Inheritor (31 page)

"
No. No
! You
get yourself home, Bren. You want your damn business carried on
, you
come do it, and
you
come back and take care of the things you need to take care of! Stop asking your family to put up with this kind of crap! Mama's having surgery this week. She wants
you,
Bren. She wants you to be here
."

"1 can't."

"I
can't be up here in the city, either, but I'm doing it! I can't leave my house and my business, but I'm doing it! Jill can't answer the phone without lunatics harassing her! We've had to leave home and all come up here, and I can't let my family go down the street to the park! You know what put mama in the hospital, Bren
? You
did. People throwing paint on her building, the landlord saying he wants her to move
—"

He tried to think through the things he didn't want to hear to the things he
had
to hear — while remembering agencies on both sides of the water were recording everything. "Toby. Call my office. Ask Shawn —"

"I've done that! I can't get through! None of the numbers you've given me work any more, and I don't even know whether Shawn's in office this week, by what I'm hearing in the papers!"

"What's in the papers, Toby? They don't exactly —"

"
No, no
, no!
I'm not doing your work for you! I'm your
brother,
not a clerk in the State Department! And I want you back here, Bren. I want you back here for

mama! One week, one miserable
week,
that's all I want
!"

"I can't."

"
The hell you can't! Tell the aiji your mother could
die,
dammit, and she's asking for you! "

"Toby —"

"
Oh
—
hell, I forgot. You can't explain feelings, can you? They're not wired for it. Well
, what about you, Bren?
Is it all the office, and nothing for your family
?"

"Toby."

"I don't want your excuses, Bren. I've covered for you and covered for you and not told you the truth because it'd upset you. Well, now I'm telling you the truth, and mama's in danger of her life and I can't take my family home, and I'm scared to death they're going to burn my house down while I'm gone!"

"Just hang on, Toby. Just a little longer."

"
I can't! I'm not willing to, dammit! I'm tired of trying to explain what the hell you're doing! We can't explain it to
ourselves
anymore
—
how in
hell
do we make it make sense to the neighbors! "

"You know damn well what the score is, Toby. Don't hand me that. You
know
what's going on in the government and what game they're playing."

"
What are you talking about
? What
are you talking about, Bren? That
we're
the enemy, now
?"

"I'm saying call Shawn!"

"I'm saying Shawn's number doesn't work anymore and the police won't answer our emergency calls, Bren, try that one! You're not damn popular, and they're taking it out on my family and our mother!"

"Wrong.
Wrong
, Toby! It's not the whole island, it's a handful of crawling cowards that on a bright day —"

"
These are our
neighbors,
Bren. These are my
neighbors
that aren't speaking to me, people I've known for ten years
!"

"Then get yourself a new set of friends, Toby!"

"
That doesn't work for mama, Bren, that doesn't work in the building she's lived in for all these years and now they don't want her any more. What does that
do
to her, Bren? What do you say to that
?"

"It's a rotten lot of people you've fallen for."

"
What are you talking about
? What
are you talking about, Bren? I don't understand you. "

He grew accustomed to silence on his feelings. He was a translator, a technical translator, by necessity a diplomat, by cooption a lord of the atevi Association. And he spoke out of hurt and anger on the most childish possible level, maybe because that was the mental age this argument touched, the last time he and Toby
had
accessed what they felt. Toby had moved out to the coast. He'd thought then, and still thought, it was to put space between Toby and their mother.
He'd
gone into University, and aptitudes had steered him toward what the job was supposed to be, which hadn't been this.

"Tell mama I love her," he said, and hung up on his brother.

That little click of the receiver broke the vital connection, and he knew there wasn't a way to get it back. The training didn't let expression reach his face. The training didn't let him do anything overt. He just sat there a moment, with an atevi lady's office coming back into focus around him, and the sounds of the party going on above the silence that click had created, and with the knowledge he had to get up and function with very dangerous people and go be sure Jase was all right.

And he had to finish his talk with Ilisidi, somehow, get the wit organized to regain that mood and that moment and do his job.

If you couldn't do anything about a vital matter, you postponed it. You put it in a mental box and shut the lid on it and didn't think about it when there was a job to do.

And once he'd done that, damn it! He was mad at Toby, who
knew
things about the government Toby could have told him, critical things, and Toby hadn't, wouldn't, no matter whether peace or war could hinge on it. Toby's peace was unsettled, Toby's life was put out of joint, Toby came at him with
personal
grievances of a sort the family had once known to keep away from him — which Toby could have been man enough to hold to himself this week and handle, dammit, since there wasn't and wouldn't be anything he could do from where he was.

But it had been a succession of weeks. Toby was getting tired of holding it.

Jago appeared in the doorway. She had her com in hand. Had been using it, he thought, maybe even following the conversation via a relay from the foyer-area security station. Surveillance here, in these premises, was always close, and lately it was overt, just one of those jobs his staff did to be up on things without having them explained.

Sometimes that was a good thing.

"The aiji is aware, nadi-ji."

Not Bren-ji, not the familiar; but the still-remote formal combined with the personal address. Jago was being official. He was grateful for the professional distance. It was a damn sight more consideration than his brother managed.

"My man'chi," he said, going to the heart of what he was sure would worry atevi, "is still to the office and the aiji, nadi. You may tell him that."

"He wishes to speak to you, but cannot leave the breakfast room without notice nor speak to you intimately there. He says, through your security, that though he has said so before, now he urges your acceptance of his offer: at any time of your choosing, you may bring your household to the mainland and he will establish a place and lands for them, nadi-ji, as fits the house of a man of your stature. If you ask, he will make strong request to the Mospheiran government to secure their immediate passage across the strait, with all their goods and belongings. He is aware of the demands of those of your house, and your difficult position, nadi-ji, and is willing to take the strongest action to secure their safety."

"Tell him —" The last time Tabini had moved to secure something from the Mospheiran government, he had threatened to shoot Deana Hanks if they didn't get
him
back in twenty-four hours. Tabini's offer was not without international consequences. And not without force behind it, though he didn't know what human official Tabini could tell them he'd shoot this time. "Tell him I am grateful. Tell him — I hold his regard as the most important, even —" He almost said — above my family's good opinion; and knew that circumstances and duty had made it true. Now anger and bitter hurt almost confirmed it. "Even above my life, nadi. Tell him that. And I will come back to the gathering when I have composed myself, which should be only a moment."

"I shall tell him that, nadi."

Jago was gone from the doorway, then, giving him the grace of privacy, but he was sure she'd gone no further than the hall outside to relay the message. And to achieve that composed manner he tried to widen his focus, to remind himself how very much was at issue, for three nations counting the ship Jase represented; and what a very extraordinary honor Tabini had offered him.

It was done for state reasons, he had to remind himself. For the same damn reasons of state that had put him in the position he was in.

He'd hung up on his brother.

And wouldn't be home.

Fact. Fact. Fact. There was nothing that could change it, nothing that would get the barrier between peoples down any faster than the things he was doing. So it was two deep breaths and back to work.

He got to his feet and walked out into the hall, where as he expected, Jago was waiting; and where, in the distance, the television interviews were going on, with a scatter of the guests down there in the bright lights. He walked with Jago back into the crowded breakfast room, in which alcohol and alkaloids as well as the sweets were beginning to be a factor and the simple noise of conversation was beginning to sound like the subway below the building. Jase was still safe where he'd left him; and, not willing at this moment to talk to Jase or answer human questions, he tended toward Tabini, who was with Damiri, with Banichi, too.

Tabini's regular security was at the moment hovering much closer to Tatiseigi, who was talking to Ilisidi.

"Aiji-ma," Bren said quietly with a slight bow. "I heard your generous offer. I will present it at my first opportunity, but —" His wits unraveled. "I don't know how to persuade them, aiji-ma. I wish that I could."

"It seems to me," Damiri said, "that this is a trap, nand' paidhi. They
wish
you to become concerned and to go there. This attack on your mother's residence is not unrelated to this pressure on the Association and the outrageous behavior of your government. I even suspect the death of Jase's father, but I know no design to make of it."

He felt himself increasingly in shock, and
willing
to make patterns where possibly none existed. He dealt with atevi. And to the atevi mind there were patterns he could see, too, dire and threatening patterns; but he dealt so deeply in the language now he feared his own suspicions. "I know none, either, daja-ma, but I shall certainly think deeply on it."

Another person moved up to speak to the aiji, a lord of the northwest coast, who was clearly waiting his turn, and he was, he decided, done with the things he could say. To be replaced was at the moment a relief from having to think in atevi complexity. He moved aside with the due and automatic courtesies —

And encountered lord Badissuni.

"Nandi," he said.

"Nand' paidhi." The thin, unhappy lord looked sternly down at him. "Your security, one wishes to say, is highly accurate."

What did one say? His heart was racing. "They
are
Guild, nandi."

"Two of you, now," the lord said. "Does Hanks speak for you?"

"By no means, nand' Badissuni. I disapprove of her adventures and she wishes me dead."

"So one hears," Badissuni said. "7s this faster-than-light a lie?"

"No, nandi."

"Will this ship fly?"

"I have no doubt, nandi. There is
no
deception."

"One was curious," Badissuni said, and strayed off without another word.

More than damned curious. People were staring at him. He had the feeling he'd been used for display. A political prop. Talk to the paidhi. Be seen to talk to the paidhi. As he'd been
seen
to talk with Tatiseigi and everyone else available. He didn't see Jago. He didn't think she'd approve his being used; and perhaps neither would Tabini, who'd nevertheless invited the man.

He retreated to the corner next to the doorway, next to a porcelain stand for abandoned drink glasses, where Jase, drink in hand, stood talking with his security, Dureni.

"What was
that
?" Jase asked. "Is anything wrong?"

A flash of dark and pale green advised him of someone of the house beside him, and he turned to find lord Tatiseigi himself under Ilisidi's relentless escort, bound past them, he was sure, toward the interview area just outside.

"Everything all right?" Jase asked, and in that sense, yes, he was relieved to think.

Then something popped.

Security moved.
Everyone
moved. Tatiseigi and Ili-sidi were in the doorway and he didn't think — he just shoved Jase to the floor as Jase was diving toward lord Tatiseigi in the doorway.

Lord Tatiseigi continued to the floor along with others diving of their own volition — Bren was down, half sheltered by Dureni; everyone was low; and an apparently unarmed security around the aiji had turned into a crouched, gun-bearing battle-line.

"A lightbulb exploded!" someone shouted from the interview area beyond the door, where indeed a deep and startling shadow had fallen. The lily room burst into relieved laughter, and more laughter, amid a murmur of disgust from Dureni and an apology as Dureni hoped he hadn't hurt him.

"By no means," Bren said, accepting a hand up.

Jase, meanwhile, was in very intimate contact with a very offended lord Tatiseigi as lights flared in the doorway, and the television cameras, a live broadcast, swept over the confusion, Tatiseigi, struggling to rise — and Jase, who got to his feet with more agility.

"Nandi," Jase said faintly, edging backward, attempting to efface himself. But the camera tracked him relentlessly as the documentary reporter with a microphone turned up at Jase's shoulder.

"Nand' paidhi," the reporter said, "an exciting moment."

"I think dangerous," Jase answered quite correctly, and Bren reached him, seized his arm, and propelled him back out of the spotlight, as lord Tatiseigi also escaped the cameras. "He wishes to convey his apology, nand' Tatiseigi, and his profound concern." He didn't mention that the fall had happened partly because Tatiseigi had shown no reluctance to trample others underfoot reaching the door; and Jase had, indeed, tried to carry an adult ateva to the floor to protect him.