Текст книги "Destroyer "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

And if the plight of his long-suffering on-world staff was a burden on his heart, that earnest look from Banichi, of all people, lowered a crushing, overwhelming weight onto his shoulders.

“What could one reasonably say in a letter to convince those who have been injured by my advice, Banichi-ji? I hoped to speak to Lord Tatiseigi after breakfast. I could not even secure that audience.”

“The dowager had her own notions,” Jago said, “and did not permit it.”

Did that mean as much as he thought it could mean?

“Why not?”

“She is the one Tatiseigi knows, and the one who should deal with him.” Jago said. “Which is probably prudent, nadi-ji.”

“But if I cannot persuade him—”

“Never, when the matter at issue is whether Ilisidi is on his side. That is personal, nandi, and your arguments can have no effect there.”

An old liaison—one almost thought love affair, humanly speaking, but of course it wasn’t that. Man’chi was tangled in it, who could trust whom, who would tell the truth, and who might be lying, and Ilisidi outranked the paidhi—his opinion could not break ranks with hers. Not in the way atevi nerves were wired.

“You mean I shall have no chance to convince him, nadiin-ji?”

“She will,” Jago said. “She has done a great deal to convince him already. She is here, Bren-ji.”

Blind human, that was to say. At times the ground he thought he knew developed deep chasms of atevi logic. Stay out of it, their nerves were telling them, don’t try to intervene in this mine field. And back the boy to be aiji, in his father’s place.

“If I back—” he began to say, the rest of the sentence being, Cajeiri as aiji—would it not betray Tabini? But he stopped there: the whole point of what they were saying was that the paidhi could not break ranks and set himself forward, ahead of the dowager, ahead of Tatiseigi, even ahead of Cajeiri, not in something that regarded the man’chi of atevi toward their leadership.

“I have records. I have brought images, in my computer, to support my argument. If I only send them and did not appear myself, nadiin-ji, people can say these images are only television. I can provide the images to the Atageini—if there is a computer in this house. But I should present them in Shejidan. I do not want to betray Tabini by supporting another aiji, even his son. I do not want to lose the argument in Shejidan, either. Most of all, I do not want to see the kyo show up here and find only humans to answer for this planet, when they have not done outstandingly well at communicating with them in the first place.”

“There is a proverb in our Guild,” Banichi said in his low voice. “One Assassin is enough. One assassin can overturn the vote and the good will of thousands. We are not speaking of the whole population. We are speaking of skilled attack. You should not go anywhere, until there is a request you go and an escort to make it likely you will arrive. Let them call you to speak. As they will. We have every confidence in them, if not in the higher powers of the government.”

“Speed is critical in getting Tatiseigi to send any messengers he may send before the Guild,” Tano said… always deferring to Banichi and Jago, but since his long stay in command of the stationside household, having an opinion of his own. “The longer the delay, the more likely the Kadigidi will get wind of our presence and attack us here.”

“No question,” Algini said.

“Then if the Atageini messengers should go, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. The words had a hollow, ominous sound in his own ears. “If they do go, and if there is any stir about it, the Kadigidi will certainly know where we are, and they will blame Lord Tatiseigi publicly for sheltering us. Certainly they will know we are under this roof when Atageini messengers appear in Shejidan. And, forgive me, how long will Lord Tatiseigi remain well-disposed to our cause once Kadigidi assassins blow more holes in the lily frescoes?”

Laughter, from the grimmest of professions. It was a notorious event. “Such a move will not win the Kadigidi favor with him,” Jago said.

“But can this house withstand a direct attack, nadiin-ji? This is not Malguri.”

“It has a few more defenses than seems,” Banichi said. Electronics, Banichi implied. Electronics. In this most kabiu of households. It would be a surprise to him. “More downstairs than up—the security in this room is alarmingly thin.”

“Cenedi suggests we move out and spare us finding out the answers to these questions,” Jago said. “It is not, he says, in our interests that the Kadigidi and the Atageini go at each others’ throats yet. But the dowager strongly resists this notion and wishes to provoke Guild notice and to insist on a hearing. She assuredly wishes to get you before the Guild, nandi.”

Forestalling him, at breakfast. Keeping the argument all on her terms.

“One would hesitate to question the dowager’s grasp of politics,” Bren said ruefully, which was the very truth, and his heart felt the chill of old experience with the dowager and her willingness to charge downhill. If Ilisidi was making her move, just in being here, and Cenedi was trying to advise against it, the fat was already in the fire, so to speak, and the Kadigidi would move. Fast.

“Perhaps I should prepare a convincing letter,” he said, “so we can offer it, at least, if this mission is in fact to go to the Guild.”

“If the paidhi sees fit,” Jago said, and Banichi said:

“A very good idea. A letter at least to confirm the dowager’s assertions.”

A letter which must be written by hand, not printed out from a computer: a computer-written message was not kabiu on so formal an occasion as a Guild hearing, even if the house had the requisite printer, and he would not offend this house by asking.

But writing it out first and copying it fair would save time, ink and paper… granted they could lay hands on paper. Granted only they could persuade the Atageini to carry it.

“I shall do it,” he said, committing himself to the course of action. “I shall need pen, paper and the wax-jack. I shall provide Tatiseigi a copy, for his own reading. Might there be tea?”

They scattered on their various missions and he opened up his computer and stared at a blank screen.

Shut his eyes a moment, seeing steel corridors. Seeing forest paths where they had ridden. So many realities.

Then:

The paidhi-aiji to the honored members of the Assassins’ Guild.

That much was easy. No reference to his lordly title in the heavens, just the ordinary one, the one he lived by, and hoped to continue to live by.

One is privileged to report to this august body that the aiji-dowager’s mission to the distant station succeeded in every point. This mission prevented a powerful spaceborne nation, neither atevi nor human, from advancing against this world with deadly force in its mistaken notions of offense emanating from here. By the extreme effort and sacrifice of the aishidi’tat in organizing this mission, and also thanks to the foresight of Tabini-aiji in sending the aiji-dowager as a high emissary on this mission, all matters have carried well. These foreigners, grievously provoked by human exploration in their territory, have been considerably mollified by negotiation with the aiji’s close relatives and now accept the explanation advanced by the aiji-dowager that the binding authority of the world is indisputably atevi, and that atevi will not permit further provocations against them. More, we have removed the human authority responsible for this provocation and placed them under the authority of the atevi space station…

Atevi space station. That was a reach. But it was the situation Tabini insisted on, and had been fairly well on his way to having, before this catastrophe.

… making it absolutely essential that atevi shuttles maintain regular flights, to keep a firm hand on that situation, and to maintain atevi authority.

In the other matter, understanding that a wise and enlightened ruler sits in command of the situation here, namely Tabini-aiji, these new foreigners have settled a preliminary peace with the aishidi’tat, a situation which gives the aishidi’tat great advantage over other claimants to authority in the heavens, if the aishidi’tat will seize this opportunity and exert this new authority. The paidhi-aiji is ready to appear before the Guild to render a full account of these complex events, in the name of the aiji-dowager and the heir, and to present visual and documentary proofs of all events. Meanwhile, one urgently requests the Guild support the dowager, the heir, and the reputation of Tabini-aiji, by whose foresight peace was achieved, and on which peace now depends.

A rare moment of brilliance, if he did say so himself. Occasionally the words were just there, ready to spring out.

At such moments of overwhelming self-confidence—well to ask an impartial observer. He called Jago, who surveyed it both for felicity and persuasion.

“Excellent,” she said, “excellently worded, nandi.”

“I shall write it out,” he said, and carefully did so, in his most formal script, provided a reading copy for Lord Tatiseigi, a second one for the dowager, and affixed the paidhi’s seal in wax to the actual missive. He weighed it in his hand, looked at the computer screen to assure himself that he had nowhere hinted the darker thoughts of his heart, such as the damnable paralysis of your Guild or your general policy, which arises from willful ignorance, corruption, and scientific illiteracy of certain members. He thought those thoughts. God, he thought them, with such force it seemed impossible they had not branded themselves on the paper in his own handwriting.

But he had been politic throughout. He had flattered. He had told the minimal truth. He had promised—literally—the sun, the moon, and the stars, if they would come to their senses and take authority. The alternatives were not pretty… three bands of humans trying to deal with the aliens they had thus far only antagonized.

He brought the letter and the copies to Jago, watched her take them out the door, and let go a deep breath, wishing every syllable had been perfect, which now he knew was not the case, wishing he had been brilliant, which he was completely dubious was the case, wishing he could miraculously transport himself to the dowager’s vicinity to watch her reaction and answer questions; and to Tatiseigi’s, after that.

And there was the question, the very good question, whether, even if the dowager wished it, the letter would ever get past Tatiseigi’s grounds. The dowager would have to approve it before the next copy went to Tatiseigi, and Tatiseigi would have to approve it to get it out the door.

He walked to the open window, and gazed out on the cultivated fields, the broad expanses of grassland that lay behind the very ineffective walls of the estate.

Beyond those fields, barring the horizon, rose wooded hills; and beyond them the eye could find a faint haze where a range of snow-covered mountains would stand, if the mountains were being cooperative today. Today a stranger who didn’t know such mountains existed would assume that haze was sky, the continent unbarriered. He would think there was no split between east and west.

Would history not have been different, if that were the case? Would history not have rolled over the human landing on this world, if that were the case? The western atevi were an inquisitive progressive lot, exceedingly prone to investigate, to take an oddity in the hand and look at it carefully. Humans had landed on Mospheira, and had ended up on the mainland, briefly. The mainland atevi, the westerners, had been astonishingly outgoing and accepting… until the war. A landing on the other end of the continent—just a little rotation of the world away—and there would have been no human presence left on the planet, in very short order. Ilisidi’s people, Ilisidi’s neighbors’ forebears, would have obliterated any human landing, no great number of questions asked.

That would have kept humans in space, giving no alternative but the ship, and no leadership or authority but the captains who had insisted on going out and exploring further, ostensibly hunting some vantage from which they could figure out where they were—but in fact poking and prodding among likely near stars for further and further expansion of human presence, greater and easier resources.

They’d have touched off the kyo sooner or later, and sooner or later gotten the kyo here with blood in their eye… to the planet’s detriment. And the planet would never have known what hit it or why—if those mountains had not existed, if those mountains had not divided eastern atevi from western and let humans get a safe foothold down here.

Curious thought, that humans might have endangered the world—but the humans down here were the ones who might prevent that danger from coming down on the world.

He had done his best, hadn’t he? No matter it had done damage, it had not done the ultimate damage—had not let war come on the world unawares.

And not all the changes were harmful.

Thanks to his predecessor in the paidhi’s office, and thanks to him, as well, planes had fairly recently rendered that divide much more crossable. Planes had united the two halves of the continent across that mountain divide that rail had found all but insurpassable, and brought the east into the politics of the west… which had brought benefits of peace, of cooperation, a flowering of art, a cross-pollination of atevi cultures. In her youth, Ilisidi had been an exotic foreigner herself, marrying the aiji of the west, arriving by train in what had been, half a century ago, an arduous and epic rail journey.

But darker politics had ridden those rails, too, before Ilisidi’s day. Politics, and a rising resentment of the formation of the aishidi’tat in the west, eastern politics that had once seen that railroad as a means of war against the west, forging an alliance with a few conservative western powers like the Atageini and the Kadigidi, jealous of the aiji’s authority, and most of all opposing a lingering human influence on the mainland, wanting even to take back Mospheira and obliterate human presence there. The east had missed the start of the War of the Landing—and the very knowledge the east might be coming in had led to the war-weary west and the human survivors entering negotiations before things flew out of control. The threat of eastern intervention had led to the ceding of Mospheira to humans and the relocation of the indigenous people of Mospheira to the coast, all before the east could get its chance to get in, and before it could find an excuse to ratchet up the war again.

So war and technology that sent trains across the mountains made peace among atevi, unachievable before there were humans to detest and decry. And from that time there had been paidhiin, trying to comply with the Treaty, leaking technology off Mospheira ever so slowly. Eventually the rail link had led to Ilisidi, an eastern consort for a western aiji. And the modern aishidi’tat was born.

Ilisidi’s Malguri lay beyond that deceptive haze, still a three hour flight away… but only a three hour flight away, which he had made, oh, under varied circumstances, never the train trip. The distance was still difficult—on today’s scale.

And the plainest fact of atevi politics was that the continental divide was still a political watershed as well as a geological one. There were still two very different atevi opinions, and because there was advantage to be had in turmoil, the Kadigidi and the Atageini, sitting in the heart of the west, still played politics with Ilisidi, the eastern consort, who chaperoned a half-Atageini heir of her own bloodline. And lately the Kadigidi had played even stranger politics by allying with south-coastal atevi, namely the Taisigin. And now there was another move, and a Kadigidi claimed to be aiji.

Only over his own dead body… granted numerous people would happily arrange that.

God, there was so much water under the bridge. Planets were so complicated, compared to the steel worlds he’d lived in the last few years.

And why did he think of such things? When his mind went into involuntary fugue, there was, damn it all, something bubbling down in the depths of his consciousness that was trying to surface, something that might be urgent, something that had been bothering him ever since breakfast, and he had sent that letter out, to what fate he now had no way of dictating.

For one thing, that landscape out there drew his mind down to planetary scale, down to the distances riders and trucks and trains could cover in a day, and reminded him how ordinary folk thought, and why they thought that way.

That view reminded him of the resources Tabini had had when, leaving here, one supposed he had headed for deeper cover, taking his Atageini wife with him.

But without an airplane or extraordinary determination with the cross-continental train, he could not have gotten much beyond those hills—nor would he have had much motive to exit the west, where he had some allies. In the east, yes, as the grandson of the lady of Malguri, he did have some cachet—but feuds predominated in that district and no outsider could exert any authority. No. Tabini would not lean to Ilisidi’s side of the family. Tabini—

Tabini was waiting. Tabini expected the ship to come back. Tabini, once he heard of their presence on the planet, would not sit idly by and wait…

Not Tabini. No. It wasn’t in his character.

A little stir near the door drew his attention. Algini had come to sit near it, just waiting, perhaps resting, in those odd moments that his staff caught rest.

Or watching him. Wondering why the paidhi stood staring out the window.

Everything became part of the fugue. Even the least talkative member of his bodyguard. Even a room in which they still dared not speak too much truth.

“Tell me,” he said, to Algini’s golden, impassive gaze. “If the aiji were to hear of our presence and come in unexpectedly, could he arrive safely in this house, ‘Gini-ji? And would there be prearranged signals between him and the staff that we also should learn—if they exist?”

Algini was as rare with his smiles as with his words, and this smile was rarer still, a gentle one. “Your staff has indeed asked this question of the household,” Algini said, managing not to make the paidhi feel too much the fool. “This staff will not confide to us any such signals, if they exist. They ask us to allow them to deal with any untoward event.”

So much for complete trust.

“Does Damiri-daja know them, and is there a possibility she knows them and has not told Tabini-aiji?”

“One can by no means say,” Algini said. “But we have considered that possibility, too.”

A small look at the ceiling, at the peripheries, thinking of bugs, and a sober look back at Algini. “And the message, ‘Gini-ji? Have you a clue how the dowager has heard it?”

“We have given the paidhi’s message to Cenedi, and it may by now have passed into Lord Tatiseigi’s hands, possibly further, into the hands of his staff. The rest depends on whether the messengers will go, and whether they will go by rail, which will bring them to Shejidan very quickly, or whether they will go in stealth, nandi. We cannot say.” It was Algini’s habit to answer only the immediate question. But he added: “Cenedi has confidence in this household’s skill, if not in their equipment being up to date.”

The dowager had more credit with Tatiseigi than he did. That was for very certain.

But it was worth remembering that Cenedi himself would have visited this house when Ilisidi had been, for extended periods, a guest, perhaps a lover, of the Atageini lord… possibly even while her husband was alive, if certain nefarious whispers were true, in the days after the birth of her son and during the dark days when the whole nation had tottered in uncertainty and suspicion, as to whether the eastern consort, namely Ilisidi, would steal away the heir and go to her own stronghold in Malguri to attempt to raise a rival power. In those days, the legislature in Shejidan had seen it as, yes, extremely possible that Ilisidi herself had come to the Atageini, gathering support among the more conservative central lords to seize power in Shejidan.

Instead, her son Valasi had grown up as a Ragi lord, had ruled with a hard hand. Valasi had died, not as an old man—some blamed Ilisidi herself, or Tabini—and the legislature had pointedly skipped over Ilisidi’s suggestion that her election as aiji of the aishidi’tat might ‘stabilize’ the association. The legislature had appointed Tabini as aiji at a very young age, to the frustration of certain conservative lords—notably Tatiseigi, notably the Kadigidi.

By all he had heard, it had been a battle royal in the legislature. Tabini had been young, full of ideas, combative with Wilson-paidhi, who had resigned in distress. So Tabini had gotten a new paidhi-aiji. Him. A paidhi considered too young for his job, too. They’d had that in common from the start.

They’d taken too much to each other, perhaps.

They’d gotten too much done too fast, debatably so, in the opinion of very many people these days. Lucky or not—they’d been able to respond when humans arrived in space and reopened the abandoned space station. If they hadn’t been ready, having pushed their technology past airplanes, to the brink of a space program—another loop of the fugue—they’d have watched the space station and possibly Mospheira itself run by a very problematic human authority. Those were the facts, but they weren’t facts with which the conservatives could be at peace. Ever.

They certainly weren’t facts the legislature loved, when the old men of the hasdrawad, the house of lords, got together to bemoan the younger generation.

Now, failing response from Tabini, with a Kadigidi upstart calling himself aiji, but not highly regarded in the central regions, in the very heart of his power, the Guild, which had sat paralyzed, might well move to install Ilisidi as regent for Cajeiri—and some few easterners might even hope to lose Cajeiri in some convenient accident. A move to install Ilisidi as a strong regent might gain support from Tabini’s followers as well as from old-line conservatives like Tatiseigi. Various factions, united in their dislike of a Kadigidi aiji, might logically reconsider their support of the usurper and line up temporarily behind Ilisidi.

But politics—politics—politics. It would be bloody.

“ ‘Gini-ji?” A sudden thought. “Does one suppose this house might already have sent some secret message to Tabini?”

“Again, we have inquired, and gotten no answer. But we all think it far more likely Taiben has, nandi.”

Of course. Taiben certainly would have contacted Tabini, if that district knew where to reach him. By mechieti, or even by phone—granted a phone line was still uncut or untapped in the district of Taiben, most notably the phone lines that followed the railroad… they might have just phoned him and said, The dowager is back.

While the Atageini staff kept refusing questions. Interesting. Disturbing.

And Algini sat watch, when he was in the apartment, and there was really no need. Reality came crashing in.

“Why are you standing guard, ‘Gini-ji? Is something afoot?”

Algini shrugged. “The Atageini staff has gone on alert, nandi. One believes, in dispute between the Atageini and the Kadigidi, the staff foresees action. Possibly tonight. Possibly earlier. They have resources of information we do not.”

“So will a message go to the Guild, ‘Gini-ji?”

“Uncertain. One has no idea.” Algini only cast a warning look at the ceiling. Not another word, that look said. God knew why.

Disturbing. A move underway, likely tentative, perhaps some forewarning. He envisioned the dowager, perhaps, being better able to politic without him. He could leave his files with her. He could withdraw to a more remote place, out of range. She had witnessed everything that needed swearing to, out in remote space. She and Cajeiri could tell everything that he could tell.

Certainly if he wanted to lessen the pressure on the situation here, there was Taiben for a retreat—and the foothills, on the other side, the forested skirts of those mist-hidden mountains. The mountain villages were, unlike the lowlands, not highly associated with the capital. The web of associations there looked more like a tangle, this village allied to one over the ridge, but not to the one nearest. In the old days, back when the Atageini house had had reason to be a fortress, those hills out the window had been a region of feuding chiefs and not a little outright banditry. As a refuge, it had its advantages. But it took a reference book to figure out the man’chiin involved between the villages, some of which territory neighbored Kadigidi land, for good or for ill.

Third loop of the fugue. What in hell was he thinking? Run from here? Retreat? Look for safety, where he could only endanger the Taibeni, or those villages, less prepared than the Atageini to hold trouble at bay?

A railroad linked the principal villages, and ran up to the highlands University, the apex of civilization in the district, itself lying outside man’chi and as neutral to all parties as it was possible to be, give or take minor allegiances to those lords and powers who endowed it—hoping an institution of learning would bring greater prosperity and less banditry to the region.

They had taken that route once, when they went up to visit the observatory. He remembered game running beside the antiquated train. Remembered a long climb up and down.

A lightning stroke. The hills.

The university.

The Astronomer Emeritus, Grigiji. The observatory, remote in the hills. A revered old man all but worshipped by his students, beloved by the court—but a man not likely in great favor with the new regime, his work having abetted Tabini’s efforts to reach into space. Another likely to be threatened by the upheaval.

Up in those hills, toward the mountains. Grigiji.

Where better to keep an eye to the sky, to know when the ship had returned, even when the shuttle launched?

He felt a chill. He decided he didn’t want to know Tabini’s whereabouts. He didn’t want to have that supposition in his head, remembering another time, early in his association with Ilisidi, when he’d been caught and questioned, very unpleasantly.

He wished he could talk freely with his staff, a free and open conference. But this wasn’t the place. Bad enough risk they’d run, discussing the letter and the Guild. But Tatiseigi had to find out they were up to something, or he’d only listen the harder.

Fugue done. Threads knit. Wide awake. He looked uneasily at the sky—momentary flash of steel and plastics, close corridors. Jase. What are you up to? he wondered, feeling a little forlorn. Can’t say I wish you were here at the moment. Not a good situation.

Flash of open sea and heaving deck underfoot. Hope you made it home, brother. And maybe got some fishing done. Stay out there, if you get the choice. Don’t be answering questions from the press. That game’s no good for a relationship. Good luck to you and Barb.

From brain-wearying fugue to a last few flashes of distance-spanning longing, pieces of him stretched thin. He’d never moved from the window. But he’d been on a long, scattered journey. Likely the tea was cold. He’d had only a single cup, and he’d learned it was precious, in the economy of the universe. He went and poured himself a tepid cup, drank it anyway, sitting in the well-padded chair. He was mentally tired, even physically tired after the mind-trip he’d taken. Curious how the brain wore the body out, and how it didn’t work the other way around.

He shut his eyes, wishing he didn’t know what he suspected he knew, but what—he reassured himself—Tatiseigi and his whole staff and the Kadigidi likely knew. He waited, cradling his lukewarm teacup. He thought about marauding Kadigidi creeping through the topiary hedges.

Over near the door Algini, clearly bored, stripped and oiled his gun, waiting. Bren smelled the oil. He didn’t need to look. He smelled the thousand scents that wafted through the open window. Curious, how many, many different scents a planet had, each freighted with significance.

Hadn’t taken him long at all to acclimate to negatively-curved horizons. He wondered if Jase would get queasy again, after being back in his element so long.

Deep sigh. A state near sleep, hindbrain running autopilot. The teacup was still safe in his hands. He probably should ask Algini to do the same maintenance for his gun, which, with Shawn’s computer attachment, was tucked into his gear.

Steps outside, ordinarily beneath his hearing, audible in the general hush. Algini got up.

Heavy steps. Several. Algini opened the door. Banichi and Jago were back.

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, and came and sat down in the opposite chair, Jago standing behind him. Banichi set arms on his knees and leaned very close. “Tano has been out by the stables. He reports there have been numerous mechieti here before the rain, for what that may mean, and now there are only five, besides ours. Cenedi is aware. Possibly it is as mundane as the movement of an Atageini herd to the hills, after use in the hunt. On the other hand, there might have been visitors here in the last few days that the lord has simply not mentioned.”

Tatiseigi, the old fox, had made a career of holding everyone’s secrets, and moving very suddenly in the direction that gained him most. A patrol sent out, and never mentioned? Visitors, from one faction or the other, a diplomatic mission from the Kadigidi?

And not a word yet about his carefully crafted letter to the Guild. His brain threatened to enter fog-state again, having ten new things to process, none of them pleasant.

“Dare we speak, nadiin-ji?”

Banichi moved his eyes to the left, a slight warning. Bren bit his lip, increasingly uneasy in this luxurious, secretive house, and needing, dammit, more information.

“Lord Tatiseigi has read your letter, nandi, and is considering the matter.”