Inheritor (22 page)

So the paidhi was definitely glad not to be down there, in a building some were seriously talking about demolishing before it was fully occupied. As it was, he needed only go to the lower tiers of the Bu-javid complex and, via the security access, walk into his premises, never having broken a sweat.

Secretaries scrambled out of their chairs, rose and bowed as he and Banichi walked in, and nand' Dasibi, the chief of his clerical staff, came hurrying from his office to bow and receive the paidhi's personal inquiry into office affairs.

While he was listening to Dasibi's running commentary, Dasibi walking beside him with his notebook the while, the paidhi took his usual tour down the aisles of the clerical desks, pausing here and there for a word to the clericals who answered his mail, the first line of defense between the paidhi and his more interesting correspondence.

He routinely scanned that, too, or at least the prize pieces. Nand' Dasibi had established a board on the south wall in which the staff delighted. It recorded, Bren had discovered, the tally of death threats versus marriage proposals, choice crank letters, some proposing how to protect the earth's atmosphere against pollution from passing spacecraft and one, his favorite, from a husband and wife in the East, regarding the invention of a ray that would convert the ether of space into breathable atmosphere so that airplanes could fly to the station.

The paidhi through his staff had suggested that the proposed spacecraft did have wings for atmospheric operation, so that, if the gentleman and his wife could perfect the conversion ray, it would be perfectly compatible with the current design.

So far there was no news from that province of such a development.

And there was the board devoted to children's letters: the staff tallied those, too, mostly sweet, occasionally clever, sometimes fearful of half-heard adult conversations. The staff passed on to him the best of the children's letters and the letters which seemed to represent a trend, and occasionally gave him copies of the really good crank letters and marriage proposals. His security handled the death threats.

But mostly these clericals dealt with the flood of general correspondence, which would have inundated him and taken all his time. They also transcribed his tapes and cleaned up his rough and informal notes into the language most appropriate for the occasion. That small service alone saved him an immense amount of dictionary-searching — not that he didn't know the words, but he was never sure there wasn't a better one and never, on an important report, dared trust that the word that popped into his head didn't have infelicitous connotations that he had no wish to set onto paper. A written mistake might fall into the hands of news services interested in catching the paidhi in such an infelicity. The press daren't take on the aiji, mustn't, in fact; but a lord of the Association was a fair target; and in less than a year he'd become such a person — protected, still, in certain ways, but increasingly fair game if he made a blunder that saw print.

Besides, his dictionary was one humans had compiled, of necessity, to equate human words — and sometimes one could make an unthinking glitch on the numbers because counting
didn't
come naturally and even atevi made mistakes. These experienced governmental clericals would, like his experienced governmental security, fling their knowledge between the paidhi and the dedicated number-counters who sometimes sent letters specifically designed to entrap the paidhi into numerically infelicitous statements, which
they
, in the perverse self-importance of such experts, could then term significant.

As a minor court official, again, he'd been immune from such public relations assassinations. As a major player in affairs of state, he, like the aiji,
was
a target of such manipulators, and his strike in return was a standing order for commendations to any clerical who by handwriting, postal mark, or other clues, identified one of these nuisances by name, handwriting, and residence and posted them to others in the pool. The staff shared information with the aiji's staff and, in a considerable network, with various lords' staffs: 'counters could be a plague and a pest, and the clericals detested and hunted them as zealously as the Guild hunted armed lunatics.

It made him feel a certain disconnection from the job he'd used to do himself, however, and he feared that he was in danger of losing touch with ordinary atevi as fast as his increased notoriety and importance had gained him the ability to know them. He
liked
the atevi he'd met, the elderly couple at Malguri, his former servants in the Bu-javid, the astronomy students at Saigiadi — most of all, people of various staffs he'd dealt with.

And he couldn't stay in touch with them, and couldn't allow himself the human softness, either, to reserve a spot for them in that inner limbo where lost and strayed acquaintances dwelled. They were outside his man'chi. They weren't
his
. He couldn't expect them to become
his
.

And in that one simple example he saw why humans could become so disruptive of atevi society in so short a time, just by existing, and dragging into their
liking
persons who really, never, ever should be
associated
with them in the atevi sense.

Humans had created havoc without knowing the social destruction they were wreaking on the foundations of society where people could be badly bent out of their comfortable associations, in that region where man'chi could become totally complex.

In some wisdom the aiji had set
him
up in the rarified air where man'chi could flow safely
up
to him — but sometimes he looked with great trepidation at the day when, their mutual goal, atevi might be working side by side with humans on the space station they were diverting the economy of a nation to reach.

In such moments he asked himself what potentially disastrous and crazy idea he'd given his life to serve.

He deliberately didn't think too deeply into the changes in his personal status he'd encouraged or accepted — or a part of his brain was working on it, but it wasn't a part that worked well if someone turned on the lights in that dark closet.

Stupid choice, Bren, he sometimes said to himself, when he realized how high he'd climbed and how he'd set himself up as a target. Deadly stupid, Bren Cameron, he'd say, on cold and lonely nights — or standing as he was in the middle of the atevi clerical establishment that, with great dedication to him, for emotional reasons he couldn't reciprocate, continually and routinely saved him from making a fool of himself.

He could afford at least the question of what in hell was he doing and what did it all mean and where was he leading these people who approached him with the kind of devotion they ordinarily spent on the aiji, who
was
worth their devotion.

How did he dare? he asked himself; and
Chance and George Barrulin
, the answer echoed out of the haunted basement of his suspicions, one of whom, Chance, was the demon in the design of the atevi universe and the other of whom, the President's chief advisor, was the devil in the design of Mospheiran politics.

Neither of them was fit to be in charge of as many lives as they controlled.

But Tabini, he strongly believed,
was
fit: fit by biological processes he couldn't feel and political processes purely atevi.

To his continual wonderment, Tabini accepted what the paidhi did, double-questioned him on his choices, and threw his authority behind the concept of atevi rights in space, when human authority said atevi might be destroyed by the concept of microchips and nuclear energy.

What atevi did after they were up there in space, that was another matter.

He asked himself, on lonely nights, whether he'd live, himself, to see that ship fly. He could envision himself standing at the side of the runway. But in his imagination he never could see the ship. He'd become superstitious about that image in his mind, even gloomy and desperate, and he wasn't ready to dig too deeply and learn what exactly his subconscious thought he was doing. He didn't have a choice; he didn't currently have a better idea, and what he was doing had to be done before the next stage of worrying.

He came down here when he was scared. As the interview had him scared. He faced that fact now. He'd had it easy in the provinces, on tour. He'd been traveling in the aiji's plane, under the aiji's guard, and everybody was glad to see him because he might bring trade and funds.

Here, in the Bu-javid, the predators gathered, and snarled and swarmed after scraps in ways that reminded him very uncomfortably of the situation back home.

He'd discussed it with Tabini.

Now a man was dead, who'd been part of the drive to take the power back to the provinces. It wasn't just that Saigimi was a disagreeable man with bad numbers: it was that Saigimi was a peninsular lord who'd represented a policy and a movement that didn't like the influence of the paidhi — that didn't like the paidhi's acquisition of this office, this prominence, this kind of loyalty. Or Tabini's appetite for technology and power.

It was remotely possible that Saigimi had had a point. A rotten way of expressing it, but a point.

And that was one of those items that was going to be seething under the surface of the questions various news services wanted to ask him. The conference was supposed to be about the space program, which he desperately wanted to talk about. But atevi knew there was something very significant going on in the way the space program was being built, and in the way prosperity was being handed out to one lord and assassination used against another.

The answers whether it was a good or bad change in atevi affairs were in those baskets of letters — ordinary atevi expressing their opinions.

"There are a few items difficult of disposition, nand' paidhi," nand' Dasibi informed him. "One understands there was an untoward incident in the skies on your return. Might one inquire, will the paidhi wish this incident acknowledged if the public inquires?"

"The matter," Banichi said, his shadow as he had walked through the room, among the desks, and now as they stopped at the head of it, "is still under staff investigation. It was minor."

"Say," Bren added, "that I was not hurt and never alarmed. The skill of the aiji's pilots prevented harm. It underscores the importance of pilots observing air traffic control regulations and filing flight plans… and so forth. You know my opinions on that."

"One does, yes, nand' paidhi."

"There will also be an announcement shortly of a tour of the residence by lord Tatiseigi."

Brows went up. Dasibi said not a thing.

"I'm sure," Bren said quietly, "that there'll be inquiries, and the event will not be open to the public. Don't comment on the situation in the peninsula unless it's cleared through the aiji's staff. The official answer and the real one is that I had a successful tour, enjoyed fine hospitality, and was never threatened by the events to the south. I will forewarn you however that one should not schedule very many staff leaves of absence during the next week or so."

"We do hope nothing is amiss."

"One likewise hopes, nand' Dasibi. Very sadly, one member of my household has received bad news from the ship." Short guess who
that
was. "A death in his family. But he knew his choice to come down here to serve would separate him from his family as well as his people. Please limit public questions on this matter and assure inquirers that the ship-paidhi is a young man of great courage and resolve who shares my purpose in seeing the atevi ship built."

"One will do so, nand' paidhi. Please convey to him our good will."

"With all appreciation, nadi."

"There is — another message from lord Caratho. With maps."

Lord Caratho saw no reason if Geigi was prospering why a space industry plant couldn't be built in his district. That was the crux of the matter.

The problem was, neither did numerous other lords see why they shouldn't have the same advantage. Caratho, and four others, had inundated the Economic Commission's office with figures and proposals. But Caratho alone figured, since various regular channels had turned him down, to deluge the paidhi's staff with maps and reports promoting such a plant.

Oh, damn, was the thought. Here it comes.

"If the paidhi will allow me to frame a reply," Dasibi said, "I believe I can create a list of honored supporters of the space program which one might send to the aiji for his information, a list which others may wish to join and include among their honors — providing a disposition for all these reports and offers of resources to the effort. I have consulted the aiji's staff and they concur. Meanwhile — lord Caratho has no need of such a plant, in the determination of the Economic Commission. He has ample revenues. He has fourteen hundred and fifty-four persons he's had to write onto his staff because of unemployment in the district, which is not unusual for a lord of his wealth, and these are persons who used to be employed in railway construction, when the spur was being built. Let me apply finesse, if you will trust my discretion."

Finesse was the same word Banichi would use — biichi'ji — in a strike without side damage.

"I have all confidence in you, Dasibi-ji. Please do what you can. I am
not
concerned so much for lord Caratho, but by the persons unemployed. Find out the history on that, via the staff, if you can."

"Taking a little liberty, nandi, I have, and they are persons who would not be employed by the plant he proposes."

"Ah. He's seeking to diminish his obligations."

"One believes he is
collecting
them into his employ, nand' paidhi, particularly to present appearances and make those rolls larger. I am concerned, nand' paidhi, that he may have done so with disregard of the welfare of the individuals he claims as dependents."

"Do you, nandi, believe this is a situation to pass to the aiji's staff?"

"I would say so, nand' paidhi." This last the old man offered with downcast eyes and some trepidation: he was accusing a lord in the reach of a person of rank sufficient to do him harm.