Invader (21 page)

"Is this so?" Damiri turned her golden eyes to Tabini, and back to him. "Then why are they fit allies?"

"Daja-ma," Bren said, "Mospheirans have a long history of opposition to the ship. Second, there's no strong dissent on Mospheira. There never has been, in any numbers that could cause trouble. The government isn't used to dealing with the tactics of opposition — which I feel this time there will be. Shejidan, on the other hand, is used to dissent and rapidly moving situations. The President of Mospheira can't conceive of what to do next, many but not all of his advisors are selfishly motivated, and he urgently needs a proposal on the table to give him a tenable position he can consider — results that he can hold up in public view. Publicity. Television, aiji-ma, that demon box, can draw his opposition into defending against the proposal you make rather than pushing their own program."

Tabini rested his chin on his hand. The two of them were mirror-images, Tabini and the prospective partner in his necessary and several years postponed heir-getting. One had to think of Tabini's lamented father, and the dowager, and breakfast.

And all that atevi talent for intrigue.

"Such a reprehensible, furtive tactic," Tabini said. "Can we not just assassinate the rascals?"

One suspected the aiji was joking. One never dared assume too far. "I think the President believes his alternatives are all human. I think he would welcome a well-worded and enlightening message from Shejidan, particularly one suggesting workable solutions."

"Interesting," Tabini said. And didn't say he had to consult. One had the feeling Tabini's brain was already working on the exact text.

In the next moment, indeed, the forefinger went up, commanding attention: "Say this, Bren-ji. Say to your President, Tabini-aiji has raw materials indispensable to your effort. Say, Tabini-aiji will sell you these materials only if humans and atevi are to
share
the station. Say that to him… in whatever form one speaks to president. Make up words he will understand and will not refuse." The fingers waved. "I leave such details of translation to you."

Tabini said, further, "We'll call the ship this evening, Bren-ji. Be ready."

He almost missed that. And didn't know what to say, but, "Yes, aiji-ma."

«
^
»

T
abini had
made up his mind. Tabini was going to move, which notoriously meant a string of moves so rapid he kept his opponents' situation in moment-to-moment flux. It kept his aides in the same condition, unfortunately for the aides, and dealing with Tabini in that steel-trap, no-pretenses mode, trying to think what that chain of actions was logically going to be, always upset his stomach. He wrote out the best wording he could think of for Tabini's message to the island, atevi-style, reasonably simple. Lawyers had a practice, but never dominated the making of agreements — it might be the fact of assassination.

Being ready for whatever came, however, meant not only delivering the message but querying the Foreign Office one more time to catch up to whatever events were proceeding on Mospheira — assuming that the Foreign Office might know by now that the ship had made an offer to Mospheira.

One assumed something consequently might be going on in the halls of government and that Shawn might find a clever way to say so.

But whatever the Foreign Office might know, the Foreign Office wasn't admitting to anything. Shawn… didn't want to come on mike, but Bren kept after it, and asked bluntly,

"Shawn, do you know anything about an offer from the ship?"

"No. Sorry."

"Are you sure? I'm dealing with some specific information."

"
We don't have any advisements
," was the limp and helpless sum of what Shawn could say, and no, to his subsequent query, the Secretary of State wasn't available and, no, the undersecretary and his secretary's secretary weren't available.

That didn't inspire him to trust what the Foreign Office or the paidhi's office under him was currently being told by the executive; and along with that, anything he was being told by the Foreign Secretary — who wouldn't necessarily lie to him, but he had the feeling Shawn was signaling hard that he wasn't getting information.

He didn't have backup. Now he didn't have advice.

He said, "Shawn, you'd better record this. The ship's been talking, Tabini knows what's going on, and Tabini has a message to deliver to the President to the effect that if trade's going to continue, he has conditions which must include assurances. I'm telling you now in paraphrase in case communications mysteriously go down. Tabini-aiji has a message for the President personally, and if anything happens to the phones can you kindly get somebody on the next flight over here to pick up the aiji's message in writing? I'm going to transmit at the end of this message, and I want you to get somebody to courier it over to the President, in person. This
is
official. There are people on Mospheira who may not want this message to reach the President. Do you read me?"

"
I
'
ll
carry it myself
."

He sent. It said,
Mr. President, a message from Tabini-aiji. The offer from the ship makes no mention of atevi Treaty rights on the station. Tabini-aiji suggests that to accept this offer would negate the Treaty and stop trade of materials needful to carry out any accelerated building program
.

On the other hand, Tabini-aiji suggests that the inhabitants of this world, both atevi and Mospheiran human, enter into agreement to withhold our consent and cooperation until our needs are met. Clearly the ship wants workers, and has made an offer which may not be to either your advantage or the advantage of the Association.

Recognizing this political reality, Mr. President, Tabini-aiji is willing to accelerate the pace of atevi technological development in order to promote atevi presence on the station and atevi natural interests in these affairs in the space around our planet and our sun. In short, Mr. President, we suggest a partnership between Mospheira and atevi which may secure the economy, the civil rights, and the political stability of both Mospheira and the Association as a whole. You will have your heavy-launch manned vehicle, and we will bear a half share of the station operation and maintenance.

We have many cultural and biological differences, but we share a concern for a stable economy and the rights of our citizens to live in peace on this planet. If that now means cooperation in orbit above this planet, we trust that atevi and humans can reach a just and rapid accommodation.

The aiji, speaking with the consensus of the hasdrawad and the tashrid, awaits your reply.

He received an acknowledgment from Shawn. But he'd bet — he'd just about bet — the phones between Mospheira and the mainland would go down within half an hour.

He'd stretched the point. A lot. He'd used words nobody could say in an atevi language. He'd played on the concerns he was sure the President felt over shifts in internal politics which could throw him and the majority of politicians on Mospheira out of office.

He had a headache. His stomach was upset from lunch. Or from the thought of what he'd implied in that message.

Or from the knowledge he had to go real-time tonight and talk to the ship himself.

Meanwhile he had a handful of troublesome official letters Tano had pulled from the pile of atevi correspondence, one of which was from the restricted-universe Absolutists, a sect of the Determinists, mostly from Geigi's province, though there were — he consulted his computer file — others from small, traditional schools. They attached moral significance and their interpretation of human and atevi origins to a hierarchy of numbers that didn't admit FTL physics — God save him: if he couldn't find a numerical explanation of FTL, thanks to Hanks, the Determinists were going to rise up and call him a liar and insulting to their intelligence for claiming the ship
wasn't
a case of humans lurking on the station for two hundred years in secret and preparing to swoop down with death rays.

Banichi was missing. Jago had gone somewhere. That scared him to death. He had no idea, but he assumed the two absences were connected: Cenedi had hinted at serious trouble in the Assassins' Guild, which could, as far as he knew, threaten Banichi's and Jago's lives as well as his. He hadn't been- able to ask Tabini, especially since Damiri had shown up and sat down — assuming admission to any meeting, any affair going on in the apartment.

He'd had a question in the back of his mind when Damiri had intruded, and in his general haste to get the matter restated for this most influential — and clearly pricklish — of Tabini's private advisors, he'd not found the opportunity to ask Damiri her meanings, her secrets, or her implications; and, damn, he didn't know what it meant, or what rights Tabini had granted her — who wasn't Tabini's social equal, and who had constantly pushed not only at the paidhi's dignity but at Tabini's authority in that interview. Was there some cue he should have taken? Was there something he'd done in the apartment that had set Damiri off?

Cenedi had said there were people trying to file Intent on the paidhi. Which gave no idea on exactly what issue was involved or whether the paidhi was surrogate for Tabini in the atevi politics of assassins and intrigue.

He resolved at least that he was going to take the advice of the security Tabini had provided him, and meant to take no chances with his personal safety.

The bright spot in the entire day thus far was an unexpected ring of the phone from Bu-javid Security, reporting that Tano's wayward partner was actually downstairs in the Bu-javid subway station, and that, lacking specific instruction, Security was double-checking Algini's assignment to the sensitive Bu-javid third floor and questioning a "considerable amount of baggage." That assignment and the baggage apparently needed someone's authorization, and in the absence of Banichi and Jago, Tano evidently not being qualified to recognize his own partner, it had to go all the way up to Tabini himself.

Which Tabini, called out of yet one more committee meeting, was patiently willing to do for the paidhi — resulting, within the hour, in Algini's entry into the foyer with an amazing accompaniment of baggage, a towering pile of responsibility which had Saidin and the household servants whispering together in urgent dismay, as strong Bu-javid security personnel delivered stack after stack of baggage belonging to a broad-shouldered ateva with bandages and plaster patches glaring white on his skin, not in uniform, but in clothes more appropriate for a hike through the hills — small wonder Security downstairs had blinked.

Tano himself was so glad to see his partner that he actually patted Algini on the shoulder — not, Bren sternly reminded himself, that Tano felt the way he would under similar circumstances.

But — but — and but. It was another tantalizing pass of that camaraderie that atevi did have, that Jago and Banichi he would swear had given him: more warmth in all than Tabini was wont to show, although — one had to remind oneself — in assessing atevi emotion, one might be dealing with individual differences.

But he found himself watching Tano and Algini with a certain tightness about the throat and thinking he almost
had
something like that with Banichi and Jago, whatever it was and whatever it felt like; a level of feeling that at least let a man believe his back was defended under all circumstances and that he wasn't come hell and high water alone in the universe — more emotional attachment of whatever kind and more loyalty than he'd had from humans he could name. More dangerous thoughts, around other humanly, emotionally charged words. He was
not
doing well today.

That, after his session with Tabini, calmly laying out for Tabini what he'd heard, what he suspected, what he thought were the only available human choices — in short, treason, of a virtually unprecedented kind so far as the history of the paidhiin. The act had hit a particularly sensitive spot in his nerves, with, in all that trying session, Tabini never showing any emotion but somber thought or amusement, never thanking him or reassuring him of the peaceful, constructive, wise uses to which the information he'd given would be put.

He found himself with very raw, very abraded sensitivities this afternoon, wanting not to feel as alone as he felt, and here Tano and Algini held that lure out in front of him, a demonstration mat, yes, there was feeling, yes, it was almost — almost — what a human could access. He'd touched it. He'd tasted it. He'd relied on it for life and sanity in Malguri, and it might be all he could damn well look to for the rest of his life, thanks to choices he was making in these few desperate days.

And it wasn't, wasn't,
wasn't
reliable emotion. He could play voyeur to the experience of it; he was glad it existed for them. He was very glad for Algini's safety.

And perhaps that was the cold, sensible, atevi thing to feel right now. Perhaps it was all Tabini, for instance, would feel, or that Jago and Banichi would feel, if they were here.

Algini came to him and bowed with a pleasant, even cheerful face, unusual on glum Algini, and declared proudly, "I brought your baggage, nand' paidhi."

My God, was
that
the contents of the pasteboard boxes and cases piled on the antique carpets? All the things he'd left behind in Malguri, literally all he owned in the world, except a few keepsakes he'd left with his mother. He'd thought there was a remote chance of getting some things back, in the regret of a favorite sweater, his best coat, his brush, his traveling kit, the photos of his family — that was his whole damned life sitting in those boxes, and Algini had just brought it back, from his shirts and socks to the rings and the watch that Barb had given him.

"Nadi-ji," he said to Algini. The vocabulary of atevi gratitude was linguistic quicksand. "— I'm very surprised." He still wasn't hitting it. "Much as I value these things, I'd give them all to have you safe. It's very good, very dutiful, very — considerate of you to have brought them."