Destroyer (40 page)

About the mission to Reunion, no chance. Not as things now stood.

But about the boy’s rights, and therefore Tatiseigi’s rights, and the need to advance them forcefully . . .

“He would want the boy to make that claim, would he not, nadiin-ji?”

“Exactly so,” Banichi said. “Exactly so, Bren-ji.”

“Endangering him.”

“He is already in danger, in danger, and without Guild protection, excepting those of us under this roof.”

“And what is there to support him, Banichi-ji?”

“The backing of Lord Tatiseigi, and a letter from the paidhi-aiji,” Banichi said, with an uncharacteristic leap of faith. Faith placed in
him,
God help them all.

And if the plight of his long-suffering on-world staff was a burden on his heart, that earnest look from Banichi, of all people, lowered a crushing, overwhelming weight onto his shoulders.

“What could one reasonably say in a letter to convince those who have been injured by my advice, Banichi-ji? I hoped to speak to Lord Tatiseigi after breakfast. I could not even secure that audience.”

“The dowager had her own notions,” Jago said, “and did not permit it.”

Did that mean as much as he thought it could mean?

“Why not?”

“She is the one Tatiseigi knows, and the one who should deal with him,” Jago said. “Which is probably prudent, nadi-ji.”

“But if I cannot persuade him—”

“Never, when the matter at issue is whether Ilisidi is on his side. That is personal, nandi, and your arguments can have no effect there.”

An old liaison—one almost thought love affair, humanly speaking, but of course it wasn’t that. Man’chi was tangled in it, who could trust whom, who would tell the truth, and who might be lying, and Ilisidi outranked the paidhi—his opinion could not break ranks with hers. Not in the way atevi nerves were wired.

“You mean I shall have no chance to convince him, nadiin-ji?”

“She will,” Jago said. “She has done a great deal to convince him already. She is
here,
Bren-ji.”

Blind human, that was to say. At times the ground he thought he knew developed deep chasms of atevi logic. Stay out of it, their nerves were telling them, don’t try to intervene in this mine field. And back the boy to be aiji, in his father’s place.

“If I back—” he began to say, the rest of the sentence being, Cajeiri as aiji—would it not betray Tabini? But he stopped there: the whole point of what they were saying was that the paidhi could
not
break ranks and set himself forward, ahead of the dowager, ahead of Tatiseigi, even ahead of Cajeiri, not in something that regarded the man’chi of atevi toward their leadership.

“I have records. I have brought images, in my computer, to support my argument. If I only send them and did not appear myself, nadiin-ji, people can say these images are only television. I can provide the images to the Atageini—if there is a computer in this house. But I should present them in Shejidan. I do not want to betray Tabini by supporting another aiji, even his son. I do not want to lose the argument in Shejidan, either. Most of all, I do not want to see the kyo show up here and find only humans to answer for this planet, when they have not done outstandingly well at communicating with them in the first place.”

“There is a proverb in our Guild,” Banichi said in his low voice. “One Assassin is enough. One assassin can overturn the vote and the good will of thousands. We are not speaking of the whole population. We are speaking of skilled attack. You should not go anywhere, until there is a request you go and an escort to make it likely you will arrive. Let them call you to speak. As they will. We have every confidence in them, if not in the higher powers of the government.”

“Speed is critical in getting Tatiseigi to send any messengers he may send before the Guild,” Tano said . . . always deferring to Banichi and Jago, but since his long stay in command of the stationside household, having an opinion of his own. “The longer the delay, the more likely the Kadigidi will get wind of our presence and attack us here.”

“No question,” Algini said.

“Then if the Atageini messengers should go, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. The words had a hollow, ominous sound in his own ears. “If they do go, and if there is any stir about it, the Kadigidi will certainly know where we are, and they will blame Lord Tatiseigi publicly for sheltering us. Certainly they will know we are under this roof when Atageini messengers appear in Shejidan. And, forgive me, how long will Lord Tatiseigi remain well-disposed to our cause once Kadigidi assassins blow more holes in the lily frescoes?”

Laughter, from the grimmest of professions. It was a notorious event. “Such a move will not win the Kadigidi favor with him,” Jago said.

“But can this house withstand a direct attack, nadiin-ji? This is not Malguri.”

“It has a few more defenses than seems,” Banichi said. Electronics, Banichi implied. Electronics. In this most
kabiu
of households. It would be a surprise to him. “More downstairs than up—the security in this room is alarmingly thin.”

“Cenedi suggests we move out and spare us finding out the answers to these questions,” Jago said. “It is not, he says, in our interests that the Kadigidi and the Atageini go at each others’ throats yet. But the dowager strongly resists this notion and wishes to provoke Guild notice and to insist on a hearing.
She
assuredly wishes to get you before the Guild, nandi.”

Forestalling him, at breakfast. Keeping the argument all on her terms.

“One would hesitate to question the dowager’s grasp of politics,” Bren said ruefully, which was the very truth, and his heart felt the chill of old experience with the dowager and her willingness to charge downhill. If Ilisidi was making her move, just in being here, and Cenedi was trying to advise against it, the fat was already in the fire, so to speak, and the Kadigidi would move. Fast.

“Perhaps I should prepare a convincing letter,” he said, “so we can offer it, at least, if this mission is in fact to go to the Guild.”

“If the paidhi sees fit,” Jago said, and Banichi said:

“A very good idea. A letter at least to confirm the dowager’s assertions.”

A letter which must be written by hand, not printed out from a computer: a computer-written message was not
kabiu
on so formal an occasion as a Guild hearing, even if the house had the requisite printer, and he would not offend this house by asking.

But writing it out first and copying it fair would save time, ink and paper . . . granted they could lay hands on paper. Granted only they could persuade the Atageini to carry it.

“I shall do it,” he said, committing himself to the course of action. “I shall need pen, paper and the wax-jack. I shall provide Tatiseigi a copy, for his own reading. Might there be tea?”

They scattered on their various missions and he opened up his computer and stared at a blank screen.

Shut his eyes a moment, seeing steel corridors. Seeing forest paths where they had ridden. So many realities.

Then:

That much was easy. No reference to his lordly title in the heavens, just the ordinary one, the one he lived by, and hoped to continue to live by.

Atevi space station.
That
was a reach. But it was the situation Tabini insisted on, and had been fairly well on his way to having, before this catastrophe.
... making it absolutely essential that atevi shuttles maintain regular flights, to keep a firm hand on that situation, and to maintain atevi authority.

A rare moment of brilliance, if he did say so himself. Occasionally the words were just there, ready to spring out.

At such moments of overwhelming self-confidence—well to ask an impartial observer. He called Jago, who surveyed it both for felicity and persuasion.

“Excellent,” she said, “excellently worded, nandi.”

“I shall write it out,” he said, and carefully did so, in his most formal script, provided a reading copy for Lord Tatiseigi, a second one for the dowager, and affixed the paidhi’s seal in wax to the actual missive. He weighed it in his hand, looked at the computer screen to assure himself that he had nowhere hinted the darker thoughts of his heart, such as the
damnable paralysis of your Guild
or
your general policy, which arises from willful ignorance, corruption, and scientific illiteracy of certain members.
He thought those thoughts. God, he thought them, with such force it seemed impossible they had not branded themselves on the paper in his own handwriting.

But he had been politic throughout. He had flattered. He had told the minimal truth. He had promised—literally—the sun, the moon, and the stars, if they would come to their senses and take authority. The alternatives were not pretty . . . three bands of humans trying to deal with the aliens they had thus far only antagonized.

He brought the letter and the copies to Jago, watched her take them out the door, and let go a deep breath, wishing every syllable had been perfect, which now he knew was not the case, wishing he had been brilliant, which he was completely dubious was the case, wishing he could miraculously transport himself to the dowager’s vicinity to watch her reaction and answer questions; and to Tatiseigi’s, after that.

And there was the question, the very good question, whether, even if the dowager wished it, the letter would ever get past Tatiseigi’s grounds. The dowager would have to approve it before the next copy went to Tatiseigi, and Tatiseigi would have to approve it to get it out the door.

He walked to the open window, and gazed out on the cultivated fields, the broad expanses of grassland that lay behind the very ineffective walls of the estate.

Beyond those fields, barring the horizon, rose wooded hills; and beyond them the eye could find a faint haze where a range of snow-covered mountains would stand, if the mountains were being cooperative today. Today a stranger who didn’t know such mountains existed would assume that haze was sky, the continent unbarriered. He would think there was no split between east and west.

Would history not have been different, if that were the case? Would history not have rolled over the human landing on this world, if that were the case? The western atevi were an inquisitive progressive lot, exceedingly prone to investigate, to take an oddity in the hand and look at it carefully. Humans had landed on Mospheira, and had ended up on the mainland, briefly. The mainland atevi, the westerners, had been astonishingly outgoing and accepting . . . until the war. A landing on the other end of the continent—just a little rotation of the world away—and there would have been no human presence left on the planet, in very short order. Ilisidi’s people, Ilisidi’s neighbors’ forebears, would have obliterated any human landing, no great number of questions asked.

That would have kept humans in space, giving no alternative but the ship, and no leadership or authority but the captains who had insisted on going out and exploring further, ostensibly hunting some vantage from which they could figure out where they were—but in fact poking and prodding among likely near stars for further and further expansion of human presence, greater and easier resources.

They’d have touched off the kyo sooner or later, and sooner or later gotten the kyo here with blood in their eye . . . to the planet’s detriment. And the planet would never have known what hit it or why—if those mountains had not existed, if those mountains had not divided eastern atevi from western and let humans get a safe foothold down here.

Curious thought, that humans might have endangered the world—but the humans down here were the ones who might prevent that danger from coming down on the world.

He had done his best, hadn’t he? No matter it had done damage, it had not done the ultimate damage—had not let war come on the world unawares.

And not all the changes were harmful.

Thanks to his predecessor in the paidhi’s office, and thanks to him, as well, planes had fairly recently rendered that divide much more crossable. Planes had united the two halves of the continent across that mountain divide that rail had found all but insurpassable, and brought the east into the politics of the west . . . which had brought benefits of peace, of cooperation, a flowering of art, a cross-pollination of atevi cultures. In her youth, Ilisidi had been an exotic foreigner herself, marrying the aiji of the west, arriving by train in what had been, half a century ago, an arduous and epic rail journey.