Inheritor (18 page)

God. Oh, God. The date.

He was supposed to do a television interview on the 14th. Tomorrow. Was it tomorrow? The 14th?

It
was
the 14th. He hadn't even thought about it since he'd left. He hadn't remotely considered it when he'd thought about extending his visit with Geigi.

He had no wish whatsoever to tie the business of the space program to the assassination of lord Saigimi in the public mind; he didn't want to answer questions regarding lord Saigimi, which might possibly come up — the news services, generally well behaved, still occasionally blundered into something in a live interview — live, because some atevi believed that television that regarded politics had to be live for the numbers not to be deliberately misleading.

But he couldn't, at this date and at this hour, even by coming down with an attack of poisoning,
cancel
the news conference, not without having people draw the very conclusion he didn't want.

He had to get his wits together and face it tomorrow — do it with dispatch and in full control of his faculties. He'd set the interview up fifteen days ago when it had sounded perfectly fine and within his control. He'd had it on his calendar as just after the factory tour. He'd made sure it missed the trip dates. They'd added two days and three labs onto his tour at the last moment and he'd totally forgotten about the damn interview as significant, just one of those myriad things his staff steered him to and out of and on to the next thing on the list, and that Tano would have advised him of the very moment he proposed to them accepting lord Geigi's offered day on the boat. They'd have been able to do it: they'd have just shunted the event to Sarini Province and set up in Geigi's front hall, cameras, lights, and baggage, and
he
wouldn't have been put out by it except as it affected the fishing schedule.

But, given a choice now, he wouldn't have done it tomorrow.

Damn! He wouldn't. But he supposed that nobody, including people who had or had not been atop certain buildings in the rain, had considered the paidhi's interview schedule when carrying out the assassination of a lord of the Association.

«
^
»

B
anichr and Jago
came to the dining room in the morning, cheerful and clearly anticipating the breakfast that was loading down the two service carts that were waiting along the wall outside.

Jase remained shut in his room. Jase was getting some sleep, madam Saidin said. Staff had quietly looked in on him to be sure that he was resting; and that he was safe; and they would be sure that he ate when he did wake.

"I think that sleep is more important for him," Bren agreed as he sat down at the table. "Thank you, Saidin-ji."

Tano and Algini came in for breakfast. And Tano, with a little bow, placed two objects beside his plate as he went to his chair, one a piece of vellum paper folded double, not scrolled as one did with formal messages; and the other a scroll in a gold (but very scarred) case.

In the inquiry regarding Jase-paidhi's message
, the simple folded note said, Tano's writing,
no message was received at Mogari-nai directed to him during your absence. I have verified this by electronic record as provided by Mogari-nai
.

Indeed, while he'd been sitting talking with Banichi and Jago last night, others of his staff had been querying the Mogari-nai earth station via levels of the Bu-javid staff that could obtain valid and reliable answers.

So Jase's ship hadn't informed him of something that personal and urgent. The question was
why
they hadn't informed Jase; and
why
they'd told Yolanda without telling her Jase didn't know and consequently let her blurt out a piece of news like that. It was stupid, to have set up two agents in the field to be in that situation, and stupidity did not accord with other actions the ship had taken.

Nor did Manasi nor any member of the staff receive any request from nand' Jase to call the ship, although this would not have been granted. He wished to speak to you personally and this request was denied. Nand' Jase expressed extreme emotion at this denial and requested no call be made to you on his behalf. Nand' Manasi expresses his distress at the situation, but he passed the tape of the Mospheira contact to the aiji's staff with no knowledge it was out of the ordinary and the aiji's staff has issued no report as yet on the content of that tape. Investigation is proceeding on the matter of timely report.

Meaning the aiji's staff, probably busy Mospheira-watching on other topics, had the tape of the phone call but hadn't interpreted it against the background of what else was going on, meaning matters in the peninsula, with which it might have been preoccupied. Manasi, watching Jase, hadn't known what was going on. Jase had given Manasi a request against his orders and then told Manasi to let the matter drop.

Jase also had that tendency to assume a rule could be neither questioned nor broken, a trait that came of the ship-culture Jase had come from, Bren very much suspected, one of those little points of difference between the ship and Mospheira. He and Jase
almost
shared a language, and met towering problems centered in wrong assumptions. On one level this had all the irrational feel of one of those.

But the misunderstanding wasn't trivial, this time.

And it still didn't answer the question why Jase hadn't been informed by the ship via Mogari-nai. And it didn't answer the possibility the aiji's staff had realized something was wrong and hadn't informed him. He wasn't sure Manasi had erred; he wasn't sure, either, that the staff had held anything back from him, but his instincts for trouble were awake.

Tano's note went on to a second item of the business he'd laid on his staff last night:
I forwarded your note to nand' Eidi. The aiji asks we advise his staff as soon as you've finished breakfast. He said he cannot be precise as to the time the aiji will have available to meet, nor should you be kept from your business
(it was the lordly
you;
Tano never seemed to know what to do with their familiarity on paper.)
One may have to wait and that will be arranged
.

Also, do you recall that there is a live television interview scheduled today at noon? I asked nand' Eidi yesterday should it be postponed or taken on tape, and nand' Eidi says the aiji believes any deviation in your schedule would be interpreted by the public at large not as your legitimate wish for rest but as the Bu-javid security staff's reaction to the general security alert, an intimation of concern the aiji does not wish to convey.

It is therefore the aiji's wish that you conduct the interview on schedule. I state the aiji's words. If we may be of service, we will carry another message.

"Thank you, nadiin-ji," he said, in the plural, figuring that both Tano and Algini had shared duty last night and lost sleep over the Jase matter; the message to the aiji had been much the simpler case, but pursued before he had even thought of it, thank God for Tano's keeping his schedule straight.

Then there was the second message cylinder, which staff, presumably, had already opened: the seal was cracked. The scarred gold case had a seal he didn't recognize, but evidently it was a message the clerical staff as well as his household thought he should see, on a priority evidently equal to the Jase matter.

The message he unrolled, as Saidin was serving the muffins and another servant was pouring tea, bore the written heading of the lord of Dur-wajran. That was the unknown seal.

That
matter, he said to himself: the pilot who'd nearly collided with their jet.

Nand' paidhi
, it read in a less than elegant hand,
one wishes most earnestly for your good will. The unfortunate circumstance
(misspelled)
of the encounter was unwished by me because of error and I wish to take all responsibility personally. Please do not take offense at my household. I did not mean to hit your plane. I am solely
(misspelled)
to blame and offer profoundest regrets at my stupidity
.

It was signed by one Rejiri, with a clan heraldry he took for the seal of Dur-wajran.

"This was the pilot? How old is he?"

"Young," Tano said. "I'd be surprised if he's twenty. He brought the message to the residential security post with flowers. On policy, they declined the flowers and sent them to the public display area but accepted the message." Tano added, then, in the manner of a thoroughly ridiculous proposition. "He wanted to come upstairs."

"What are we talking about?" Banichi asked.

"A pilot brought his plane very close to ours yesterday," Bren said. "I take it he's not still downstairs."

"I wouldn't think so," Tano said. "They say, however, he was insistent."

"Young," Algini said. "One thinks some of his distress may be the impoundment of the aircraft, which may bring his parents to Shejidan. He may wish to ask you to clear the record. I would
not
advise you meet with him or to grant that request."

"He," Tano added, "has a record of small aerial incidents around the coast near his home. He had no business bringing the plane to the largest airport in the world."

"True." He had campaigned for stricter enforcement of the ATC rales. He passed the note to Jago, as the most forgiving member of his security. "I hope they won't deal too harshly with him." One could get into a great deal of trouble coming too close to the aiji's residence during a security alert. "Please have someone advise him I take no personal offense and that the Bu-javid staff has more urgent business."

"The staff has tried to impress the gravity of matters on him," Tano said, "and to make clear to him that he should pay closer attention to public events. — One does take the impression that this young man lacks seriousness of purpose."

"Why is the paidhi involved with this person, nadi?" Banichi wanted to know, and the potential rebuke to junior security was implied in that 'nadi.' "And what, in full, happened?"

"An ATC violation," Tano said. The note went from Jago on to Banichi. "We
are
treating it seriously, nandi, at least to be sure there was nothing more than seems. It seems to be a young island pilot — the lord of Dur's son."

"Ah," Banichi said, as if that explained any folly in the world. Banichi reached for more toast and, so supplied, perused the note and looked at the seal.

"A minor thing," Algini said. "The authorities will advise the parents. — I would advise, nadi Bren, against accepting the boy's apology. Apology to a person of your rank should come from the lord of Dur first, then the boy."

"I understand," Bren said as nand' Saidin offered him curdled eggs and pastry. Considering the necessity of meeting with Tabini, it might be one of those days mostly marked by waiting. Tabini's day looked to be one of those unpredictable ones, with various emergencies coming in. "Thank you, nadi. The paidhi would have offended half the world by now, and all the noble houses would have filed on him, if he didn't have staff to keep him in order."

"This
is
a young fool," Banichi said, laying the note aside. "Don't concern yourself with him, Bren-ji. This is for other agencies to pursue. Meanwhile we will be trying to solve the other questions you posed."

The other questions, meaning the situation among the lords, post-Saigimi: atevi politics.

Meanwhile he had a computer and a briefcase full of plain, unadorned work he had to do for the space program.

And he had to deal with Jase personally. His staff said there was no impediment they could locate at

Mogari-nai with messages to which they could gain access, which ought to be everything; and they did indicate that Jase hadn't pushed Manasi to carry his request through channels. The request
still
might not have been granted.

But primarily he had to unravel what in bloody hell was going on inside the ship and why Jase had gotten a message that personal from a source who had apparently been notified by the ship in preference to Jase.

That just damn well wouldn't do, he thought, not in that personal matter, not, by any stretch of that policy, in other matters regarding the business on which Yolanda and Jason had come down to earth.
There
was the center of the matter, not Jase's father, however tragic it was on a personal level.

Meanwhile Banichi and Tano and Algini had fallen to discussing the state of building security and whether they were going to need to establish a service alert on the third floor (a decision which rested in the hands of Tabini's staff, and not their own) regarding the scaffold, which rumor on the staff held was going to be dismantled tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Bren thought, pricking up his ears. What a glorious piece of news. The workmen finished. No more scaffolding.

"No more barrier to the breakfast room?" he asked. "They're going to take that ugly door down?"

"One hopes, paidhi-ji," Tano said.

"But," Jago said, "there's a Marid lord arriving today to press a claim with the aiji."

"Or," Banichi said, "he wishes to escape the politics of his district. Note he
hasn't
applied for an audience."

"Who is this?" Bren asked.

"Badissuni, by name," Algini interjected. "And one wonders, nand' paidhi, whether it's an honest request."

"One hardly thinks so," Jago said. "I vastly distrust it. I would protest that door being removed."

Banichi had a very sober expression. So, Bren trusted, did he.

"The press says," Tano said, "that lord Badissuni is escaping the politics of his district. I think the press was handed that information."

"A fair guess," Banichi said, and tapped the table with a sharp egg-knife balanced delicately over his thumb. "My bet? He wants the press to say so. But he wants them following the story so if Tabini-aiji tosses him out of his ancestral apartments in the Bu-javid he can make politics at home."

"So will Tabini do it?" Bren asked. "Pitch him out, I mean?"