Visitor: A Foreigner Novel (15 page)

I
t was after a late breakfast in his own apartment, with one of Bindanda’s most comforting concoctions of eggs and toast under his ribs, that Bren put on one of his good coats and slipped quietly—well, quietly for a man with four bodyguards—across the hall, where the dowager’s staff showed him immediately to the vacant sitting room, providing him a chair and a cup of tea, advising him that the dowager would join him momentarily.

He had, he found on waking from a relatively sound sleep, one troubling question about his atevi allies in the upcoming meeting with the kyo, and that worry centered not around the dowager, but on the involvement of the young gentleman, and most particularly—on the young gentleman’s division of attention between his young associates and the business at hand.

Specifically—and potentially delicate—there was suddenly a girl involved, in what sense a human was completely uncertain. There had been a threat to the young gentleman’s entire circle of associates of similar age.

And there had been, Narani had informed him on inquiry, more than one instance of Irene or Irene and Cajeiri visiting Lord Geigi’s premises to settle some distress from Bjorn’s household. The young gentleman had been delegated to
solve
the guests’ problems, which apparently continued. Andressen-nadi wanted communications. He wanted to contact his company, which, for whatever reason, had not contacted him. And
communication on the Mospheiran side of the wall was one thing Mr. Andressen definitely would not get.

People had devotedly kept troubles away from him for a number of hours. They still were doing it. He didn’t doubt the dowager’s wisdom in asking Cajeiri to rein in his guests, and Irene helping Cajeiri was a reasonable arrangement. But Irene would soon be left to cope on her own, since Irene would definitively
not
be going down with them to the area they were setting up.

He didn’t doubt the young gentleman’s usefulness when he was truly focused. Cajeiri was every inch Tabini’s son, at home in the court and in the affairs of nations. Cajeiri understood the give and take of diplomacy, having had the canniest set of teachers the world had to offer, and he had dealt with a scary lot of experiences that no nine-year-old, human or atevi, ought ever to have met. He could be uncannily practical and observant.

Excepting the distraction of his young associates, one of whom
was
female and without parental supervision.

He hadn’t wanted to think about the Reunioners.

But with Narani’s report—that concern was back in the middle of things.

No one knew better than Ilisidi what was currently at stake, both for her grandson and the future of the world, yet she had allowed this potential distraction to linger in her residence. There had to be a reason.

And Andressen, meanwhile, wanted to talk to a Mospheiran company.

A wonder any of the Reunioners were mentally stable, given what they’d endured over the last decade and more; and God knew the whole operation would have been in far worse shape if Irene hadn’t been the brave, clear-headed kid she was.

Irene was also the fragile one, the one whose adults had all failed her. Of all the kids—
this
girl had turned up resident
in
the dowager’s apartment, with, apparently, the dowager’s blessing.

The dowager didn’t make emotional decisions.

Well, not ordinarily.

At least not the soft-hearted sort.

So was there an atevi
reason
for the distraction, a reason lodged somewhere in the dowager’s known biases . . . her protectiveness of her great-grandson, for instance?

The boy had had
one
association in his life with kids his own age, and those kids had been
these
kids. Cajeiri was at an age where he should be forming critical associations, a pattern of relationships that would not change much in later life . . . essential connections that
were
not friendships. Man’chi didn’t wear out, change with age, or weaken with time and distance—one had figured that out over time. Man’chi was something else.

But it could grow strange and strained. It could, if neglected, rupture catastrophically. He’d seen that in more than the machimi plays. He couldn’t, being human,
feel
identically with the emotion, but he could certainly feel an analog, and he didn’t take any atevi relationship—including hatred—as transient. A breach of man’chi was serious.

And in the dowager’s household, in
her
context, with Irene—he suddenly thought he
did
detect a glimmering of Ilisidi’s reasoning. The one of the kids who was most threatened, the one who’d just had a life-altering breach with her mother—Irene was, in Ilisidi’s eyes, a point of instability far more critical and dangerous to her great-grandson than Andressen could be.

So he
did
get it.

Come
here,
girl, be
here,
feel
safe
.

Conform. Enter, and cooperate.

God, of
all
people to attempt to shape a human child’s relationships,
Ilisidi
was not the one he’d choose. But it was always and only Cajeiri she was protecting, damned straight it was. Ilisidi was going to shape her grandson’s contacts, his associations, and his opportunities to attach man’chi. Irene, unattached, claimable, and shapeable, had gained the dowager’s attention.

Things once associated, the kyo had said, were always
associated. They’d said it as plainly as they’d said anything. Humans in particular had tried to construe it a dozen different ways, tried to figure out if it was friendly or threatening . . .

But a connection in atevi terms was neither. Friends didn’t exist, and man’chi couldn’t be shed, not without catastrophe.

He felt a little chill he hadn’t felt in a long time, where it came to atevi. He’d failed to understand. He was preparing to talk to people who were truly alien, and he’d failed to grasp what was making frequent passage right past his front door, among people closest to him.

Would his aishid ever leave him, ever break from him? No. They
could
not. And he
would
not leave them. Therein was the difference between species. Could and would. Two very different things, provoking the same action.

The logic was there. They didn’t do things the same way. The dowager didn’t react to crisis by closing in and shutting out. She expanded out. She reached for what was loose, and instinctively secured it.

Things once associated are always associated. The kyo can’t unmeet us. They can’t undo the decision to attack Reunion. They can’t carry on as if none of these profound things had happened. They want to nail it down. They want a resolution, not a problem.

Something to their advantage.

“Paidhi?”

He was not
that
unperceptive. He’d felt his way through situations with a tolerably good vision for a good path. Understanding the logic might take a while. But the path—

“Nand’ paidhi.”

Bang. The formidable cane. On the hard flooring.

For one brief moment, he was back in ancient Malguri, in the dowager’s domain, sharing a cup of tea at their first meeting, and then . . . he was back. The dowager was, in vivid present tense, standing in the doorway of her sitting room, hands on her cane, having arrived at his request.

He stood up immediately, gave a proper bow, to which Ilisidi nodded, and walked in, not without curiosity. The dowager was never without curiosity.

“One begs pardon, aiji-ma,” Bren said, chagrined.

“The paidhi-aiji was thinking,” Ilisidi said. “One trusts it is a recoverable thought.”

“It was a useful thought, aiji-ma. Your presence—has a favorable impact. Always.” He stood until Ilisidi sat down, then settled back into his chair. Cenedi was with her—Cenedi was almost always with her, constant shadow, but Nawari was not, at the moment, which likely meant Nawari was talking to Banichi and the rest of his aishid out in the foyer, a routine sort of exchange.

“Flatterer,” Ilisidi reprised, as the servants moved about, serving tea and little cakes. “A useful thought, you say.”

“I have now firmly resigned worrying about humans or atevi, aiji-ma, or worrying over any difficulties that Lord Geigi can solve. I have begun to think concentratedly about the kyo. One is in process of planning.”

“We hear they are now coming to dock at the station,” Ilisidi said. “You have invited them to do so.”

“It seemed more convenient than committing our mission to a junior captain aboard
Phoenix
, aiji-ma. Riggins-aiji is closely allied to Ogun-aiji, and we do not know him. The offer we have made the kyo to come to the station tests their willingness to trust us, if they will do so, and signals our willingness to admit them.” His arrangement would also be safer and more comfortable for Ilisidi, but he gracefully omitted that consideration. “As to what I was thinking, as you entered, aiji-ma—I was considering that if they believe things once associated are always associated, they may have something of that motive in coming here . . . simply to examine what we are and to reach a certainty instead of a conjecture. Perhaps to
assess
the damage of our association to themselves, perhaps to discover what a continued association could mean—and in that light, it might
well be the same ship and crew we met. That was my thought, among others.”

“Indeed, a reasonable consideration,” Ilisidi said.

“Does it seem so?” he asked. “At times, aiji-ma, I question my own reasoning. Particularly in this case. The variables are so many.”

“How would Mospheirans deal, in their situation?”

If one gave information to the aiji-dowager, it stayed, for all future purposes, available to her.

“We are very mutable,” he said, “and we would argue a great deal among ourselves about the composition of the mission, their associations, their instructions, and their limitations.”

“Mospheirans would wish to continue the matter subject to debate even into the event, no matter the shifting nature of the information,” Ilisidi said wryly. “One has occasionally observed this tendency.”

“One regrets,” he said over a sip of tea, “one finds this same lamentable tendency in oneself.”

“So doing, you question your own reasoning, debating within your own mind.”

“A factor, indeed.”

“And yet, this mutability is a useful trait,” Ilisidi said, “since you
can
change your footing more quickly than some atevi of our acquaintance. We spent two years dealing with the ship-folk
and
the Reunioners, at some small remove. Prakuyo an Tep, on their side, endured six years of Reunioner governance, so he may find dealing with atevi a relief. We
are
perhaps less complicated than the Reunioners.”

“One would never call the aishidi’tat uncomplicated.”

“Ah, but we do manage ultimately to make a decision. And in this,
we
have an objective—a reasonably simple one: to continue as we are, undisturbed.”

“Indeed, aiji-ma.”

“Human agility of thought, and slowness in decision. And atevi stability of thought, and quickness to respond. I have the
impression that the kyo themselves are not without complexity. For that very reason, stability on some points is useful, else we slip off into confusion and assumption. Atevi and humans have
also
learned, from the War of the Landing, that even ancient certainties can change. We have lately been reassuring these western Guild, these Observers, for instance, that
your
judgment is reliable, when they have for centuries held that they cannot trust us Easterners. And they are about to trust
us Easterners
to deal with the kyo, and they will soon be asking
you
how far to trust these visitors.”

“I deeply regret if I have challenged their trust in me.”

“Your very presence challenges them, and they have stepped far out onto that path. They have seen firsthand the dangerous territory that exists up here between two sorts of humans, and they now observe the dangerous territory you have navigated for the aishidi’tat—to our benefit. They are impressed. They are not so confident in the Reunioner children, and they ask what influence these different humans may bring to bear on my great-grandson. Well, well, time
someone
dared ask such things. But they have seen the advantage my grandson derives from his human association in
his
administration, and they understand with some amazement that it is your intention to make Reunioners and Mospheirans one people.”

“By no means a smooth road, aiji-ma.”

“Yet the journey is begun, thanks to you, and the Observers have seen this and are in favor of your doing it. They have also realized that up here in the great heavens there are forces and numbers which must be dealt with, now that we have entered this territory. We must rule ourselves wisely, so as not to be ruled by others, and the aishidi’tat as a whole must rapidly form wider associations and make new alliances—as we Easterners did when we joined with the west. We did not lose by it. Nor did the west.” A wicked smile stole forth, a twinkle of amusement. Controversy? Intrigue? Scandal? The dowager
maintained her legendary orthodoxy while being a ruthless agent of change. “I have shocked these Observers, perhaps, but they have come here to be informed at all manner of things, and they take their advisements from Cenedi, from Banichi, and from Geigi’s bodyguard as well. We are oil and humans are water. We do not need to be other than what we are to exist in the same vessel. Are the kyo yet a third thing? They seem so.”

“One is glad to know the Observers are seeking advice.”

“The Observers do ask politely to be briefed on the kyo situation.”

“I shall definitely make that effort.”

“And they
will
advise the aiji to accept your judgment on the Reunioner solution.”

That was off the map. And not entirely comforting. “Aiji-ma, one hopes for review and advisement.”

Ilisidi gave a dismissive flick of the fingers. “Oh, eventually we shall have an opinion. But our word to the Observers was that Mospheira itself will do quite enough debating on their own. We should not complicate it unnecessarily. We simply say that if the Reunioners stay up here we must match their numbers on the station, and that if they go down to the world, they will not settle on atevi land. Both things you have already said. We are also confident you will not work to the detriment of the Presidenta who has been so serviceable to the world at large, and you will make it very clear that good relations with the aishidi’tat are always to Mospheira’s benefit, in this matter and others. We have every confidence in you.”