Explorer (47 page)

“Narani-nadi has discreetly estimated his size for better tailoring, nandi,” Asicho said sotto voce. “Bindanda is attempting to construct suitable clothing as quickly as possible.”

“A very good idea,” Bren said, with a mental image of their guest in atevi court attire. But who knew? Being dressed like his hosts would surely be a psychological improvement over the prison garb, an evidence of better fortunes.

“He seems in many points like us, nandi.”

“That he does,” Bren said. Four limbs, a similar musculature to move them, an upright stance and the spinal curve and gait that kept a bipedal creature from falling over. A not exclusively vegetarian dentition, Banichi informed him: meat was likely, then, on his menu.

And jaw curvature and fine control of tongue and throat for articulate speech? In that broad face, yes, likely so. In that large head and that ship waiting out there for six years, definitely a brain and a sense of purpose, however he communicated.

Eyes, two. Nose, useful to any species, short, broad, positioned above, not below, the mouth, a sensible design, in a human’s estimation.

A bullet head that sat down onto huge shoulders. Broad grasping hands, flat, broad feet that certainly weren’t going to fit into any boots they owned—nature of the toes wasn’t clear.

Huge rib cage. One assumed it protected the breathing apparatus and that digestion fit rather lower into the frame, the finish of that process as far from the intake as anatomy could manage, simply to give chemistry as much time to work as feasible . . . again, a reasonable arrangement, as seemed.

Sex indeterminate in folds of skin, if the location of the distinction was involved neither with respiration nor digestion, and the young, connected with that process, had to get out of the body somehow: again, design seemed to follow gravity.
He
as a pronoun was a convenience, not a firm conviction.

And while gravity and the need for locomotion, perception, and manipulation of the environment (wasn’t that what his professors had said?) might make biological entities look rather more alike than not—gravity had nothing in particular to do with the mind, the language, or the attitudes of a long cultural history, which could be damnably soft, mutable, and difficult to predict.

His professors would be highly useful right now. He wished he had the whole resources of the University on Mospheira, and their labs and their committees, to back him up.

He wished they were safely back in orbit around their own planet and he could take years doing this.

But they weren’t, and he couldn’t. He gathered himself up with a deep breath. “Do not hesitate to notify us, Asi-ji,” he said to Asicho, “if there should be any word from Jase or the dowager on any account.”

“One will be closely attentive, nandi,” Asicho assured him softly.

He left, Banichi and Jago close on his heels . . .

And outside, he discovered Cenedi. So the dowager
was
interested, and not entirely patient.

And with Cenedi and his two men came a very unofficial presence, Cajeiri, tagging the dowager’s men at a safe distance, looking as inconspicuous as possible. And—one should note, who hoped for quiet and sanity—Cajeiri stood eavesdropping, toy car in hand.

“The dowager inquires,” Cenedi said.

“I am proceeding immediately,” Bren said.

Cajeiri noted that look. “Might one just
see
this foreigner, nand’ Bren?”

Cenedi bent a stern look aside and down.

But, it flashed across Bren’s mind—in the naivete of that question: in the extreme pressure of time, to convince another species that one was not a warlike, ravening enemy—dared one think?

Dared one remotely think a child might be useful?

“Perhaps the dowager might permit him, Cenedi-nadi. What if we were to work on this foreigner what we worked upon Becker-nadi? What if this foreigner were to see we have young children and elder statesmen aboard?”

His own staff looked at him, appalled. Cenedi looked decidedly uneasy. “Hurrah!” Cajeiri cried.

Yet was it not the case, the paidhi asked himself? The fragile, troublesome side of every intelligent species must be its young—young in an intelligent species requiring a prolonged learning phase. Young who were apt to do any damned thing. Young who routinely made naturally forgivable mistakes.

How best, without words, to demonstrate one’s pacific intent, than to show one’s softer side? The dowager had rarely come under
that
description. But she could manage a grand graciousness. The ship’s crew venerated her.

“Perhaps, Cenedi-nadi, we shall invite our guest to the dining hall for refreshments—tired though our guest may be, he would surely like to know his situation, and perhaps we can demonstrate our hospitality. Perhaps the young aiji might indeed come and bring his toy. Though it is a
very
adult business, and the young aiji must bear extreme tedium with extraordinary patience. Perhaps the dowager herself would come and observe.”

Cenedi looked worried. “One will certainly relay this invitation, nandi.”

An invitation unwritten, testing the limits of atevi courtesy: but Cenedi clearly had no doubt the dowager would be amenable, and laying her own schemes on her next breath.

“Shall we speak to this foreigner, nadiin-ji?” Cajeiri asked.

“Perhaps,” Bren said, “we may convince him even our youngest are civilized and polite.”

“A subterfuge,” Cajeiri said with restrained excitement. “A subterfuge, Cenedi-nadi!”

“His new word,” Cenedi said, and to the offspring: “If
mani
agrees, you may be present and you may speak, young lord, but
judiciously,
and one does not believe the paidhi-aiji intends civility as a hollow subterfuge.”

“Yes, Cenedi-nadi!”

“We shall ask your great-grandmother,” Cenedi said—indeed, ask the dowager, who thought a headlong ride down a rocky mountain was sport, at her age. Cajeiri worshipfully tagged Cenedi down the corridor toward the dowager’s door.

Bren looked at Banichi and Jago, knowing—
knowing
that he was about to test the limits of reasonable risk and his staff’s resources. He would assuredly have his own fragile neck at risk, and if he showed a potential
enemy their softer side, he also showed that enemy a softer target—not even figuring it might go all wrong and he might offend or disgust the individual they had to reach. There were no certainties. The fact was, there
were
no facts to work on: they had the what, but not a shred of the why.

“Safeguard the dowager and the heir at utmost priority. I insist, nadiin-ji.
They
would be the soft target, if I make any mistake. You will give me an opportunity to retreat. And I assure you, I promise you, I promise you twice and three times—I shall run.”

“One agrees,” Banichi said—viscerally as hard for his own bodyguard, that promise to abandon him, as a leap off a cliff. All instincts warred against leaving him. But they were not slaves to those instincts. They understood him. “Yes,” Jago said flatly.

“Nadi-ji.” A little bow. He trusted word was already passing, from them to Asicho, from Asicho to both staffs. Information flowed, swirled about them, a constant bath of attention and preparation.

And he walked calmly toward that other door, bent on testing the waters before he committed their more fragile elements. He rang for admission, as if their guest had any control over his own door, before Banichi reached out to the button and unceremoniously opened it.

Their guest, dressed in Bindanda’s blue bathrobe, met them on his feet, apprehensive, to judge by the rapid pace of the nostril slits. The room smelled of hot pavement.

“Good afternoon,” Bren said in Mosphei’, showing empty hands and making a small bow—aversion of the gaze was a fairly reasonable, though not universal, indication of quiet intent. He laid a hand on his own chest, avoiding a rude stare in this formal meeting, experimenting shyly with eye contact. A glance seemed accepted, maybe expected, though met with a stony stare in a face that held little emotion.

“Bren. Bren is my name.” A flourish of a lace-cuffed hand toward his staff. “Banichi. Jago.” An expectant, hopeful flourish toward their guest.

Who simply turned his back.

Well.
There
was a communicative gesture.

“Be respectful,” Banichi said in a low voice, in Ragi; but Bren made a quiet, forbidding gesture.

“Have patience, nadiin-ji. His treatment by humans was hardly courteous. It’s a very small defiance. Perhaps even a respectful dispute, in his own terms. Let me see.” He walked over to the corner of the room, gaining at least a view of their guest’s profile, a precarious proximity, though he had Banichi and Jago looming at his left.

“We would like to take you to your ship,” he said quietly, soothingly, to that averted shoulder. “We wish to take the occupants of the station onto this ship and leave this station. We are here to help, not hurt.”

It was a lengthy speech, in Ragi, certainly pure babble to alien ears. But it won a direct gaze, sidelong and, dared one think, perhaps reckoning that that was
not
the language, and therefore not the culture, he had met before.

“We hope you will be comfortable aboard until we can arrange your return to your ship,” Bren said in a low, talking-to-children tone, still in Ragi. “Narani, the senior director of my staff, has disarranged himself to provide you this comfort, giving you his own bed.
Do
treat his cabin with respect. He’s a very fine gentleman, and offers you the use of objects which he greatly values.”

A profile, now. A mouth like a vise, a brow that lowered over large eyes to shadow them—not actually an unpleasant face, once one tried earnestly to see the symmetry of it. But Jago had warned him there were very good teeth, and he could see for himself the huge hands, a grasp which had challenged even Banichi’s strength.

“We talked to your ship,” Bren said, this time in ship-speak. He kept the vocabulary small and repetitive and the syntax very basic. “They showed us pictures, how station took you. Your ship says bring you back. We say yes. We leave this station. We take all the people out of this station and go. We want peace with you and this ship.”

Now the full face, as their guest turned to face him—a scowl, was it, or a friendly face in sullen repose? And did turning toward him and meeting his eyes express courteous attention, or defiant insult?

Massive hand went to massive chest. “Prakuyo.”

“Prakuyo.—Bren.” He made a bow: one didn’t hold out an intrusive hand, not with atevi, at first meeting, and not to any foreigner, in his opinion, without knowing the other party’s concept of body space and invasion.
On the contrary, he kept his hands to himself and dropped his eyes for a moment, primate respect, before looking up. “Do you understand, Prakuyo? We take you to your ship.”

The jaw remained clenched.

But the eyes darted aside in alarm as a disturbance reached the open door.

A very junior disturbance, as might be, who brought up short and wide-eyed, and who for a moment distracted him, distracted their guest—
not,
however, Banichi, as Jago alone gave a measured look at the doorway.

One hardly needed guess Cajeiri had escaped the dowager’s party.

“This is the foreigner,” Cajeiri surmised.

“Young lord,” Bren said, now that his pulse rate had slowed, “kindly go back to Cenedi. Immediately.”

“He’s as large as we are,” Cajeiri said, marveling. The heir, highly overstimulated by the situation and long bored, was being a seven-year-old brat.

“Go,” Jago said, just that, and the boy ducked back out of sight.

“Pardon. He’s a child,” Bren said calmly, as their guest continued to gaze at the vacant doorway—as if, next, fairies and unicorns could manifest. Interesting, Bren thought. Even encouraging. “This room is in our ship. We live here. This is not a prison.”

Prakuyo, if that was his name, turned a burning look his way.

“Do you understand?” Bren asked him. “Six years on the station—I think you might have learned
good morning, hello, goodbye
.”

“Damn dumb shit,” Prakuyo muttered, in a voice that sounded like rocks hitting together.

Had he just heard that?
Damn dumb shit.

Yes, he had heard that. So much for good morning, good afternoon and other station attempts to establish communication.

“Thank
you,” Bren said all the same, and made a bow. “Go
home.
Does that make sense?”

“Madison.” It wasn’t a particularly happy tone.

“Do you
want
Madison?” Bren asked. That was the person who’d been in charge in that prison. He laid a hand on his own chest. “Bren,
not
Madison. I don’t know Madison.
I
make the law here. Do you want Madison?”

“Madison.” Prakuyo hit fist into palm, not a good indicator for Madison.

“Bren,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “Thank you.” Another bow. And the paidhi-aiji, in a sense of timing that had served well enough among atevi, made a wide decision—that even a small advance in communication had to be rewarded, that body language and cooperation indicated they dared run the risk of a boy not being where he was supposed to turn up. He recklessly indicated the door and trusted his staff together could flatten their guest, if they had to. “Come, Prakuyo. Walk with me. Outside.”

That
upset their guest’s sense of the universe. Nostrils worked hard. Need for more oxygen was a basic biological preface to high action, one could take that for a fair guess; but it could also accompany decision. Bren walked easily, cheerfully, to the door, bowed his courtly best and made a clear gesture of invitation outward—spying, in the process, a clear corridor.

Their guest advanced to the door. And ventured out. Bren showed him the way down the corridor, walking with him, Banichi and Jago a little behind.

“We live in these rooms,” Bren said, gesturing left and right, prattling on mostly to keep the tone easy as they walked. “My companions are atevi. I’m human. Not station-human. I live on this ship. What are you, Prakuyo?”