Inheritor (23 page)

"I would concur," Banichi said in a low voice, and the old man looked much happier. "And I know the rascal's reputation: you will not surprise the aiji, nadi."

"One is very glad to think so." The old man let go a heavy breath. "And there are two messages from one Rejiri, the son of the lord of Dur, wishing your good will. We have no idea why he sent twice — he mentions a meeting. We are unaware of any meeting with him on your schedule, nand' paidhi."

"The pilot of the plane. And I accept his good will. Assure him so. I have no time for a meeting."

"If not the front door, the back," Banichi muttered. "He
is
young, nadi."

"Should I not accept his good will?" he asked.

"Young," Banichi said. "And a fool. But, yes. Accept it. Nand' Dasibi advises you very well in everything."

"And," Dasibi said, clearly pleased, "a message from the aiji-dowager's staff, saying there is no need for a response, but that she will conclude her winter season with a brief visit to the capital, and that she will see you, nand' paidhi, at your convenience."

"Delighted," he said, and was, from the time he'd heard it from Tabini, whose protestations about the dowager as a force in politics were frequent, half in jest and half not.

Himself, he'd been very sorry to think of Ilisidi going back to Malguri and particularly of his having no chance at all to see her, perhaps for a very long time, once she settled into the estate she best loved and once she settled deep into the local politics. The most recent turmoil around Malguri had been the dropping of bombs and the launching of shells. They were provincial lords of the eastern end of the Western Association, lords neighboring Ilisidi's mother's home — lords whose tangled thesis was that the paidhi, the aiji in Shejidan,
and
the human President were all involved in conspiracy to deprive atevi of their rights.

They were the same nuisances who had it that Tabini and everyone involved had known the ship was about to appear.

And some diehard theorists
still
maintained there was not only a spaceship secretly already built on the island of Mospheira, but that it was constantly coming and going — which wasn't true, but nothing including showing the lords in question the output of the radar dishes that guarded the whole maritime coast would dissuade them from their belief in conspiracy against them. First, they weren't capable of reading the data; second, they would declare it was being falsified by some technical system so elaborate it would have made building a spaceship all but superfluous; and third, they were
determined
to believe it was conspiracy, and therefore it was conspiracy even if they had to invoke secret bases on the moon or mind-warping rays sent down from the station at night. The point was, they wanted to believe in conspiracy and their own political situation was a lot better and easier to maintain if there were one.

The fact that Ilisidi, whom these lords knew well and generally believed had the education to read the data, also had the brains to read the situation in Shejidan and the experience to read the truth in the paidhi had not persuaded the diehards. It had only persuaded Ilisidi, so she'd said to him, that the lords she led were not going to follow her further if she didn't convince them by the force of her presence.
Her
politics revolved relatively simply on the wish to retain some areas of the world untouched by industry and some aspects of atevi culture untouched by human influence.

Oddly enough she'd found the paidhi an ally in that agenda.

So the woman, Tabini's grandmother, who'd almost been aiji of Shejidan on several occasions, must, as she'd put it to him at their parting last fall, go pour water into the ocean: meaning she wouldn't enjoy the work of politics in Malguri. But it was, she'd said, work which needed doing, and it aimed at mending attitudes and regional prejudices which had sadly cost lives and threatened livelihoods. It was work that she could do — uniquely, could do — though he had a great personal regret for seeing Ilisidi spend her efforts on provinces when they needed her as Tabini's unadmitted right hand on a national level.

Even
if Tabini complained of her interference.

"Tell her —" he began, completely undaunted by the statement no reply was requested. Then he changed his mind a second time. "Pen and paper, nadi, please."

He had one of his message cylinders in his pocket. He traveled with one. He sat down at a table and wrote, in his own hand,

I
am delighted by the prospect you present and would gladly scandalize your neighbors, though I fear by now they have fled the paint and the hammering. Please find the occasion in your busy schedule of admirers to receive me or, at any time you will, please do not hesitate to call upon me
.

That would remove any doubt of Ilisidi's welcome to walk into the apartment at her will, and if uncle Tati-seigi was going to pay a call on him, damn,
she
knew the man, and could judge better than he could what might constitute a rescue. She might even intervene: as Tabini had said, she and he did get along, and her presence at any formal viewing might be an asset.
He
couldn't choose the guests for an Atageini soiree, but let Tatiseigi try to keep Ilisidi from doing as she pleased — as soon try to stop a river in its course.

He had his seal, too, and the office provided the wax. He put the finished message into nand' Dasibi's hands, spoke his usual few words to the staff.

"Nand' paidhi," Banichi said, attracting his attention. "The news services."

He had, in some measure, rather deal with Uncle.

But the mere
thought
of Ilisidi had waked up his wits in sheer self-defense, and that was, considering where he was going, all to the good.

It was down the corridor then, and into that area near the great halls of the two houses of the legislature, the commons, which was the hasdrawad, and the house of lords, which was the tashrid. Last year, for the first time on atevi television, a human face had brought into atevi homes a presence which atevi children had once feared and now wrote letters to in the thousands. Last year he'd appeared on tape. This year his press conferences went live. A room across from the tashrid was set up as an interview center — that crowd of microphones and cameras was another accoutrement of notoriety, and of life close to the place where decisions were made. Lines snaked into the little room so that one had to walk very gingerly. The place bristled with microphones surrounding the seat he would take.

He allowed all the paraphernalia he had collected, the computer (which rarely left him) and the notes and the various small items with which he had become burdened in the clerical office, into the hands of junior security, and let Banichi see him to his place and stand near him.

He settled in, blinded by the lights. He waited, hands folded on the table that supported the microphones, until the signal.

"Nand' paidhi," the first reporter began, and wended through the convolute honors and courtesies before the question, a circuitous approach calculated, he sometimes thought, to let the paidhi fall asleep or start wit-wandering.

The question when it finally emerged from the forest of titles, was: "Having just returned from touring the plants and facilities supporting the space program, are you confident that atevi and human construction are of equal importance and on equal footing with the ship?"

"I am very confident," was his automatic answer. It gave him a running start toward: "But not just that we are on an equal basis with Mospheira, nadiin: atevi are well-advanced toward the goal of space flight and may actually be in the lead in the race for space. It's not a position in which one dares slacken one's effort. We don't know what delays may arise. But I am encouraged that we have made vast progress." He was very glad to report nationally that the aiji's monumental risk of capital was producing results: success bred stability — and complacency — he had to avoid that extreme, too. "I am very encouraged about the future of the program."

"On what account, nand' paidhi, if you would elucidate."

"I am encouraged by the people, nadi. I have seen the actual elements of what will become the first spacecraft to be launched from this planet. They now exist. I have met atevi workers dedicated to their work, whose care will safeguard the economic prosperity of generations of atevi."

"What do you say, nand' paidhi," this came from a southern service, "to the objections regarding the cost?"

Lord Saigimi's platform.
Not
an innocent question. Provocative. It identified the source of trouble. He hoped not to have another question from that quarter, and could not gracefully look to the staff officer con trolling who stood up to ask, not without exposing that glance on live national television.

"The rail system on which all commerce now moves was vastly expensive to build," he said calmly. "Look at the jobs, nadiin, look at the industry. Were we to back away from this chance to lift the people of this planet into authority over their own future, someone else would exercise that authority. By the Treaty, I look out for the peace. And I
see
no peace if such an imbalance develops in the relationship that now exists between atevi and humans. That would be more than expensive, nadiin, it would be unthinkable. The program
must
give atevi the power to direct their own lives."

"Is this within the man'chi of the paidhiin?"

"Indisputably. Indisputably. By the Treaty, it is." The question had come from the same source. The man did not sit down. And from all his worries about changes in atevi life, he was reminded now of Saigimi's
other
qualities. The same whose associates built shoddy office buildings and who personally tried to ruin lord Geigi in order to own his vote in some very critical measures.

"Did the paidhi feel at all that his safety was threatened in the peninsula?"

That was
not
a permitted question, by the ground rules that governed all news conferences. He knew that Tabini was going to hit the rafters over that one, and other reporters were disturbed, but he lifted a hand in token that he would answer the direct provocation.

"The paidhi," he said calmly, and in meticulous Ragi, "has the greatest confidence in the good will expressed to him by honest people." The news service this reporter represented, whether by one of Deana's little legacies or a new inspiration of Tabini's enemies, was attempting to politicize itself — implying (because a retaliatory strike by Guild members would have to follow a line of direct involvement) that the paidhi or lord Geigi had a connection to the assassination. He had no compunction whatsoever about derailing the effort in a rambling, time-using account. Two could play the games of a live, limited-time broadcast.

"Let me recount to you the scene as I left the plant, nadiin, as the goodheartedness of the workers brought a crowd out the doors, brought them carrying flowers toward the cars. When my plane dipped its wing and came about toward Shejidan I saw, beside the cars of my local escort, flowers of the springtime of the peninsula pass beneath us. So, so much generosity of the people, so much care of the vastly important task under their hands and so generous an expression of their belief in their task. Their hope for the future is visible now. Tangible." They'd edit when bits of this replayed, and after what had been asked, he was careful to give them only positive, felicitously numbered statements. The paidhi did
not
intervene in atevi internal affairs. That was what they were trying to get him to do, so he played the uninvolved innocent. "I was greatly impressed, nadiin. I tell you, I was impressed so much that I believe as they believe, in the felicity of this project, in the felicity of this nation, in the felicity of the aiji who has been foresighted in making this reach toward space at a moment when all these fortunate things coincide."

A second reporter rose. "Have you authorized, nand' paidhi, the direct exchange of messages between the island and the ship-paidhi, in your absence?"

What in hell
was
this? A second out-of-line question?

"I have not forbidden it, nadi."

"Can you, nand' paidhi, confirm a death in the ship-paidhi's house?"

There was a leak. There was a serious leak. It smelled of Deana. If he could figure how — and methods including radio did occur to him.

Damn it, he thought. He'd meant to report it, because with servants aware of something, informational accidents could happen, and he didn't want speculation getting ahead of all the facts he had. But he'd meant to report it
after
Jase had talked to his mother. The death on the ship implied infelicity.

And he could either shut down the interview right now on these two rude and unauthorized questions on the very plain point that they violated protocol — he could signal his security to create a diversion; or he could handle the problem they'd posed and then loose security on the matter of who'd put them up to it.

"I can," he said, "confirm, nadiin, that there is such a sad report; as best I am informed, an accident of some nature. I will try to obtain that information for you. But that is not officially announced, and the release of that information could cause great pain to Jase-paidhi, who has borne the effort and worked honestly to bring good fortune to atevi as well as humans. I'm certain that isn't your intent."

Sometimes his own callous response to situations appalled him. Atevi would wish to know. Number-counters would wish to know. All sorts of people would wish to know for good and sensible reasons, for superstitious reasons, and just because they were justifiably curious about human behavior.

The next two questions, which he took from the major news services, were routine and without devious intent. How was the space program meeting the engineers' expectations and was the design translation without apparent error?

"We are developing a set of equivalences between the two languages which render translation of diagrams much easier. We're dealing with a scale of measurements which has a scale of directly comparable numbers"— Atevi ears always pricked up at that word —"which renders the operation of translation much faster. Atevi engineers are actually able to read human documents where the matter involves written numbers, and to perform calculations which render these numbers into atevi numbers with all the ordinary checks that these skilled persons perform."