

But he couldn’t waste time thinking down indefinite branches of the problem. Five days to launch: that was his time frame. Three days to have all the bulky baggage at the port.

With the dowager still in Malguri and Tabini still unaware of the situation.

He had things to do. People to notify. Personally. It was nothing a note could convey—pardon me for bothering you today, aiji-ma, but I have just commandeered the shuttle, tossed the cargo off, ordered more fuel, and I need your son and your grandmother to go with me to meet aliens of indefinite purpose and disposition—

No.

No note was possibly going to cover that situation.

He went out into the hall and found Jeladi in the foyer. “Have we heard from the aiji, Ladi-ji?”

“Yes, nandi. The aiji will see you at your earliest convenience.”

“Then I shall go.”

“Nandi.” Jeladi went immediately to the foyer closet, took out his third-best coat, adequate for the job, and gave curt orders to a passing maidservant, who broke into a run for the back halls and the security station.

Bren slipped off the day coat, and Jeladi deftly whisked it over an arm and held up the other. Bren slipped his arms in, cleared his imperiled queue and ribbon himself, and adjusted the cuff lace with Jeladi’s help.

He turned, in the process, saw Narani in his own little office, on the phone with someone—very likely someone involved in the logistics, and as he turned about again, he saw Tano and Algini coming down the hall, still buckling on their hardware.

He wasn’t alone. He never was alone.

Thank God.

10

There was no drawing room reception in Tabini’s apartment, no waiting for tea. Emergencies made exceptions to custom. There was just a meeting in Tabini’s residential office, quiet, quick, with Algini in the room, Tano outside, and none of Tabini’s own staff present. Algini was there to hear and pass on to his teammates and others what was done and said, and Tano, as a guard on the door at Tabini’s own insistence, would not let any staff come near enough to overhear.

“This regards a matter of utmost urgency on the station,” Tabini said, leaning back in his office chair. “This much we are given to understand. Sit, paidhi.”

“Aiji-ma.” Bren took one of the two small chairs near Tabini’s working desk. “A foreign ship has arrived in our solar system.”

It was surely not the sort of emergency Tabini had envisioned. He drew in a slow breath and frowned. “So. Is this the anticipated visitor, paidhi?”

“We hope it is nothing other than the anticipated visitor, aiji-ma. We have every reason to think it is indeed kyo, and that it is the visit we were advised to expect, but I have only the barest coded message from Jase-aiji, and I doubt he knows the nature of these visitors yet. He gave none of the codes we reserve for its positive identification. One believes that Phoenix has just now detected the ship. The station may not yet know. Likewise the visitors on that incoming ship may not yet realize they have been seen. We have no idea what their normal procedures might be. If they are who we believe, if they are coming to see how we conduct our affairs—they may observe for a while before contacting us. We have fifteen days before it arrives, if it stays at the same speed. At a certain point we hope they will break their silence and contact us. We have a set of responses that should be given to that move. And one does advise—with trepidation, aiji-ma—that we need to meet them up there and talk with them precisely where we left off, with exactly the original persons, the persons who last spoke to them.”

“Yourself, Sabin-aiji, Jase-aiji—my grandmother—and my son.”

“Indeed, aiji-ma.”

“Do you apprehend danger in this meeting?”

“Not personal danger in the meeting itself, aiji-ma. Potentially great danger to everyone on the station and on Earth if we and that ship fail to understand each other. But we parted last in agreement and we were able peacefully to collect the Reunioners and leave. I do not foresee personal danger to the delegation, no, aiji-ma, nor would I hide it from you if I did.”

“Tillington,” Tabini said.

There was no ready answer for that one.

“The Presidenta has made no definite move as yet to replace him?” Tabini asked.

“I do not know, aiji-ma. I have come to you immediately after hearing the news. I have called the spaceport and made some arrangements to secure passage. I have asked my aishid to inform the aiji-dowager. But regarding the Tillington matter, and the Presidenta, I have not informed him of this new emergency, and I do not have any word that he has taken action on Tillington’s replacement. I still do expect it. But our time has suddenly become much shorter, and we are both constrained by the shuttle schedules.”

“The Guild observers?”

“One believes it might be best if they could observe the entire situation, aiji-ma; and their presence would give us several more skilled personnel up there—should there be any difficulty, their views might be of use. I am most concerned about the Reunioners’ reaction when they hear the kyo are coming. They may panic. I am likewise concerned for Tillington’s reaction, and for his leadership. But I count on firm support from two of the ship-aijiin, and I expect cooperation from the other two. They have more sense of who the kyo are than Tillington does, and more sense than the Reunioners will have of what our options are.”

“You believe you can deal with these people.”

“Our communication with the kyo is adequate for objects we can point to or demonstrate, things common to folk who work in space and deal in numbers—but abstract concepts, like why—we have not yet refined. The kyo received us at Reunion with courtesy and respectful ceremony. And your son exerted considerable influence over one of their number. How that forecasts their actions here—one cannot say.”

“Geigi’s residency is secure up there?”

“Indeed. Physically secure, with barriers as sound as any on the station.”

“And you and your company will be residing within Lord Geigi’s security?”

“Absolutely, in a section of several apartments and a common hallway, which is fairly close to the command center, and independent. Neither Tillington nor the ship-folk can control anything within the atevi sections: they are independent and secure even regarding the air and water and security functions. We shall reside in the atevi area, we shall speak from there, we shall contact the kyo from that vantage, and we shall generally use that insulation to keep all human quarrels out of view of these visitors. It was not human officials the kyo dealt with at Reunion: It was the aiji-dowager and your son—and myself, as your representative. I take the position this visit is to atevi authority, not to the ship-aijiin, not to Mospheirans or Reunioners.”

Tabini heard that, and thoughts passed through his eyes. Then he said: “I shall make it clear to the Guild what your authority is, and it will be, save my grandmother’s presence, as if you bore my ring a second time.”

That was a powerful statement. An affecting statement. Bren gave a little bow of the head. “Aiji-ma, one will consult. Whenever possible.”

“Considering rank of these visitors—who do you think they are? What do they want?”

“I have asked myself that. I have wondered whether their statement they would come was ever more than a courtesy. I have asked myself what they would want if they did come. Sending even one ship such a long distance is a massive investment of resources. My thinking, one regrets to say, was only guesswork then, and it is no better now. But our last encounter left them with two questions which, in their place, I would wish to know. First—were we truthful in our representations to them that our two species really live at peace here? And second—do we pose any threat to them and have we deceived them to hide that? One does not know how to read their nature. We do know they used weapons against an unarmed station, but it seems, by all I can learn, that they were provoked by the ship’s intrusion into their space. We know that they crippled the station instead of destroying it. They then sat and waited for a response. I think they wanted to find out what we would do.”

“A very dark supposition indeed.”

“I put nothing off the chart where they are concerned, aiji-ma. And I do not conceal my worry. Understand that they could track the ship going and coming as clearly as a trail through meadow grass. There was no pretending our course to reach Reunion had been other than it was. Ship-folk knew there was a risk of being tracked, but their determination to remove records and find out what had happened there overrode their fear. I do not think they remotely expected a kyo presence after such a passage of time, nor did they detect it . . . and one suspects they were looking for it and taking precautions. One has learned from this, at least, to believe the kyo have abilities the ship-folk did not expect—but that places their actions beyond predictability. I cannot even say that the ship we now detect has not been there for this entire last year. The kyo lay hidden at Reunion for more than ten years. Is it curiosity and inquiry? Or is it a hunter’s patience? I do not understand the technology. I cannot swear to understand the character of those I met. They seemed reasonable individuals and they seemed to acknowledge personal indebtedness, in terms of the one we rescued from captivity on Reunion Station. On that very scant foundation, aiji-ma, I have laid everything. Certainly we did not invite them to come. We were presented the proposition they would visit us. Asking them not to come seemed more dangerous than agreeing.”

Tabini nodded somberly. “We do not encourage landing. One ship brought us humans, and changed the world. We scarcely manage with that association. We do not want another.”

“One understands. One entirely understands, aiji-ma, and I shall discourage that, but I think their physical discomfort in our environment is also a discouragement to any landing. If one can venture a guess about their purpose and their actions, I think they will look to see how we live down here, how advanced we are, how warlike we are, how we build and what we do. They have seen only one human ship. They have not seen its weaponry—which is more the use of tools the ship has for other purposes, tools which can be formidable as weapons. The kyo may have no sure knowledge that Phoenix is our only ship, and for various reasons I do not wish even now to make that clear to them. They may also wonder if we have any contact or association with their enemies.”

“We certainly do not wish to join their wars.”

“I shall make that clear, too.”

“And I forbid foolish risks up there—to my son, to my grandmother, or to you. If we lose you, paidhi, we lose our principle means of dealing with these strangers. Trust your aishid.”

“My aishid reminds me sternly of that requirement, aiji-ma.”

“If you can restrain my grandmother, it will be a wonder. My son, however, will follow orders this time. He must.”

“He will, aiji-ma.”

“I have the duty to inform my wife.”

That was not going to be a happy task.

“Assure her, aiji-ma, that we shall do everything to protect him and bring him home safely.”

“We shall support you. Whatever permissions or orders you need, we shall give.”

“I do need a document for the Port Director, nandi, giving me the power to order what I have already ordered. Dated an hour ago, if you would.”

Tabini nodded. “That you shall certainly have. Supplies, transport, any manner of thing.”

“Thank you, aiji-ma.”

“Do not stand on protocols hereafter. We have spoken. We have agreed. You have told me what you know and what hereafter you must guess. Leave informing me to your subordinates and concentrate on the details. We approve whatever things you need. Go bring us a solution, paidhi-ji.”

· · ·

Four days to do everything. Launch on the fifth.

“The word has gone to the dowager?” he asked Tano and Algini on the way next door, back to his own apartment.

“Yes,” Algini said. “We have it confirmed from Cenedi.”

Rare, in strictly normal operations, that he should get that sure a knowledge of how that information ran. But knowing Cenedi was on the case helped his stomach. If Cenedi was now engaged, the dowager was, and he was no longer running the operation solo.

The apartment doors opened. Narani and his valets waited to exchange his coat a second time, a ritual undertaken almost non-stop in his course across the foyer, and with no delay at all for courtesies or questions.

He went immediately to his office, and left the door open for emergencies. Tano and Algini lingered in that doorway, silent query. Narani arrived just behind them, present, but not intruding.

“Nadiin-ji,” Bren said to Tano and Algini, “we are settled in for a while. Do what you need to do. —Rani-ji,” he said to Narani. “Come in, please. I need to consult with you.”

There were staff decisions to make. For three and more years, he had had very good people stranded on the station, maintaining his residence there. They had Geigi’s staff and the dowager’s similarly stranded caretaker household for company. There was a large community of atevi workers.

But until recently there had been no room at all on the shuttle for any exchange of personnel even on an emergency basis, let alone small staff furloughs down to the world to visit their relatives. He had used personal privilege, gotten a few people down to the planet in answer to emergency situations, sent a few up, and he understood—Narani had reassured him of it—that the fifteen now left up there constituted a very tight association, a sort of family who did not want to be broken—nor should he reward their service by bringing staff in to take over their jobs.

Up there, he would be relying a great deal on those good people. He was sure he could rely on them. But there were a handful of personnel he was used to working with, and who were used to reading him—notably the ones who had been with them on the ship, the ones he had brought back down to the world as soon as it had become possible—and now needed back up there with him.

He sat down at his desk, and angled his chair toward Narani.

“Nandi.” Narani bowed. An old man, showing his age: Narani lately dyed his hair black—a little point of vanity—but his face had experience written deep on it, gained in some very hard places.

“Rani-ji. You may know the kyo are arriving, and I have to go up to the station.”

A little hesitation in the space he left—but not even the lift of an eyebrow. “One has understood so, nandi. And one also understands that there is a political difficulty among humans on the station.”

“You never fail me, Rani-ji. We hope the meeting with the kyo will be a peaceful discussion, that it will not take us away from the world for long, and that human problems on the station will not intrude on the kyo matter, but I shall be inventing my responses as I go. I have no good map of either situation. I am composing a list of those staff going with me. I shall be very glad to rely on the household on the station. I have every confidence in them. But I ask, Rani-ji, have you any desire to make the trip up—not necessarily to resume your post there, but to stand by me personally and handle small emergencies? Seating is limited. Very few staff can go. I can swear at least, a solemn promise, that I will bring you down with me and back to this apartment as soon as the emergency is over, but I cannot say when the emergency will end.”

Narani bowed. “If I do not go, nandi, I shall worry about you every hour.”

“We would have communication from here to there. You could advise me from here.”

“And one is certain there will be very tight security, nandi, that cuts us off from knowing what we most want to know at the moment we would most wish to know it. One earnestly wishes to go.”

“Jeladi would wish to go, too, do you think?”

“He will, nandi. I am very sure of it.”

“Who else would go?”

“Asicho. Asicho would say so instantly, nandi. And Bindanda, one believes.”

Asicho had tended Jago’s wardrobe needs on the ship, a point of modesty which in no wise bothered Jago, he suspected, but it was a convenience.

And Bindanda was already on the list.

“Tell them individually, Rani-ji, that I need to speak to them.”

“Indeed, nandi.”

“One considers, perhaps, Supani and Koharu might fill your post and Jeladi’s, until you return.”

“An excellent choice, nandi. Jeladi and I, rather than displacing any of the household up there, might fill their posts quite comfortably, if you will.”

That was exactly what he had thought. He nodded. “Absolutely. And as to the content of my wardrobe, I leave it entirely to you, Rani-ji. Utmost court dress, for some meetings. You know my needs, you know the customs restrictions, you know the environment and the requirements, which already relieves my mind of a list of burdens. Do everything discreetly as touches the outside world: the fewer staff that know any details of timing, the less chance someone will slip. For public distribution, I shall maintain the same story: that I am traveling to Najida to see my brother and help him repair his boat from storm damage.”

“Entirely understood, nandi.”

“Thank you, Rani-ji.”

“Nandi.” With a composed little bow, Narani left on his business.

And with Narani fully informed and on a mission, he could stop worrying about household details.

Now it came down to a letter that had to be very carefully phrased—and transmitted in highest security.

He was accustomed to compose on paper, with a quill and inkpot. But this one was going by different means. He set his computer up onto the desk, and opened it.

Bren, Paidhi-aiji,

To Geigi, Lord of Kajiminda, Station-aiji—

There were half a dozen other titles. He keystroked them in, and wrote:

The porcelain with the fishing boats has been located, nandi, and will be returned to your collection in fifteen days.

Translation: the kyo are here: we have fifteen days.

Might you find time, nandi, to invite Jase-aiji and the heir’s recent guests for a very extensive debriefing on their recent visit? I hope you will be able to extend your hospitality to them over several days. It would delight them.

Translation: get the kids into your section and hold them there, because of circumstances you can imagine.

You may reliably use Jase-aiji as an intermediary. He will know how to observe human custom in the invitation. Please add him to your guest list.

Translation: work with Jase. Don’t do anything to upset the parents. Get as many to safety as you can.

The kyo visit was going to upset everybody, human and atevi—and Louis Baynes Braddock wouldn’t hesitate to use that fact.

Braddock and Tillington would take extreme positions, and the result might be outright violence. Arresting Braddock in advance might be a good idea, but they had to get Tillington out first.

The ship could take the children and their parents aboard if push came to shove. The captains might be reluctant to take that step and create an issue with the Reunioners—but so might the youngsters’ association with Cajeiri create an issue with Tabini-aiji should Braddock or Tillington attempt to use them politically. Delaying too long in protecting those kids, who now had an official relationship to the atevi court, could blow a minor difficulty up into a major and distracting problem.

The ship had territory it could seal off unto itself. Geigi held territory that was fairly well sealed.

And Geigi could always claim convenient ignorance of human custom.

That was one vital letter done, waiting to be sent.

The next letter—

Toby. Frozen Dessert, as his code name was, when he was an agent for the Mospheiran government. Toby’s service to Mospheira being much more current than his own, Toby very likely had codes and accesses he didn’t have, these days, with no need to rely on couriered messages. He hoped so. He fervently hoped so.

Brother, our aunt Margaret’s headed for a visit, and I’m trying to arrange things. Didn’t know about this in advance. I’m sorry.

Translation: the kyo are here, brother. We’ve been surprised and I’ve got to deal with it.

So sorry about the damage to the boat. Please ask Ramaso for anything you need and enjoy the hospitality of the estate, so repairs can get underway. I’m sending you one of my personal staff who speaks Mosphei’.

I hope you can extend your stay. I’ve got your official permission. And as soon as I clear up Aunt Margaret’s problem I’ll be on my way to Najida myself.

Translation: you’re fine where you are. I’ve got to deal with the kyo. The aiji knows you’re there and it’s all right for you to stay a prolonged time.

Toby was his backup, of humans who knew enough Ragi to put two sentences together. There were people at the University who could manage, but nobody who’d actually dealt with the language in the field. Toby had. Toby could do it. Toby docked on the coast of the mainland and ready to assist Tabini and Shawn with direct communication was the best situation he could ask for.

Love you, brother. Love to Barb.

That last line didn’t need interpretation.

He printed out and put that letter into a plain steel Messengers’ cylinder. That was going out via numerical transliteration, as an ordinary telegram. That was the cover story, and if spies intercepted parts of it, that was what they could have. It was all the word Toby would have until a courier could get there with a physical message.

Toby would be keeping all options open until he got further instructions—and he’d be expecting that couriered letter, no question.

Quill and paper, then, and a second letter to Toby.

And this letter—this further request of Toby required a change of plans, a request he didn’t want to make—but he couldn’t do two jobs, couldn’t handle a fight with Tillington and Braddock and prepare a mission to meet the kyo. The Reunioners weren’t going to be calmer or easier to reason with when the news got out the kyo were coming in. And they couldn’t have two leaders up there pouring fuel on the fire.

Obviously I can’t make it to Najida. I’m headed upstairs in five days, and I need you to get a message to Shawn, speed of the essence, but not outweighing security. He doesn’t know what’s happened.

He’s already working on a problem for me. Stationmaster Tillington stated that Captain Sabin was behind Cajeiri’s meeting the human children, and that she made a private deal with the Reunioners. It implies an attempt at overthrowing Captain Ogun and overthrowing Mospheiran authority on the station with, by implication, atevi standing by idle. This accusation has implications involving my integrity, Sabin’s, and considerably beyond. I leave it to you to imagine. Whether or not Tillington has any concept what he has set in motion, he has to be replaced, and I’ve contacted Shawn with that request. But with this new event his replacement and repair of the damage has just become urgent.

I suspect Shawn’s silence after my request means he’s encountering some political resistance regarding the Tillington situation. You may know that better than I do. But now there’s no leeway left in the situation and Tillington’s presence is a problem. We can’t have him and Braddock going to war in the middle of this situation, not to mention the atevi reaction if those provocative statements get out—and we have, with luck, fifteen days to settle this.

Tillington needs to be removed immediately and replaced with someone who can take definitive charge of Mospheiran operations without an argument. Once the Mospheirans settle, then the captains can do something about Braddock, on the other side of the line.

If you can call Shawn securely from where you are, tell him. Jaishan’s equipment is at your disposal. If that’s not possible, take Jaishan and courier that message over there yourself. But if you can do it otherwise, stay put so you can serve as paidhi-aiji in my absence. Love you, brother. Wish we could have had that holiday.

Wish us luck.

Second piece of paper.

He wrote, furiously, also in Mosphei’:

Mr. President, this information is critical beyond any communication I have ever sent you. An unidentified ship is now in the solar system. We believe it is kyo. This arrival is known only to a few as yet: myself, my brother, the ship captains, Lord Geigi, the aiji-dowager, and Tabini-aiji. We hope Tillington does not know. We will delay releasing the information to the public below and aloft until we organize a response, and we hope to delay release of that information until Tillington’s replacement is in charge.

I have delayed our next shuttle launch. Five days from now I shall be going up to the station with the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s heir to take charge of contact with these visitors. We are the persons the kyo dealt with last time, and we wish to take up our dealing with them exactly where we left it in the hope of achieving a peaceful dialogue.

This event has made the Tillington situation extremely delicate. If the dowager officially hears about his statement regarding the young gentleman, the political consequences will be dire, and if the information reaches the atevi community aloft it will be politically necessary for the dowager to take measures.

In the strongest possible terms, I again request his immediate removal as Stationmaster, and his replacement by someone carrying Presidential authority during this critical meeting. I strongly suggest Kate Shugart for that role. She has high credibility with the Mospheiran workers. She knows the technicalities, she knows the systems, and she would be an asset to my mission.

The kyo ETA is fifteen days at their current rate of approach, which could change considerably in either direction. Again, I cannot stress strongly enough, the kyo must not see evidence of conflict among us.

If your shuttle launch can configure for passengers and go on your original schedule you will arrive right behind us.

The Mospheiran shuttle launch usually followed an atevi launch by a margin that gave the atevi shuttle ample time to offload, clear the small docking area, and move over into the service dock. That meant that his delaying the atevi shuttle five days would automatically delay the Mospheiran launch by an equal time—unless Shawn gave orders to the contrary.

I will try to avoid confrontation with Tillington until his replacement arrives. Once Tillington’s agitation is removed, the ship-folk can then deal with Braddock and I will be urging them to do so. A human quarrel in front of the kyo could be disastrous, casting doubt on what we assured them was a firm alliance.

Toby took storm damage at sea. He’s at my estate at the moment. His antenna is gone, but Jaishan’s is fine. He has lines open at Najida that can reach the aiji. Please use them at need. I have gained him permission to stay in place as long as he wishes, and respectfully suggest he could be valuable there.

I will attempt to hasten the departure of the atevi shuttle to clear the bay for your early arrival.

Be assured I shall do my best to communicate with our visitors and to secure a peaceful and productive meeting.

It might not be the most coherent letter he had ever written, and it intruded into business which, since he was no longer operating under presidential orders himself, was no longer his business. But it was critical he make it clear: they had to get Tillington out. Fast.

· · ·

The exchange of couriers necessitated one more phone call to Mospheira, one more phone call to Shawn’s office.

Shawn, it developed, was at a committee meeting.

“I have to talk to him,” he said to the aide who took the call. “It’s fast.” And gratifyingly quickly, he had Shawn on the line.

“Bren?”

“Shawn, more than the previous matter. It’s critical. Courier. Charter jet. Please.”

“Done,” Shawn said.

“That’s it,” he said. “All I can say.”

“Understood,” Shawn said, and Bren hung up the phone—then carefully put the two letters to be couriered into distinctive cylinders, sealed them with wax and his imprint, then reached for the bell-pull and called Narani.

“This one,” he said of the unsealed message, “must go right now to the Messengers, in an initial answer to my brother’s letter, telling him to await a courier. The other,” he said, handing Narani the second, more ornate cylinder, under his personal seal, and bearing flowers carved in sea-ivory, “staff must physically courier to Najida, this hour, by charter. It explains everything to nand’ Toby in plain words and sets him to stay in position to keep the Presidenta in communication with the aiji. I need a courier who will not delay, attract attention, or make any mistakes. That person must get this cylinder into nand’ Toby’s hands personally. That person may then relax and stay a few days at his leisure. Ramaso can send one of his staff back here with any reply. Speed, Rani-ji, and extreme secrecy, is of the essence. The courier will also be carrying orders for Ramaso and an emergency permission for my brother’s presence on the mainland. Please put those together for me. That will be the cover story when we engage the Red Train for the spaceport. Use completely ordinary procedures on the steel cylinder. It goes to the Messengers’ Guild, to transmit to Toby within the hour. It will lead him to expect our couriered message to follow.”

“Nandi. One understands.”

“This one,” he said, regarding the second sealed cylinder, a distinctive one with sea-creatures, “goes to the Presidenta. A charter jet is probably leaving within the half hour, bringing the Presidenta’s courier to us, and two of my aishid should meet that plane to hand on this cylinder, so that there are no delays whatsoever.”

Narani did understand him, he had every confidence. The letters went. Things were out of his hands. The best people he knew were on the job, and Toby was hereafter going to be in place to link the Presidenta to Tabini, where it was useful to pass messages.

Sorry, brother.

He hadn’t written that part in his letter to Toby.

I’m scared as hell.

He hadn’t written that part either.

And he didn’t envy Shawn his job, or the political consequences of removing a powerful appointee. But the nature of the matter, the fact that it was reasonable to need a total change of management to handle the unprecedented visit imminent, might provide salve enough for political sensitivities and let Shawn bring Tillington home for that favorite euphemism for executive displeasure—consultation.

He had local staff moves to make, too. He was going to rotate a small number of household staff home to Najida once he left. They could go on furlough by turns during his absence, partly to relieve the pressure on Koharu and Supani, in their first stint at managing the household from the executive post, partly because they deserved some time at home, and partly because people arriving from his Bujavid staff could answer Toby’s more detailed questions, just for Toby’s comfort—assuring Toby that he had left the world in good order and in confidence.

Bren found himself staring at that spot on the office wall that was always his recourse, catty-angled opposite his desk—that spot that his aishid and his staff occupied, when there was something they could do about a situation.

When that spot was vacant, because his staff was already doing everything they could do—the worry was all his.

Communicate with aliens who’d seemingly been surprised by the very notion that there could be peaceful cooperation between species?

It certainly didn’t paint a sunny picture of the history of the kyo homeworld. Species didn’t, to his knowledge, grow up in isolation. Humans had had antecedents, as a species. So had the atevi.

Yet the kyo were astonished by cooperation with another species.

What else he knew about the kyo—was that they had also made an enemy in a neighboring region of space, one potent enough to worry them.

He knew that Phoenix, before it had returned to the Earth of the atevi, had accidentally attracted kyo attention, and the ship’s actions had angered or scared the kyo. That had apparently led the kyo to hit Reunion . . . possibly because they thought their enemies were involved. Or possibly because it was kyo policy.

The kyo had fired, destroying part of the station, and then sent an investigatory team in— or they had fired once a team they had sent in reported trouble. That sequence of events had never been sufficiently clear. Station records said the former. But that was the word of Louis Baynes Braddock that the kyo had fired without provocation.

Did he believe it?

Braddock could tell him the sun was shining and he’d look to be sure.

Then came the natural question. Having blown a third of Reunion Station to hell—why had they then failed to finish the job?

Because the team they had sent in could still be alive in there? Did they care about their own people?

Maybe.

Or had they waited because they wanted to give whatever ships belonged to that station an incentive to show up? Phoenix had indeed come in to remove the colonists. But it had taken them ten or so years to do it.

The kyo had turned up immediately.

And either the kyo mode of communication and transport was quick beyond anything they could conceive, or that ship had indeed been sitting out there, watching, waiting, for all those years.

The kyo had had one of their own, Prakuyo an Tep, detained in human hands all that time, as well. They hadn’t gone in to get him out.

Why hadn’t they, in ten long years—if they were just sitting out there?

Why not, if they had weapons enough to blow the station apart?

Ethics?

Timidity?

Curiosity?

They’d waited for something to happen. For a ship to come in, as it had?

Why?

To find out its origin.

That was the likely answer.

Nor had Reunioners during all those years ever gotten Prakuyo an Tep to talk to them.

On that thought—uncomfortable as it was—he had to stop staring at the wall.

I’ve got Braddock to deal with.

I’ve got Tillington.

And the new Guild office going up there, along with everything else.

God. I do not intend to explain Tillington to them.

But maybe I should. Let them know that, in this environment, at close quarters, we cannot afford to react as we might in an atevi dispute.

He leaned back in the chair, eyes shut.

Of all guilds—the Assassins’ Guild understood politics. The Assassins’ Guild had had the vision to turn around and work with Mospheira when Tabini was overthrown. It had abhorred humans, before that.

But during that emergency, in very short order, they’d become far more respectful of ideas they’d once considered foreign.

He could not let himself be led too far by an analogy.

One species was not another.

But after two hundred years of opposition, the Guild had shifted its attitude toward humans in two years.

Why?

Because the Assassins’ Guild and humans had found a common interest in preserving Tabini-aiji. Not for who he was—but because Tabini’s flexible governance benefitted them both. And once humans and the Guild had seen that—things changed.

Of what possible benefit were humans and atevi to the kyo? What common interest?

He pulled down yet one more clean sheet of parchment, dipped his pen, and started a brief note to Lord Tatiseigi—certainly not the political ally he would have envisioned for himself a few years ago, but the old lord was the best ally he had now, where it came to dealing with the touchier, more traditional parts of the legislature.

He and Tatiseigi had worked out a system: he represented the aiji, who swayed the liberal side of the legislature. He himself had a certain cachet with the liberals and the outliers, frayed as it occasionally seemed to be. Tatiseigi had the old-line conservatives on his side.

And between them, if they two could agree, they could often work out some common-sense give-and-take to make both sides happy, and make both Ilisidi and Tabini happy—which once had been a mutually exclusive proposition.

The current effort added up to the dowager’s long-held plan, a smoothly developing strategy to stabilize mainland politics by linking the troublesome Marid with the highly independent East—and the key parts of it were happening at a time convenient for Tabini’s own aims.

In this case—Tatiseigi was his backup with the legislature, while he, along with Ilisidi, were so to speak, called out of town.

That meant Tatiseigi was going to have to work with Tabini during his absence—and vice versa. There had been a time when that would not have worked.

There was the specific legislative agenda to handle—coupled with public pressure, once the public knew what was going on.

But politics would not cease. The Liberals and the new tribal peoples’ representatives were going to have to do some trading and hammer out practical agreements while events were going on in the heavens.

Domestically, the worst disagreement was past and the tribal peoples were in the legislature.

Now they had to find associations compatible with their interests.

And, a complication in those dealings—there remained the issues raised by the railroad to the south, God help them, which paid off Machigi of the Taisigin Marid, which was how they had connected the Marid to the East and gotten the young southern warlord Machigi and the staunchly conservative Lord Tatiseigi and the very liberal Lord of Dur all to back passage of the tribal peoples bill.

Tatiseigi could shamelessly raise regional and conservative interests as a negotiating position, but the man was better than that, cleverer than that—more of a statesman than that.

He wrote, to Tatiseigi: I have very lately reached certain understandings with Lord Topari in the railroad issue, understandings about which he seems very enthusiastic, and I believe we can get the building of this line underway, except for one serious difficulty. I am unexpectedly called out of the capital. If you would take the matter under your management—

No, that wouldn’t do. There was no way to explain the kyo situation adequately on paper—and he dared not scant formalities with the old man, who was a stickler for proper form. He had to steer Tatiseigi, among other things, toward a social contact with the younger lord of Dur.

Young Reijiri, the rebel pilot whose yellow plane had once thrown the skies above Shejidan into chaos—had never been a close associate of the Conservatives, even in his more mature years. That partnership needed careful introduction, on a matter of common interest.

He wadded up that paper and took another.

It joined the first.

He pulled down another sheet and simply wrote: Nandi, I must speak to you at the earliest on a matter of great importance. May one call on you this afternoon?

It was going to take time. Everything with Lord Tatiseigi took an extraordinary amount of time, and usually a face to face meeting.

There might be arrivals in the heavens at any moment the kyo decided to apply some speed.

But on Earth, proper form was absolutely mandatory.

· · ·

Antaro and Jegari slipped quietly into Cajeiri’s sitting room, and Cajeiri looked up from his lessons. He was waiting for an answer from nand’ Bren. But it was nothing of the kind.

“Your father wishes to see you, Jeri-ji,” Antaro said—they were formal in private only when something was absolutely dire, so it was likely nothing much, probably something about some important old person coming to dinner. He could not recall anything he had really done wrong in the last several days. So it was probably that.

He knew his father and mother had been in conference for a long time. And it could be about him. He gave a sigh and got up. “Where are Veijico and Lucasi?”

“Waiting at your father’s office,” Jegari said.

Well, that was not unusual either. He went out and down the hall, where Veijico and Lucasi waited; and he did not get the warning signal that meant your mother is present.

So he let his unified aishid take up their largely decorative positions at his father’s door—they did not habitually go into the office with him—and walked in, far from sure what the problem was.

His father was alone, sitting at his writing desk. His father finished a sentence, laid the pen in its holder, capped the inkwell, and turned his chair toward him, a degree of attention he did not always get.

“Honored Father,” Cajeiri said, with a little bow.

“Son of mine. Sit down.”

Sitting was unusual, too. It was apparently not about a dinner or anything ordinary. That was not necessarily good. He pulled one of the chairs closer, and sat down.

“Bren-paidhi,” Father said, “has had a message from Jase-aiji today. There is a strange ship in the heavens. They think it is a kyo ship.”

He forgot to breathe for a second. Things unrolled fast and far. He very vividly remembered Prakuyo an Tep, massive, wrinkled, gray, in a white room, sitting across a bare white table enjoying teacakes.

He remembered the inside of the kyo ship, dim, dark, with draperies and screens, so one could not tell how the room or even the corridors were shaped.

He remembered great-grandmother, and nand’ Bren, and their bodyguards and the kyo in that place, and the voices, that rumbled like distant thunder.

The smell of the place had been different than anywhere else: it was age, and damp, and smoke and spices and something else.

“You are requested to go up to the space station with nand’ Bren and your great-grandmother,” his father said, “to deal with this visit.”

He was requested. He was just barely fortunate nine years old.

But he understood instantly why he was one of the ones to go. Nand’ Bren and mani herself had warned him someday the kyo might come and he might have to deal with them, and he had taken it seriously, as something to be proud of.

He had talked with Prakuyo an Tep. He had helped nand’ Bren learn to talk to him in the first place.

And he had taken it as a very serious responsibility to keep all his own notes on the kyo and to remember what he had learned. He had even taught his aishid. They used kyo words when they wanted to say something truly secret.

Prakuyo an Tep had promised them they would come visit.

So now he had.

It was definitely scary. The kyo themselves were scary. But they—he and mani and nand’ Bren—had shared water and fruit with more than one of them.

Nand’ Bren and Prakuyo an Tep had worked hard to make a dictionary in the few days they had stayed after that. Nand’ Bren had not only let him see the dictionary, he had given him a copy of his own, and he had added words he knew, and copied into his own study notebook all the words that were new to him.

Words—a few of which he knew were bigger ideas than just one word in Ragi. The kyo language was like that.

“Are you afraid?” his father asked him.

“No,” he said, which was at least halfway true. He decided the whole truth was due. “One is a little afraid, honored Father. But still may I go? Nand’ Bren needs me.”

His father looked a little taken aback, then seemed to approve. “Yes,” his father said. “You will be going.”

“Are we taking the ship?” He thought they might go out among the planets to meet the kyo. He saw, in his head, the ship tunnels, where he had met Gene and the rest.

And he remembered the upstairs of the ship, the middle levels, and, very vividly, Prakuyo an Tep.

He remembered Jase-aiji and Sabin-aiji and a dinner party.

And where he and mani had lived, and the wonderful corridor where he and Banichi had made toy cars race. That was the best place. That area of the ship had been home. Mani’s apartment, modern, but very much mani’s; and nand’ Bren’s apartment, with all the curtain of plants that he had had. The plants had grown enormously, whenever the ship had traveled through space. That condition favored them, nand’ Bren had said, even if one felt strange and disconnected and not really quite well—

All of that came back to him, more real than where he was at the moment, the way it sometimes did in dreams.

Gene’s face, and Irene’s, and Artur’s, and Bjorn’s, too—in the dark and cold of the tunnels. Those would forever be a safe, secret place for him.

“To my knowledge,” his father said, “you are going only as far as the station and these visitors will come there. Mind, you are not up there to spend time in another visit with your young associates. One hardly knows whether you will get to see them. Nor are you to ask nand’ Bren to seek them out. Do you understand, son of mine? All this is too important for personal concerns. There may be political problems. Understand that.”

“Yes,” he said. One always had to say yes to Father. But he did understand. Business was business when things got scary, and things could get really scary with the kyo. He was older, now, and he knew that in ways he had never understood when he was meeting the kyo the first time. It was amazing how much older he had gotten, in just two years. He did know what could go wrong, and it was terribly scary.

But he was going to be with mani, and nand’ Bren, and they would settle things.

And then maybe he would get to see Gene and Artur and Irene.

“You also know,” Father added, “that your mother is not happy about your going up there.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. But I was there, honored Father. I can talk to the kyo. I was the first one who really did.”

“So one understands. One does not easily imagine it, but it seems nand’ Bren believes you have a useful and pacifying influence, and he advised us a year ago that should this day come, he would call on you, and on your great-grandmother. Your association with this foreign person may put you in some danger, and as much experience as I have had of negotiations with difficult people, I cannot imagine what these people want that will agree with us. Please do exactly as nand’ Bren instructs you to do. Do not draw nand’ Bren or your great-grandmother from their jobs. Do not distract them with requests for personal favors. Smile, bow, be pleasant to this individual you know, assuming he will be aboard. But do not be pert with this stranger. Do not assume you know anything at all without talking to nand’ Bren. And do not under any circumstances leave the area of the station or the ship where you are supposed to be.”

He had gotten in trouble on that score. More than once. “I am older, honored Father. I shall be very careful. And I shall obey mani and obey nand’ Bren. Absolutely, I shall.”

“These visitors overwhelmed and destroyed Reunion Station. The humans there could not stop them.”

“I know, honored Father. But nand’ Bren can talk to them. And I can. And if it is dangerous, so are places I have been, and I learn, honored Father. I have learned from everything since we came back. Even nand’ Bren’s bodyguard trusts me.”

His father nodded slowly. After a moment he said: “You have indeed learned. I am proud of my son.”

Cajeiri drew in a breath. A deep one, and bowed his head, not knowing what to say, except, “Thank you, honored Father.”

“You must not tell anyone what is going on. Not even your servants. Your aishid may know about the kyo and about going up there but they are to tell no one else, even on my staff. The very fact that these foreigners have arrived is secret. Your leaving will be secret. Nand’ Bren has called your great-grandmother back to Shejidan, but the reason is secret. He is arranging transport, but only the people who are involved in the planning are being told at this point. Do you understand all this? Can you keep it secret?”

“Yes, honored Father. I can.”

“Just so. You will naturally take your aishid with you. The seating on the shuttle is very limited and your great-grandmother and nand’ Bren will necessarily have a large bodyguard and staff all of whom have bearing on this matter. I only insist you take your aishid. If you can take your valets, that might relieve the duties of other staff who will be attending your great-grandmother and nand’ Bren. But that may not be possible: you will have to ask nand’ Bren how many seats you are allowed and with whom you will be staying once you are up there. Understand, you must make yourself and your comfort the very last consideration, where it comes to staff.”

“Yes, honored Father,” he said.

He suddenly thought of Boji. Boji was a silly creature. But Boji depended on him for everything. He had no trouble at all figuring how much trouble Boji could be with no gravity in the shuttle, and with all that racket, and goings-on—and getting loose on the station—

No. Boji had no place up there. Certainly not on the station. It would smell strange. Boji would not be happy.

“Eisi and Liedi could stay here and take care of Boji,” he said. “I know how to take care of myself, mostly. Except the laundry. And my aishid can help.”

“I assure you—Boji will be safe and cared for here. And we shall not let him escape or annoy your mother.”

He felt embarrassed. “He is such a silly creature,” he said. “And he wants his eggs, and he misbehaves if he has to wait, and that is when he bothers Mother. So he is very much better if someone can talk to him during the day and brush him and see he has his eggs.”

“Indeed,” his father said solemnly. Father was such an important man, and Boji was so small and silly he was embarrassed to be talking about Boji as any consideration at all in his father’s business. But Father was also far more patient with silly things than Mother was. “Rely on us,” Father said. “Boji will have his eggs on a silver plate if he needs them. Free your mind of him.”

“Yes, honored Father,” he said quietly.

“Good. I already have broken the news of this trip to your mother. You may understand she is upset. One would recommend you go see her. You may choose your time. But let me tell you something you may not have observed: your mother is as touchy about her prerogatives as your great-grandmother is. Do not just agree with her. And do not delay telling her. Understand and pay attention. She finds herself in a difficult situation in your going.”

“She is jealous of great-grandmother.”

“She is rightfully jealous.”

It is not rightful, he thought. He held himself from saying that, but he realized he had let his expression slip.

“Son of mine, you left her. It was not your fault and it was not your great-grandmother’s, but it certainly was not hers. I sent you away.”

“You had to,” he said.

“Indeed. You were in danger. You were inquisitive, you were elusive even at that age, and you were a vulnerability someone could exploit. I could have sent you to Malguri—indeed, I considered it. But your great-grandmother chose to go up to the station. She could keep you safe. And as it turned out—none too soon.”

“One has thought, honored Father, if you had been taking care of me, you and Mother might not have gotten away.”

His father had a grim look, a very grim look—and nodded. “Very likely not. And during the years we were in hiding, it was often enough worse. We were in places, your mother and I, where a small boy could not have kept up, or climbed, or fared well in the cold. Understand, son of mine, at times your mother feared the ship was lost and you were dead. And at the worst times, she still held out hope that if we both were lost, you would grow up and come back and set things right. But all of it was hard. Every day was hard. She never let you go. And of course once you did come back, you had attached to your great-grandmother. You were that age. Your mind was waking. And neither you nor we can reach back and change that. No more can your great-grandmother mend you by unraveling what that time caused to happen. Nor—likely—would she. Man’chi goes both ways, son of mine. So nothing can change what happened, and your mother and I are not children. We understood what we were doing when we sent you, and when your great-grandmother made the decision to go out on the human ship—we knew what she was doing. But things were less and less stable on the Earth. I felt—and this is difficult, son of mine. I felt that the world was changing. That I had let something loose that was changing the world, and I knew no better answer—for you—than to put you into the tutelage of the woman who taught me, the woman who twice ruled the aishidi’tat—and who remembers more of how things came to be than most still alive. I knew that you would see foreign things your mother and I would never understand. I knew you would not be ours when you came back, I knew, and I gave you to her. But give your mother what honor you can, son of mine.”

“I always try!”

Father nodded. “I know you try. But understand what I have just told you. Your great-grandmother calls you clever. Find a way, son of mine. Your mother knows what I did and why I did it. She has had a very difficult several years since. Today I have had to tell her you are leaving us again. At least—try to talk to her.”

“Yes,” he said. He did not want to. In some ways his mother had been behaving strangely since the new baby had come. Her coming to his room—having tea—

That had just been uncomfortable. Though they both had tried, it had been uncomfortable. Threatening, in a way. Challenging him.

And now this happened.

Maybe he should have gone directly to have tea in his mother’s room and not invited her to take tea with him, as if he were aiji. Maybe that was what she had wanted him to do.

Except it was his sister’s bedroom and his sister was always sleeping, always not to be disturbed.

“You know what your mother went through having your sister,” Father said. “You saw the pain and inconvenience of bringing a child into being. Always remember she did the same for you. And then lost you. She forgives me for it. Or tries to. But I ask you bear a little discomfort yourself, son of mine. Try. Even if she will not hear it. That you tried will matter sooner or later.”

He understood. He understood scary things, some of which mani had told him, some of which he had guessed. But he also knew his mother was going to be furious with him about going—for leaving in the first place, which was not his fault; and for leaving with mani, which was not his fault, either. And angry for everything that had happened in the past. There was current trouble, too: grandfather had been assassinated, Ajuri clan had no lord, and Father would not let Mother take the lordship, and certainly would not let him take it—so Ajuri was not in good favor right now. And there might not ever be a new lord, which would break Ajuri apart and make it dependent on two or three other clans for everything administrative.

His mother was mad about that, among other things.

But Mother could also give orders that would make trouble for Boji while he was gone, and he knew his father would protect Boji for him, but he just did not want to create that situation or get his father into an argument with his mother on that, when there was so much else wrong.

His father wanted him to go in there. His father said now was better than later—when his mind wanted to argue he could deal with the kyo and come back with everybody’s man’chi and then his mother would see he was right and not be as angry.

But that was building a house from the roof down, that was what Lord Geigi said. That was starting from after. They already had more after than they could deal with.

So, leaving his father’s office, he paused with his aishid outside his father’s door and drew a deep, deep breath, still not having the least idea how he was going to do what his father asked. “The kyo have come, nadiin-ji, and I have to go up to the station, and it is all secret from the rest of the staff. I am going to talk to my mother now. Wait for me.”

They heard it, they listened. And it was nothing they could possibly save him from. He walked on down the hall with his throat gone tight, and knocked at his mother’s door.

Mother’s chief maid answered, and without a word, let him into the first room, that with the beautiful windows, all in white filmy curtains.

The most beautiful room in all the apartment was Seimiro’s nursery. And Seimiro spent her time asleep in her crib, oblivious to the weather outside, which he supposed was typical of babies. He walked over and stood looking down at her small frowning face.

Her mouth twitched. Maybe she was having a dream. He had no idea.

But she was improving. From nobody—before she was born—she was becoming a small mystery. He wondered what she thought, if she thought—whether she noticed things or enjoyed things.

Like the wonderful windows he so wanted.

His mother came in, a frowning, ominous presence—frowning, he instantly thought, because he was standing over his sister.

He moved back and gave a deeper than needed bow. “Honored Mother. I know Father has told you—”

“Yes,” she said coldly, not acknowledging his bow in the least.

“One is obliged to go up to the station, honored Mother,” he said. “One has no choice.”

Mother said nothing at all. And he simply said the next thing in his head:

“It is dangerous. The kyo blew up the station at Reunion. But we can talk to them. Nand’ Bren can. And I can. Myself. I know one of them and he was very polite to me and he will remember me. So I have to be there to help nand’ Bren.”

“Who was the person who thought a child should be brought near one of these people in the first place?”

“Honored Mother, we were all near these people. Their weapons could blow up the whole station. So we were all in danger of being blown up, wherever we were. We are all in danger, this time, even here on Earth. You. Father. My sister. The whole world could be in danger from these people if we make them our enemies. So we have to do this.”

“And who put my son in charge?”

“I happened to meet this one kyo, honored Mother, and we got along. And I know he will want to see me.”

“You know.”

“I do know, honored Mother. I am not afraid of him. And I know how to speak to him.”

“Oh, certainly! You should reason with these people!”

“Nand’ Bren will talk to them. We will manage, Mother. Nand’ Bren will talk to them, and we will make an agreement and then we shall come home, honored Mother. This will not be a long time!”

A small silence. “You will have your aishid with you.”

“Yes, honored Mother.”

His aishid would be absolutely no help to him if the kyo blew up the station, but it did not seem helpful to say that.

“Well, good that someone will have your welfare foremost. Clearly you must do as your father thinks best. I do not approve, little good it does.”

“I have to be there, honored Mother.”

“Because humans went out where nobody should go and went pressing and pressing until they ran into these people, and now here they are, threatening everybody, as if it were our fault!”

That was more or less true. “They have not threatened anybody. We promised them when we left, that if they came we would meet them. And now we have to do that. Nand’ Bren will make an association with them. They really live very far away, so they probably will not come here—”

“It certainly seems as if they have no trouble coming here!”

“—but not at all often, honored Mother. Not at all often, at least.”

“Is this the paidhi’s estimation?”

It was impossible to argue with his mother. He started to say, “I have—”—met them and you have not was the next part, but it was not smart to say, so he kept it quiet.

“Bren-paidhi and your great-grandmother have gotten us into this ill-advised meeting, which was originally only the humans’ business, and now here we are, afraid the world is to be blown up, for no fault of ours!”

“Nand’ Bren stopped them blowing up the human station with all those people on it. Now—”

“Now he has to persuade them not to blow up our space station with my son on it! One cannot think this is a great accomplishment!”

His mother could unnerve him, and make him forget everything he had to say, but right now, he was in the right, he knew he was, and the whole argument was going off into what was and was not the humans’ fault, instead of what he had come here to say.

So he said it, right in the middle of her argument. “I know why you had to send me away in the first place, honored Mother. I am sorry. I am sorry I feel man’chi toward great-grandmother, but I was on the ship while I was growing up and I cannot help that. When we got home I wanted to come back and find you. I want to find man’chi here, too. I know I have it for my father. And I think I really have it for you, too, if you would just be happy.”

“I have reason not to be happy about this, do you not think?”

“Honored Mother.” He thought he should just bow at this point, and leave, but his feet refused to move and he stood there staring back at her, hurt, as he had expected to be hurt when he had come in here, and not knowing what to say or do, except, finally, to set his feet and give her his real expression. “No. No, I do not think you have reason, honored Mother. I do not think I deserve it.”

“I have never directed my anger at you!”

“You do not approve what I say. You do not approve what I think. You do not approve my associations. And you say you are not angry at me?”

Seimiro began to cry.

“Hush!” Mother said. “You are frightening your sister.”

It was time to bow and leave. But it was not just leaving the room. It was leaving to go far, far away, into something really dangerous, and he did not deserve to be ignored. So he stood fast, angry, jaw set, while Seimiro cried, and stared at Mother staring at him.

“I am right,” he said. “I respect you, honored Mother. And I think I do have man’chi toward you. I think you have none toward me.”

“That is outrageous! I have done nothing but want you back!”

“Then why have you never taken me back? Why do you keep telling me to leave?”

Seimiro let out a yell, and Mother’s maid darted in to pick her up and quiet her. Still he just stood there, getting mad, and madder. And his mother was mad. Seimiro was mad, loudly so. He expected his mother to take Seimiro and leave the room with her. That was what she did any time Seimiro cried—his mother dropped everything and coddled Seimiro.

This time his mother stood there facing him with an expression like stone. And it was the maid who took Seimiro out of the room.

His mother gave him no expression, none, and he could all but feel mani thwacking his ear hard and saying “Face!” because he had let down control of his own, but his mother would not give him her face. That was how much his mother had won.

“You are right,” his mother said then, very controlled. Then suddenly there was expression on her face. Pain. “You are right.”

He did not want to be right. He just wanted his mother to be polite to him, and not make his leaving again difficult and hurtful. He wanted to escape. But that required bowing and then turning his back and having his mother say something to upset him further on his way to the door.

“Man’chi was broken,” his mother said quietly. “There was a point I let you die to me, son of mine. I told myself you were dead, so I could think about your father. And when you did come back, with her—I found no way to light that fire again. Nothing that could mend what had happened. I knew by then I would have another child. I turned my thoughts to that. It was not your fault.”

He felt cold, cold through. And felt his great-grandmother’s absent hand give him a little shove, a light little thwack on the ear. “Pay attention,” mani would say. “These are grown-up things, but understand that you are not the world. You will never be the world. Other people will do as they will do and you will have to determine what you will do about that. That is your business. The rest is theirs.”

“One does not believe it was your fault, either,” he said, and meant it. “I wish I could have helped.”

“I am still glad,” she said, “that you were not there that night at Taiben. We all could all have died.”

“That would not have helped anything,” he agreed, which was what mani would say about it.

“No,” Mother said, “that could not have helped anyone. Come.” She held out her hands. “Come to me.”

He did not trust the gesture. His instincts said bow, and leave, and shut the door between them, get away. She was not acting like the mother he knew.

But it might be the only chance he ever got. He came closer, and when she opened her hands, he reached. Her fingers closed on his, chill, and hard, and she looked at him—she still could look down at him; but not by much. He was growing. Every season he was growing. And he was a long way now from a baby.

“Nothing can mend what was,” she said. “I cannot get that time back. What I shall have is what I have right now. And I want you to come back safely, son of mine. You are so, so like your father. I very much want to see the man you will become.”

“Honored Mother.” It was hard to talk. He squeezed her fingers. “I shall do my very best up there.”

“You are far too big to hold again,” she said, and let go his hands. “Protect yourself, son of mine. Do that for your mother. Obey instructions. Be wise.”

“Yes,” he said. It was a dismissal. Mani had used to thwack his ear so it hurt for days, but that was because mani was taking care of him and wanted him to be safe amid the dangers of the ship. He was going away again. This time she sent him, herself, and things she had said hurt worse than a thwack on the ear. But her face had changed. She was trying her best to make peace. For the first time in memory, he believed it. “Thank you,” he said, and bowed, twice. “Thank you, honored Mother.”

She said nothing. She gave him a little nod, a courtesy. He left, and shut the door himself.

His aishid was waiting for him outside. They never asked questions about the situation between him and his mother. They just expected him to be upset and tried to ignore that situation. But this time they gave him a worried look, far from official. So he was not in control of his face.