Текст книги "Intruder"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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When Murini’s coup actually succeeded and Tabini-aiji was thought dead, we were at once appalled and alarmed, expecting retaliation now to come down on us from space. But since the speed of Murini’s takeover had stranded two of the shuttles on the ground, it had thus, we thought, prevented intervention from orbit. We faced a very different situation from that we had anticipated. We knew that the third shuttle was still capable of return, and we estimated that retaliation might take a different form—that Lord Geigi himself might attempt to overthrow Murini-aiji. This, however, seemed distant—until the reports began, later, that strange machines were landing in various parts of the continent.

But from the very outset, when Murini immediately began to take apart the political alliances of the north, we began to worry that we had a far more dangerous situation than under Tabini-aiji. He was creating chaos in the north and tightening his hold in a merciless assault on those who spoke against him. The Dojisigi and Senji, since they had been more actively involved in his accession, were higher in his favor, and we were sure neither Dojisigi nor Senji would hesitate to move against us and all the southern Marid.

But Senji and Dojisigi themselves grew uneasy in their ally. Murini’s measures were bloody. We understood that he was purging the Guild itself of any support for Tabinicbut there were rumors, relayed through my own aishid, that certain Guild elements had gotten away to the wilderness and would begin to move against Murini-aiji, that a counterrevolution would begin with assassinations in remote areas—and that, my aishid thought, might mean a strike at me.

Murini-aiji meanwhile gave no appearance of stability or coherence in his governance or his personal behavior. Excess ruled. Temper and whim governed. And no one was safe. If Murini-aiji noted a slight to himself, someone died.

Dojisigi and Senji began to think, one supposes, that the harsh measures taken in the north might in due time come south and that they had allied with a fool and a bully. They wanted to know Murini’s plans in that regard. That was the impetus for Farai of the Senji, invoking an old inheritance, to lay claim to your vacant apartment in the Bujavid. Murini-aiji had occupied Tabini’s apartment; your apartment shared a wall and they risked a great deal in this move– which was successful. Their spying gave Senji and Dojisigi some oversight of doings in Murini’s apartment, but my aishid thought information was possibly being fed to them, since while Murini was sunk in drink and abandon, the Guild that had put him in power was not.

Then Senji began to say that the Farai had deserted the man’chi of Senji and begun to follow Dojisigi, and that they were in fact attempting to curry favor with Murini—utterly betraying their own subclan and attaching their actions, whether or not detected, to Dojisigi.

At the same time Senji moved into Maschi territory to our north. The Maschi lord, with Lord Geigi stranded on the space station and Murini-aiji seeming to favor the Senji lord personally, far above Torii of the Dojisigi, accepted a secret alliance with Senji and would not receive our representative. Lord Pairuti was more terrified of Senji than of us—and we dared not press too hard for fear our approach to Pairuti would get to Murini’s ears. And Pairuti’s alliance with Senji meant a lord under Senji influence sat directly against our border.

We know now what we suspected then, that Senji was moving agents into Targai, completely taking over the Maschi authority in the north.

At this point, we dared not confront Senji directly. Instead we approached the southern Maschi—Lord Geigi’s sister at Kajiminda, who now had great reason to worry about her future. We offered her alliance if she would marry at our direction.

Immediately the Senji sent a representative toward Kajiminda, which we forcefully prevented. And as we hoped, Murini was too busy at that moment with the situation on the northeast coast to divert attention to a mere Marid squabble over an estate bordering Taisigi territory. He would let us quarrel among ourselves and then devour the survivor: that was his pattern with situations in the north.

I sent to Lord Torii of the Dojisigi, who were not pleased to find Senji abed with Murini. I offered him a close alliance in our enterprise at Kajiminda, reasoning as follows: Lord Geigi posed a great threat to Murini’s regime. Geigi held the vantage of the space station, he was allied with the humans in space, he was alleged to be closely allied to the human enclave on Mospheira—who did not need a space shuttle to pose a threat to Murini—and we were entirely prepared to pull the trigger on that threat if Murini made a move toward us. It was my private notion to marry the lady of Kajiminda. This would have given us a position with Lord Geigi to wipe out old feuds, and we were convinced that Lord Geigi’s intervention was no empty threatcthat, in fact, it would ultimately happen.

But the lady died. So did several of my agents. I cannot prove what happened. The Edi were high on our list of suspects. It was poison. They had opportunity. Hatred of us was certainly a credible motive. But most embarrassing, the agents I now most suspect of the murders were old in my service. I relied on these men. It is personally embarrassing to say, and one hesitates to claim blindness as an excuse, but one suspects they had been reporting directly to the Senji for years. They revealed themselves only in their recent attack on you and their subsequent cooperation with the renegades.

At the time, we were caught at a loss. I have no marriageable relatives at my disposal. But Torii of the Dojisigi suggested we immediately approach young Baiji with an offer to marry young Tiajo, my cousin, on my mother’s side, a close relative of Torii. It would create an avenue to negotiation with Lord Geigi, it would give Murini-aiji pause in coming at me or at Lord Torii, who thus would be reassured, and it had one other benefit: the offer of Tiajo quietly worsened the rift between Senji and Dojisigi—so much so that the Dojisigi thereafter had to pay the Farai with bribes to be sure their information from inside Murini’s regime was accurate and frequent.

Senji then found out about the bribe—I personally confess to that indiscretion—and the Farai began to snuggle even closer to the Dojisigi for protection. That gave us an inroad into Senji and Murini-aiji when we might care to use it.

Meanwhile, it was not expected that you would return, since your absence stretched on beyond all expectation. The skirmishes against Murini-aiji continued in the north.

Then Lord Geigi began taking actions that troubled the regime—landing mysterious machines of war in certain districts. We feared it might be a precursor to landings of a different sort, and we would have to negotiate with Lord Geigi.

But Baiji had contrived every excuse to delay the marriage. Worse, he had proved an utter fool, squandering the estate, indulging himself; the Edi had deserted the place. And Baiji had, in an exchange of messages we did not commit to paper, wanted money, a great deal of money. We feared he could at any moment swing toward Murini or the Senji—he knew it, and redoubled his demands. We found ourselves dealing with a thorough, shallow-minded scoundrel who was as apt to go one direction as the other, and who had no sense about what should be committed to paper. Should Geigi descend from the heavens with force, Baiji would swing to any prevailing wind: we saw that. Worse still, he had squandered estate money, and his servants had left. We attempted to carry the marriage forward in greater haste, to put Tiajo’s father’s servants in charge of the estate before it was entirely ruined. Simultaneously we knew the Dojisigi were already scheming to move us out of the way once that marriage to Baiji took place—but so long as it was not Senji or Murini, at the moment we were satisfied. We simply planned to take Baiji into our keeping.

This was the situation at the time of Murini’s greatest power. We assumed that should the dowager ever return from her voyage, the dowager would either ally with Geigi, or oppose him in a battle for the aijinate on the station, and we might not know it until the winning side made a move on earth. I was still betting strongly on Geigi coming down from the heavens, perhaps landing on Mospheira and gathering human allies for an invasion of the mainland. And if that happened, I was prepared to hand Kajiminda and his nephew over to him, as intact as I could manage.

Your return was a shocking surprise. Your survival after you landed seemed impossible. You did none of the expected things, and once the aiji-dowager burst the bubble of Murini’s claims of man’chi from the Padi Valley, and once Tabini’s return brought the former Guild out of hiding, it was all over in the north. Murini’s power melted away like ice in the sun. They made their best try at assassination, and lost. Murini’s advisors counseled immediate retreat.

And that fool Lord Torii, still believing reports from the wrong people that Tabini could never take the capital, accepted Murini and his staff in his territory, which allied him with Senji and left me with the unresolved mess at Kajiminda.

We know now that Torii’s staff and advisors had been well infiltrated with Murini’s Guildcas Senji’s long since had been. Thanks to the common sense of my own bodyguard, they had at no time allowed Murini’s people close to mecwhich was why I was on the outside of all this connivance, and I was not receiving bad intelligence—I in fact was receiving very little intelligence. Things settled. Murini left. And died. It seemed the situation was stable, with Tabini-aiji back in power.

But things in the Marid were not stable. And here is where we had made our mistake: I believed Lord Torii was still giving orders, and now I know that the renegade Guild had not followed Murini to destruction.

I was quietly advised, after Murini’s death, that Dojisigi would negotiate with me directly regarding an alliance against Senji, but my aishid advised me against accepting such talks with them—they flatly warned me to temporize with that offer by whatever excuse I could muster and not to go to any conference with Dojisigi—who refused to come to Tanaja.

We strongly suspected that the problems in the Baiji operation were due to the Dojisigi. My aishid, at the same time they advised me to avoid going to Dojisigi territory, also advised me that the Baiji operation had to continue, that it was exceedingly dangerous at this point to betray our knowledge that it was infiltrated, and that we should deal with it as if we knew absolutely nothingcas if, under Tabini-aiji’s rule now, we would allow that marriage to go forward, and then let Tabini-aiji sort it out. My aishid warned me that I must give Dojisigi no chance to break officially from our agreement, that the polite fiction of our alliance served to keep things quiet for the while. I personally resisted my bodyguard’s strong suggestion to retreat to the Isles. I would not detach myself from my people: if my bodyguard and I were going down, we would go down fighting for Taisigi land. So we simply closed our borders so far as we could and stalled any appointment for negotiation with the Dojisigi—still thinking that it was Lord Torii giving the orders in that district.

My bodyguard was now isolated. They could not rely on any allies except Sungeni and Dausigi, who rely on us for protection, not the other way around.

My bodyguard had not contacted the new Guild leadership in Shejidan, they say that they had discussed doing so. But they did not want to stir that pot and find attention coming on us—from either the Guild in Shejidan or from Dojisigi, since we felt Shejidan’s interest was purely in seeing war between Dojisigi and Taisigi.

We decided that if we stayed very quiet, Dojisigi might yet make a move that drew action from Shejidan, which was our best hope: that Tabini-aiji would send agents there and not to us.

My enemies in Dojisigi were not, however, idle. They began a campaign of rumors. They blamed me as the power that had backed Murini from the start. It was not at all difficult to persuade Tabini that I was a problem and the son and grandson of a problem. Indeed, it was not a coat that fit that badly. I had no man’chi for Tabini-aiji and if I at that point had had an approach from the Dojisigi Guild that would not threaten to kill my bodyguard in the process, yes, I would have taken it, not even understanding their existence at that time. If I could have taken out Lord Torii, I would have, because I could never trust him, not given our relationship.

That was where things stood when you arrived on the west coast and walked into ambush at Kajiminda.

Possibly the people the Dojisigi had put there were convinced that you were there to reconnoiter, with inside information that I might have provided you. Possibly their own suspicion of plots under every hedge sprang their trap prematurely.

Baiji, being the fool he is, immediately panicked; ran for shelter with you, likely because you are an ally of his uncle, and things blew up. The aiji-dowager became involved. Tabini arrived, invaded a Dojisigi operation in Separti, and the survivors there delivered intelligence, blaming, of course—me. And promptly the Guild in Shejidan was debating having me assassinated. Tabini had already Filed Intent.

We were at a crisis. If I could avoid being assassinated, and if Dojisigi agents could take Najida, which was a very soft target, they would gain hostages, in you, the aiji’s own son, and the aiji’s grandmother—and that would be the stupidest thing they could do, but I thought it was Lord Torii in charge. I was sure the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son would be out of there by sunrise, that somehow the aiji’s forces would get at least one live prisoner, or that you would get something incriminating out of Baiji.

But the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son stayed, and Tabini let them—refusing to seem to retreat. You fortified Najida. And that gave the renegade Guild a grand opportunity. They escalated the conflict, and so doing, laid the bloody dagger at my door.

The Guild in Shejidan met to declare me the targetcnot, one strongly suspects, that they did not know the truth about the operation—but if I were out of the way, Taisigi territory became the most logical base, adjacent to Sarini province and Senji. They would take the Marid by force and install a Ragi authority. Which you must admit, they came close to doing.

The dowager somehow got intelligence of what was going on within the Guild—I strongly believe it—and contacted me directly, in direct opposition to the intentions of her grandson and of the Guild in Shejidan. She made an offer.

I do not hesitate to accept it. The benefit to me is direct. The benefit to the Marid is direct. I am under constraint, but I have no motive to resist this plan, which offers me the Marid, accommodates the aiji-dowager, and, one now believes, may ultimately bring her grandson into agreement with the situation.

You may assume that I am lying in some of this. But it will be a useful truth that may mend situations for you. None of us like to be used by third parties. We deeply resent such things.

I will never tell you which parts are lies. But I promise to base my future actions faithfully on this document as if all these things were true.

And that, paidhi, is the most significant truth that has ever passed between us.

  “Damn!” Bren said when he had finished it. He passed it across to Banichi and Jago, who could share the document, and settled back with arms folded.

“Is something other than what was represented, Bren-ji?” Tano asked.

“Lord Machigi is what he is,” Bren said. “You shall see, nadiin-

ji, when you read it. This man is full of turns. But so is Tabini. And so is the dowager. One is not sure what one has loosed into the aishidi’tat. He is a man of qualities. One is simply not certain in what direction they tend.”

In due time Banichi finished reading—clearly so. He let expression show—a little perplexity in a lift of the brows. And Jago, half a beat later: “The Dojisigi and the renegades together did not find a way to attack this man directly. One should remember that.”

The paper went to Tano and Algini, who read it together.

“He did say,” Banichi said, “that you should use this paper as you see fit.”

Banichi and Jago had been there in the breakfast room when the statement was made.

“One believes both the dowager and Tabini-aiji should see it, nadiin-ji. With all it entails. One does not want to inflame the situation. But they do need to see it, do they not?”

“The question is, at all odds,” Jago said, “whether he will keep his pledge to stand by this version of the truth.”

“Is it not?” Bren said, and thought—in Ragi, which was the only safe way to think on the topic, There is no one in the world more unhappy than a solitary ateva. Machigi said it: he has no relatives in his own district. His aishid is all he has. His clan is virtually wiped out, except a contract marriage to a Dojisigi, and he himself has not yet married. He has taken no risk of that sortcand begetting a child is a risk for him. He says he was about to marry a woman fifteen years his senior. But that is all politics.

And it may, like every other statement in that letter, be a lie.

Machigi is young to have landed in such a position. He does not admit to fear. Possibly he feels none, since he has never known a time when he was not a target.

For a young man, he is scarily short of good advisors. But the four closest to him are extraordinary, at least in combination.

He vividly remembered having a gun leveled at him—in Machigi’s hands. And with equal vividness, he recalled Machigi’s immediate and easy change of tactics when he had not spooked. Machigi had become sarcastic, sullen, then increasingly outgoing and cheerful. Shift of masks. One after the other. And which was real?

Yet—I shall miss you, Machigi had said.

Right before handing him this outrageous document, a flat-out warning that no one should investigate the truth who did not want to find out things that would be very inconvenient for their future relationship.

I promise to base my future actions faithfully on this document as if all these things were true.

The scoundrel, Bren thought. The outright scoundrel. Jago was right. Two dangerous neighbors, Murini and the shadow Guild alike, had hesitated to take on this young man.

And once the Shejidan branch of the Guild had moved into his land, Machigi had advanced straight toward Najida, dodging fire, slipping right through the zone of conflict and helping deliver a death blow to the shadow Guild.

With what intent? To protect the dowager?

Or to attack her, if the Shejidan Guild didn’t stand by its word?

If Machigi had intended simply to run for safety, any ship in his harbor would have carried him to far safer territory in the Isles with far less effort. No. Machigi had come straight for Najida. He had gone for Ilisidi, pursuing, presumably, not her life, but the alliance that she offered him against the Guild renegades—perhaps because he saw that the scales were rapidly tipping toward the dowager as a powerbroker, and he had her offer dangling in front of him.

Machigi had, damn him, likely done at least half the things he was accused of.

So did they waste time in investigating what he haddone, or proceed as the letter said, from a fresh start based on what its creator clearly said was a fabrication?

And might not be a fabrication at all, only a truth cast in the most defiant way possible. Deal with me, but do not debate me. I shall not answer your questions.

At times being human was a real difficulty in dealing with atevi politics.

Algini said, having read the letter, “He is taking the advice of his bodyguard. Good.”

He didn’t read the second letter, the one addressed to Ilisidi, which was sealed with the wax seal of the Taisigin Marid. He did worry about it.

He had a drink of fruit juice from the well-appointed galley on the bus, then settled down in the quiet his aishid afforded him and began to work on his notes for the upcoming report to Tabini-aiji.

His brother Toby and Barb had sailed for Port Jackson, worrisome in the weather, but they were good, experienced sailors. They’d enjoy the storm that had swept across. That was Toby’s attitude.

Najida was about to undergo a major renovation in addition to the repairs. He’d asked an architect to design a new wing, from his sketches. Getting the main hall in order was a priority. He’d promised a wedding venue to a village girl, in payment for a dress, and that promise, among others, had to be kept.

Cajeiri was presumably safely back in his parents’ care and not apt to leave it until they let their guard down, which would not be soon.

And the Edi were busy staking out the ground where they would build a new center, on land donated by Lord Geigi out of his estate lands. A new Grandmother Stone would go up there, marking something very, very important to the Edi people.

Jago came up the aisle to say they had just heard from Lord Geigi, in fact: Lord Geigi had wanted to be notified when they were headed for the airport—which meant, diplomatically speaking, when they had gotten safely away from Tanaja with everything in order, and knew that they were getting out in one piece. Geigi had been just a little worried about the visit.

“Lord Geigi wishes you a safe flight, Bren-ji, and will see you in Shejidan.”

“Thank you, Jago-ji.”

Guild was talking to Guild, routine exchange of information. The bus had long-range communications that let them do that. Hecouldn’t use itcnot being Guild. For a brief while during the last mess, he’d thought fondly of having modern communications installed on the bus. He’d come out to the west coast to do a little work on a bill to allow cell phones, which were all the rage over on Mospheira—to allow them at least in limited general application on the continent. It was his job, among others, to oversee the surrender of human tech to the aishidi’tat, by terms of the treaty that had settled the War of the Landing—

But just occasionally, when such a release of technology was proposed, it was his job to say a firm no.

He had bled over the lack of personal communications on that last mission. And much as he had wanted a phone—he had to admit it would have made matters worse.

The traditionalists among atevi were all up in arms over the impending billcwhich had been scheduled to be a main feature of the upcoming legislature. It was a given in all the reports that the paidhi-aiji was going to support it. Numerous people wanted it, not remotely concerning what it meant but sure it was going to be important and modern. The Messengers’ Guild was interested but dubious. But more to the point, Tabiniwanted it.

Where it regarded introduction of human tech to the mainland, the paidhi-aiji had an absolute, though rarely used, veto, and the aiji would have to dismiss him from office to get past it.

He had learned, in that recent conflict, the reason for the ban on lords talking to lords in a combat area. He had thought naively that it might serve to straighten things out and stop a fight.

But God! it could so easily go the other way. Whatever took fine control of a messy situation out of the hands of the Assassins’ Guild, who had their own system of keeping a firefight out of civilian areas, could not benefit reason and order. Not on the mainland.

And two lords in the field talking back and forth under fire were not likely to improve anythingceither understanding or attitude. He only needed think of personalities. Pigheadedness. Party affiliations. Clan loyalties.

Outright fools giving away their position and getting their own people killed. He only needed think of Lord Tatiseigi’s communications system, which had leaked like a sieve. It had nearly cost them their lives and the country its leadership.

No, the Assassins’ Guild hadn’t publicly stated their position on the cell phone issue. But he knew now of a certainty what they thought of it. And why.

So God help him, the paidhi-aiji, whom the conservatives believed was in favor of unbridled excess and the systematic overthrow of all tradition and culture, was about to come down on the same side of an issue as the archest conservatives in the aishidi’tat, the number-counters, people who believed the numbers of a situation dictated the outcome and affected the cosmic harmony. Including people who thought the space station upset the universe.

The same people were going to have an apoplexy when they considered the Edi and Gan gaining seats in the legislature and a lordship apiece.

They’d think he’d changed his vote on the cell phone issue to placate them about the other matter. That it was a sign of weakness.

Hell. Maybe he could offer to vote against the cell phone bill if they’d drop their opposition to the Edi and Gan issue. And then actually do it. That would be underhanded.

It was reasonably certain that Tabini was going to be upset about his vote. He had to warn Tabini before he did it. And before his veto, if the thing passed.

Ilisidi had picked a nice time to leave town.

He already wanted her back. God,he wanted her back.

The plane was another world after the long drive to reach it. It was no jet, but it was appointed like one.

And finally, having packed off their far too eager junior Guild escort back to Najida and Separti Township, they all could relax, in an arrangement of five seats and a small table, and be served by the plane’s steward.

There were no other passengers, no freight or mail on the outbound leg of the flight, and there were no delays in prospect. The plane climbed, westward at first, and made its ascent over Najida peninsula in a red sunset. A steep bank showed them Najida below, and yes, Jago reported, there were trucks outside the house. Workmen.

The sun speared across the cabin as the plane finished its turn, nosed off to the east, and headed for Shejidan, its altitude giving them a second lease on daylight.

“When we see Najida again,” Bren said, “it will be about twice as large as it was before. And we shall no longer have to play politics for the bath.”

That brought a little amusement. And the steward arrived with drinks, a little alcohol for him, plain fruit juice for his bodyguard, who would count themselves on duty until they got where they were going and the door shut behind them.

A good supper, however—that was perfectly within the rules.

Homeward bound, this time, really home—or what should be home: he had, after all, spent a significant portion of his life in the Bujavid. But his heart, he discovered, was still within the little villa they were leaving behind.

And it would, indeed, not be the same quiet little place when he got back. It would be better, more able to accommodate several high-ranking guests with numerous servants. Not to mention there would be no line-up for the bath or, worse, the accommodation.

And he was going to have windows overlooking the harbor, no longer wasting that beautiful view with a blank wall and a garage. It was a tactical riskcbut he was betting on the world he was trying to build—one in which those big windows would be safe, and farmers and hunters would not find dead men in their fields.

A world where—in his dreams—people would understand that their neighbors were inevitably going to share the planet, and that the planet as a whole was going to have to get along with other people and places it had never bothered itself to imagine.

Was the world, was the universe, big enough to accommodate everybody in decency and prosperity?

Maybe it was a crazy dream that people would finally see that it was. But he bet on it. He damned sure meant to try to make it happen.

He was going to have those windows.

And—inevitably—Guild protection went with the windows. His own bodyguard was going to have to be have help when they were there, until the world was quieter. And there would be electronic surveillance.

But he would go on working toward not needing it.

He would miss the Najida staff. He had gotten used to them in his short visit, and they to him. But they belonged to Najida. They needed to be there, to supervise the construction, to lead their lives close to the land and their clan—in peace.

A few of Najida village, however, had gone to Shejidan to work for him. They were already in the Bujavid, waiting for him, and more—also of Najida—were coming down from the space station, where they had been stranded for three years apart from family and all the luxuries of planetside living. They were also coming back to serve in the Bujavid, his apartment on the space station going on lowest maintenance until he got back to that residence—and all the problems hanging fire in the heavens.

Well, but they were hisplaces. Home, each of them, in a different way.

A handful of weeks ago he’d been living in Lord Tatiseigi’s apartment on Lord Tatiseigi’s charity. Ilisidi had gotten him that favor that and well, nand’ Tatiseigi’s curiosity had probably given a little push, too, since it was certain staff had reported to the old man on a regular basis, and the old man, who detested humans and every variance from tradition, was insatiably curious about what he deplored.

So his volunteers from Najida had taken the train to Shejidan three days ago, bringing with them furnishings that staff had rescued from the apartment in the coup. What the Farai had brought into the apartment when they had occupied it—security had taken that furniture out, and then gone over the place, stripping the walls down to bare stone—even rearranging the division of rooms in the process—so he understood. They’d found bugs—God knew which agency had planted them—the Farai, or the Maladesi, who had preceded him, or Tabini, or Murini. He somewhat doubted the Maladesi, since his own bodyguard would have found those, and probably they would have told him had Tabini been listening. So it was likely one or both of the other two. They’d even x-rayed the furniture, so tables and chairs and small carpets and vases that had been in the apartment when the Farai vacated might be turning up piecemeal. Bujavid Security, in fact, had passed him photos of the items and asked him to declare which were originally his and which the Farai had moved into the place.