Текст книги "Invader"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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"Interesting," Tabini said. Tabini clearly likedthat notion. The provincial lords wouldn't like it half as well, count on it. The lords of the provinces – and call a province a convenience of the map that only marginally described the real complexity of the arrangement – were always pulling in various directions for their own profit and for their own power if they could manage it.

"The provincial lords," Bren said, "have to find specific advantage for themselves."

"Believe me that I can find such advantages, in ways they will understand."

Meaning – the paidhi hoped – that the aiji would use bribes, fair, historically negotiated division of revenue, and not bullets.

The paidhi was about to pursue that point – when lady Damiri happened in, sat down at the table, set her chin in her hand, and declared that she couldn't help but overhear.

"Daja-ma," Bren said in confusion.

"Perhaps you'll persuade just thisprovincial, nand' paidhi, of the means with which the Atigeini should deal with Mospheira."

"I – can only urge my host that the Atigeini are in the same position as every powerful house in the Association – that if atevi don't deal as a unit, atevi will be at the mercy of the weakest and most desperate lords who willdeal with humans when the aiji would urge —"

"When the aiji would urge," Tabini said, "that the provincial lords not sell to the humans, except at a price we agree, and under conditions we agree – with conditions which above all guarantee us access to the space station."

"What will we do with it?" Damiri asked – notthe feckless question it might seem. "How do we come and go to this possession without this marketplace haggling over transport?"

"Atevi are ready," Bren said, and broke a chain of departmental rules, "for a major leap forward. Atevi are capable of safeguarding their own environment, their own government, and their own future. Atevi will secure access to materials and processes that go far beyond the designs we've already released. Atevi willhave state-of-the-art earth-to-orbit craft, right along with Mospheira, and the paidhi hopes that atevi do better with advanced power systems than drop bombs on each others' heads, nadiin-nai."

"Does your President say so?"

"Aiji-ma, I say so. You have the Mospheiran President hanging on a frayed rope: there's no way for Mospheira to get critical materials without dealing with atevi. The ship could mine the moon, if it had workers to get the materials to build the robots to get the materials, but that's not practical. It needs supply and it needs workers. There's no way that Mospheirans can come and go at will on their own craft and the paidhi allow atevi to remain only passengers. But – a big but, nadiin – we mustrely on computers. We mustfile flight plans. There mustbe air traffic control up there. Or whatever one calls it. There will be changes, in short, in atevi thinking, in atevi concepts. The paidhi can't prevent that."

Tabini was amused. The experienced eye saw it in the minute lift of a brow. An actual smile chased it.

"Weinathi Bridge in the heavens?"

A notorious air crash – which had persuaded even most provincial lords that precedence in the air couldn't rely on rank and that filing flight plans and standing by them no matter what was a very good idea. Especially in urban areas around major airports.

"We have only one station," Bren said. "Humans and atevi must live there. Beyond trade cities – the station is very close living, very close cooperation."

"This place that killed so many humans. That humans couldn't continue to occupy. Should atevi die for it?"

"The station itself is suitable for living. And can be made far safer than it is. This is a possible place, daja-ma. This is a place where atevi and humans can find things in common, and work in peace."

"A place with no air. No earth under one's feet."

"Just like in an airplane, daja-ma, one seals the doors and pumps air in."

"From where?"

"In this case – I suppose we bring it in tanks from the planet. Or plants can create it. Engineers know these things. The paidhi is an interpreter. If you wish to see plans, daja-ma, I can say they'll no longer be restricted."

"And the working of this ship?"

Not a simple curiosity, he thought, and was on guard. "Not the actual numbers and dimensions and techniques, daja-ma. I know liquid and solid-fuel rockets very well. But what powers this ship, what kind of technology we may have to create down here to bring us up to date with that ship – I don't know."

"Can you find out such things?" Tabini asked. "Can you get them from the ship?"

"I can tell you that I'll try. That eventually – yes, we'll find a way."

"Find a way," Damiri said.

"Daja-ma, in all my lifetime I've always been able to look around me on Mospheira and see the next technological step. For the first time – Mospheirans and atevi will be making whatever next step there is together, into a future we both don't know. I can't promise. I don't know. But atevi will have their chance. That's what I can work toward."

"There is no word," Tabini said, a question, "what this ship wants – beyond maintenance for the station:"

"On a mere guess," Bren said, "the ship's crew is far more interested in the ship and in space than it is in any planet. What they do out there, where they go, what their lives are like – I suppose is very reasonable to them. I suppose it's enough – to them – to have the ship working."

Damiri asked, "Can the ship up there takewhat it wants?"

"I think," Bren said, "daja-ma, that it might possibly, as far as having the power; but what it. wants just isn't so simple as to rob all banks on the planet and go its way. I can't foresee all that it might want, but I can't imagine it taking raw materials and manufacturing things itself. It never did, that I know."

"So what will it want, nadi?"

His hostess neveraccorded him the courtesy of his tide. There was always the imperious edge to the voice; and he glanced at Tabini, ever so briefly, receiving nothing but a straightforward, interested attention.

"Bren-ji," Tabini said, with a casual wave of his fingers. Tabini wasn't unaware. Be patient, that seemed to mean, and he answered the question.

"I think it wants the station to fuel it and repair it if it needs repair."

"Why?"

"So, perhaps, it can leave us for another two hundred years. In the meanwhile – we have the access to the station."

"This is quite mad," Damiri said.

"Bren-ji," Tabini reproved his unadorned answer.

"Daja-ma, the ship puzzles all humans. I can say it would be very much simpler for it to have Mospheirans work for it and not have to deal with atevi. But that would allow Mospheira power that would unbalance everything the Treaty balanced. I completely oppose any such solution. Even if atevi had rather not deal with them – I don't think it wise to take that decision."

"The paidhi ishuman."

"Yes, daja-ma. But most Mospheirans don't want to have their affairs run from space. I can't speak for every official in office, but among ordinary people, and many in office as well, atevi have natural allies. Mospheirans stand to lose their authority over their own lives if certain other Mospheirans, very much like rebel provinces, have their way. To answer your very excellent question, nai-ma – I don't think the ship intends violence. By every evidence, they need the station. They want it the cheapest way possible. We have to prevent some humans from providing it too cheaply, without atevi participation. That's the situation as plainly as I can put it. And we have the leverage to prevent it."

"Bren-ji characterizes the Mospheiran government as indecisive. Incapable of strong decision."

"Is this so?" Damiri turned her golden eyes to Tabini, and back to him. "Then why are they fit allies?"

"Daja-ma," Bren said, "Mospheirans have a long history of opposition to the ship. Second, there's no strong dissent on Mospheira. There never has been, in any numbers that could cause trouble. The government isn't used to dealing with the tactics of opposition – which I feel this time there will be. Shejidan, on the other hand, is used to dissent and rapidly moving situations. The President of Mospheira can't conceive of what to do next, many but not all of his advisors are selfishly motivated, and he urgently needs a proposal on the table to give him a tenable position he can consider – results that he can hold up in public view. Publicity. Television, aiji-ma, that demon box, can draw his opposition into defending against the proposal you make rather than pushing their own program."

Tabini rested his chin on his hand. The two of them were mirror-images, Tabini and the prospective partner in his necessary and several years postponed heir-getting. One had to think of Tabini's lamented father, and the dowager, and breakfast.

And all that atevi talent for intrigue.

"Such a reprehensible, furtive tactic," Tabini said. "Can we not just assassinate the rascals?"

One suspected the aiji was joking. One never dared assume too far. "I think the President believes his alternatives are all human. I think he would welcome a well-worded and enlightening message from Shejidan, particularly one suggesting workable solutions."

"Interesting," Tabini said. And didn't say he had to consult. One had the feeling Tabini's brain was already working on the exact text.

In the next moment, indeed, the forefinger went up, commanding attention: "Say this, Bren-ji. Say to your President, Tabini-aiji has raw materials indispensable to your effort. Say, Tabini-aiji will sell you these materials only if humans and atevi are to sharethe station. Say that to him… in whatever form one speaks to president. Make up words he will understand and will not refuse." The fingers waved. "I leave such details of translation to you."

Tabini said, further, "We'll call the ship this evening, Bren-ji. Be ready."

He almost missed that. And didn't know what to say, but, "Yes, aiji-ma."

CHAPTER 9

Tabini had made up his mind. Tabini was going to move, which notoriously meant a string of moves so rapid he kept his opponents' situation in moment-to-moment flux. It kept his aides in the same condition, unfortunately for the aides, and dealing with Tabini in that steel-trap, no-pretenses mode, trying to think what that chain of actions was logically going to be, always upset his stomach. He wrote out the best wording he could think of for Tabini's message to the island, atevi-style, reasonably simple. Lawyers had a practice, but never dominated the making of agreements – it might be the fact of assassination.

Being ready for whatever came, however, meant not only delivering the message but querying the Foreign Office one more time to catch up to whatever events were proceeding on Mospheira – assuming that the Foreign Office might know by now that the ship had made an offer to Mospheira.

One assumed something consequently might be going on in the halls of government and that Shawn might find a clever way to say so.

But whatever the Foreign Office might know, the Foreign Office wasn't admitting to anything. Shawn… didn't want to come on mike, but Bren kept after it, and asked bluntly,

"Shawn, do you know anything about an offer from the ship?"

"No. Sorry."

"Are you sure? I'm dealing with some specific information."

" We don't have any advisements," was the limp and helpless sum of what Shawn could say, and no, to his subsequent query, the Secretary of State wasn't available and, no, the undersecretary and his secretary's secretary weren't available.

That didn't inspire him to trust what the Foreign Office or the paidhi's office under him was currently being told by the executive; and along with that, anything he was being told by the Foreign Secretary – who wouldn't necessarily lie to him, but he had the feeling Shawn was signaling hard that he wasn't getting information.

He didn't have backup. Now he didn't have advice.

He said, "Shawn, you'd better record this. The ship's been talking, Tabini knows what's going on, and Tabini has a message to deliver to the President to the effect that if trade's going to continue, he has conditions which must include assurances. I'm telling you now in paraphrase in case communications mysteriously go down. Tabini-aiji has a message for the President personally, and if anything happens to the phones can you kindly get somebody on the next flight over here to pick up the aiji's message in writing? I'm going to transmit at the end of this message, and I want you to get somebody to courier it over to the President, in person. This isofficial. There are people on Mospheira who may not want this message to reach the President. Do you read me?"

" I' ll carry it myself."

He sent. It said, Mr. President, a message from Tabini-aiji. The offer from the ship makes no mention of atevi Treaty rights on the station. Tabini-aiji suggests that to accept this offer would negate the Treaty and stop trade of materials needful to carry out any accelerated building program.

On the other hand, Tabini-aiji suggests that the inhabitants of this world, both atevi and Mospheiran human, enter into agreement to withhold our consent and cooperation until our needs are met. Clearly the ship wants workers, and has made an offer which may not be to either your advantage or the advantage of the Association.

Recognizing this political reality, Mr. President, Tabini-aiji is willing to accelerate the pace of atevi technological development in order to promote atevi presence on the station and atevi natural interests in these affairs in the space around our planet and our sun. In short, Mr. President, we suggest a partnership between Mospheira and atevi which may secure the economy, the civil rights, and the political stability of both Mospheira and the Association as a whole. You will have your heavy-launch manned vehicle, and we will bear a half share of the station operation and maintenance.

We have many cultural and biological differences, but we share a concern for a stable economy and the rights of our citizens to live in peace on this planet. If that now means cooperation in orbit above this planet, we trust that atevi and humans can reach a just and rapid accommodation.

The aiji, speaking with the consensus of the hasdrawad and the tashrid, awaits your reply.

He received an acknowledgment from Shawn. But he'd bet – he'd just about bet – the phones between Mospheira and the mainland would go down within half an hour.

He'd stretched the point. A lot. He'd used words nobody could say in an atevi language. He'd played on the concerns he was sure the President felt over shifts in internal politics which could throw him and the majority of politicians on Mospheira out of office.

He had a headache. His stomach was upset from lunch. Or from the thought of what he'd implied in that message.

Or from the knowledge he had to go real-time tonight and talk to the ship himself.

Meanwhile he had a handful of troublesome official letters Tano had pulled from the pile of atevi correspondence, one of which was from the restricted-universe Absolutists, a sect of the Determinists, mostly from Geigi's province, though there were – he consulted his computer file – others from small, traditional schools. They attached moral significance and their interpretation of human and atevi origins to a hierarchy of numbers that didn't admit FTL physics – God save him: if he couldn't find a numerical explanation of FTL, thanks to Hanks, the Determinists were going to rise up and call him a liar and insulting to their intelligence for claiming the ship wasn'ta case of humans lurking on the station for two hundred years in secret and preparing to swoop down with death rays.

Banichi was missing. Jago had gone somewhere. That scared him to death. He had no idea, but he assumed the two absences were connected: Cenedi had hinted at serious trouble in the Assassins' Guild, which could, as far as he knew, threaten Banichi's and Jago's lives as well as his. He hadn't been– able to ask Tabini, especially since Damiri had shown up and sat down – assuming admission to any meeting, any affair going on in the apartment.

He'd had a question in the back of his mind when Damiri had intruded, and in his general haste to get the matter restated for this most influential – and clearly pricklish – of Tabini's private advisors, he'd not found the opportunity to ask Damiri her meanings, her secrets, or her implications; and, damn, he didn't know what it meant, or what rights Tabini had granted her – who wasn't Tabini's social equal, and who had constantly pushed not only at the paidhi's dignity but at Tabini's authority in that interview. Was there some cue he should have taken? Was there something he'd done in the apartment that had set Damiri off?

Cenedi had said there were people trying to file Intent on the paidhi. Which gave no idea on exactly what issue was involved or whether the paidhi was surrogate for Tabini in the atevi politics of assassins and intrigue.

He resolved at least that he was going to take the advice of the security Tabini had provided him, and meant to take no chances with his personal safety.

The bright spot in the entire day thus far was an unexpected ring of the phone from Bu-javid Security, reporting that Tano's wayward partner was actually downstairs in the Bu-javid subway station, and that, lacking specific instruction, Security was double-checking Algini's assignment to the sensitive Bu-javid third floor and questioning a "considerable amount of baggage." That assignment and the baggage apparently needed someone's authorization, and in the absence of Banichi and Jago, Tano evidently not being qualified to recognize his own partner, it had to go all the way up to Tabini himself.

Which Tabini, called out of yet one more committee meeting, was patiently willing to do for the paidhi – resulting, within the hour, in Algini's entry into the foyer with an amazing accompaniment of baggage, a towering pile of responsibility which had Saidin and the household servants whispering together in urgent dismay, as strong Bu-javid security personnel delivered stack after stack of baggage belonging to a broad-shouldered ateva with bandages and plaster patches glaring white on his skin, not in uniform, but in clothes more appropriate for a hike through the hills – small wonder Security downstairs had blinked.

Tano himself was so glad to see his partner that he actually patted Algini on the shoulder – not, Bren sternly reminded himself, that Tano felt the way he would under similar circumstances.

But – but – and but. It was another tantalizing pass of that camaraderie that atevi did have, that Jago and Banichi he would swear had given him: more warmth in all than Tabini was wont to show, although – one had to remind oneself – in assessing atevi emotion, one might be dealing with individual differences.

But he found himself watching Tano and Algini with a certain tightness about the throat and thinking he almost hadsomething like that with Banichi and Jago, whatever it was and whatever it felt like; a level of feeling that at least let a man believe his back was defended under all circumstances and that he wasn't come hell and high water alone in the universe – more emotional attachment of whatever kind and more loyalty than he'd had from humans he could name. More dangerous thoughts, around other humanly, emotionally charged words. He was notdoing well today.

That, after his session with Tabini, calmly laying out for Tabini what he'd heard, what he suspected, what he thought were the only available human choices – in short, treason, of a virtually unprecedented kind so far as the history of the paidhiin. The act had hit a particularly sensitive spot in his nerves, with, in all that trying session, Tabini never showing any emotion but somber thought or amusement, never thanking him or reassuring him of the peaceful, constructive, wise uses to which the information he'd given would be put.

He found himself with very raw, very abraded sensitivities this afternoon, wanting not to feel as alone as he felt, and here Tano and Algini held that lure out in front of him, a demonstration that, yes, there was feeling, yes, it was almost – almost – what a human could access. He'd touched it. He'd tasted it. He'd relied on it for life and sanity in Malguri, and it might be all he could damn well look to for the rest of his life, thanks to choices he was making in these few desperate days.

And it wasn't, wasn't, wasn'treliable emotion. He could play voyeur to the experience of it; he was glad it existed for them. He was very glad for Algini's safety.

And perhaps that was the cold, sensible, atevi thing to feel right now. Perhaps it was all Tabini, for instance, would feel, or that Jago and Banichi would feel, if they were here.

Algini came to him and bowed with a pleasant, even cheerful face, unusual on glum Algini, and declared proudly, "I brought your baggage, nand' paidhi."

My God, was thatthe contents of the pasteboard boxes and cases piled on the antique carpets? All the things he'd left behind in Malguri, literally all he owned in the world, except a few keepsakes he'd left with his mother. He'd thought there was a remote chance of getting some things back, in the regret of a favorite sweater, his best coat, his brush, his traveling kit, the photos of his family – that was his whole damned life sitting in those boxes, and Algini had just brought it back, from his shirts and socks to the rings and the watch that Barb had given him.

"Nadi-ji," he said to Algini. The vocabulary of atevi gratitude was linguistic quicksand. "– I'm very surprised." He still wasn't hitting it. "Much as I value these things, I'd give them all to have you safe. It's very good, very dutiful, very – considerate of you to have brought them."

Which must have hit something. Algini looked astonished, grim and silent as he tended to be, and said, "Nand' paidhi, it's my job," the way Jago would sometimes remind him.

Even Banichi and Jago respected Algini – Tano, who'd taken until after Malguri to show his expressions, had him for a partner – and in this moment Bren saw qualities in Algini that he'd either been blind to, or that Algini hadn't let himsee before; qualities which said this was, in human terms, a man who did his duty because that was what he expected of himself.

And all those boxes. Saidin was observing from the doorway, and he gave the matter into her hands. "Please," he said, "have the staff do the arranging. I have all confidence in your judgment, nand' Saidin. Algini, please rest. Banichi and Jago aren't here. I don't know where they are. But I'm sure they'd say so."

"Nand' paidhi," Algini said quietly, "one would be glad to do that, thank you, yes."

A hell of a household, he said to himself, the lot of them in bandages and patches. Algini was ready to collapse on his face, by all he could figure, but before they could clear the boxes out of the vestibule, the light at the door flashed, the security wire went down, the door opened and Jago came in.

"'Gini-ji," Jago said, in some evident pleasure, and there were more bows, and even more shoulder-slapping than between Algini and Tano. "One is glad. One is very glad."

But straightway Jago looked to have remembered something forgotten, said, "Bren-ji, pardon," and gave him a message cylinder, one with Tabini's seal.

Bren halfway expected it. He stood in the sea of boxes, with his security looking on, with the staff beginning to carry away this item and that, and saw the date and time as this evening and the place as the blue room.

He wasn't ready, not emotionally – maybe not mentally. He hadn't been ready for anything they'd thrown at him yet, except in the conviction, already taken, that he had to try and he couldn't, on the moment's bereaved, deranged thought, do worse than Mospheira's President and experts had done, so far as falling into what the paidhi, the unique individual actually experienced in foreign negotiation, saw as a trap.

The paidhi could be wrong, of course.

The paidhi could be wrong up and down the board.

But he went out at the appointed time with his notes and his computer, and went to the lift in Jago's company. Now, if never before in his career, he had to focus down and have his wits about him.

And he was scared stiff.

He had to think in Mosphei' in a handful of minutes, which required a complete mental turnover – granted they could raise the ship at all, had to go back and forth between the two languages, which required a compartmentalization he didn't like to do real-time.

The official document delivered to him had chased Tabini's note: the formal announcement of decision on his request, a parchment heavy with ribbons and legislative seals, which he was requested to return, and which he carried in his hand. The legislatures had argued their way past midnight last night and concluded a general resolution to see where contact might lead: Would the paidhi, that immense document said in brief, kindly intercede and convey the salutations of the Association to the ship, the aiji willing?

Tabini's note had put it more succinctly, had given him the hour of the meeting and said: The legislature will re-enter session today on a special motion from the eastern provinces. That meant the rebel provinces were raising some issue.

And Tabini's note had continued: By suppertime the whole matter must be fait accompli by way of Bu-javid systems or we will be awash in additional motions.

Chimati sida'ta. The beast under dispute would already be stewed, as the atevi proverb had it: the aiji and the paidhi-aiji had authority granted by the vote last night until some vote today negated it or delayed it for study or did something else creatively pernicious to Tabini's interests. Therefore the haste.

The vote, however, did not convey authority from Mospheira – who had sent no response to his messages, no response to Tabini's message to the President of Mospheira. He hadhoped, he had remotely hoped – and knew he was creating serious trouble not only for himself, but for everyone in the Department who backed him, in proceeding without authority. He regretted that as a personal, calculated and depressingly necessary betrayal.

But the committee that would have to answer him had the nature of committees even on this side of the strait, and possibly throughout the universe: ask it a question and it felt compelled to make a formal ruling, which in the time frame of a Mospheiran committee, far worse than the ones he dealt with here, might arrive next year, once the message had hit – the President's council hardly moved faster.

If They, meaning the senior officials in the State Department, hanged the paidhi for it – at this point, chimati sida'ta, they had to catch him first.

If They wanted to talk to atevi, and he knew that, regardless of public posture, all but a handful of mostly-talk ideologues had no notion in the world of breaking off talk with atevi – again, chimati sida'ta. If Tabini moved fast, They had no choice but to deal with what was, and They still had to talk to Tabini through him, since Tabini wouldn't talk to Hanks, wouldn't talk to Wilson, or anybody else in the Department they could hasten through to promotion. By now, Hanks would have been dead, he greatly feared, if he hadn't specifically asked Tabini not to deal with the affront to his nation atevi-fashion; at any second violation of the Treaty he might not be able to argue Tabini out of a demonstration of atevi impatience with opposition to the paidhi they chose to deal with.

So if even temporarily the more pragmatic and politically savvy separatists in State should fall from grace and the true concrete-for-brains ideologues gain temporary ascendancy, he'd vastly regret the damage he'd have done the foresighted, loyal people at lower levels who backed him. But he had ultimate confidence the rabid ideologues would have short satisfaction, and shorter tenure, when they couldn't get information or cooperation – or raw materials – out of the mainland.

So even if they made their deals with the ship aloft, they were screwed —

And so was the ship, ultimately, until it dealt with atevi. He didn't like the position he was forced to. He didn't like the responsibility, but circumstances had assured he knew, and Mospheira didn't, and it was a position no conscientious diplomat ever wanted to be put into —

Because he was, dammit, trained to consult, wasloyal to his nation if not the Department; hewas following the course decades of paidhiin and advisory committees had mapped out, step by step, down to what technology could go in at what stages, and why.

Which made him, walking the lower corridor at Jago's side, realize three things: first, that he wasn't altogether alone in his resolve. No matter who was presently in charge of events back home or aloft, he had behind him all the structure and decision of all the past paidhiin-aijiin that had ever served, along with all their advisory committees – predecessors who were being betrayed by present expediency and the present administration.

Second, that to protect the situation they currently had, he had to get Hanks home quietly.

And, third, that he was really going to do it, really going to make a break with the Department as it was presently constituted. He would have to accelerate what his and Tabini's very wise predecessors had determined as the necessary rate of turnover of human technology to atevi far faster in its last stages than the planners had ever remotely envisioned as wise. He would have to push the world toward a more direct and more risky exposure of culture to culture than the exploratory Trade Cities proposal had ever remotely contemplated. The Trade Cities bill had been designed to educate the two populaces on an interpersonal, intercultural level; and to find out what the problems would be in an exposure which the best Foreign Office wisdom held as a very, very difficult interface.