Текст книги "Invader"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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"You're joking."

"One sent a picture. She's not bad looking, nand' paidhi."

"I'll – see if I can transfer sufficient funds. I may have to appeal to the Department." Not a good time to do that, he was thinking, and asked himself if he could secure atevi funding and decided again that such a source of funds wasn't politically neutral and wouldn't be seen as such.

He had, what? – his personal bank account. Which, lavish as it was for a man who couldn't be home to spend his salary and whose meals and lodging were handled by the Bu-javid, couldn't begin to rent and salary an office of fifty people for a month. "Thank you, Tano-ji. I value your advice. I'll find out what I can do. I'll draft a reply for the children."

"Shall I make inquiries about staff?"

"I don't know how I'm to fund it – but we have no choice, the best I can see."

"I'll consult the appropriate agencies. Thank you for the tea, nand' paidhi."

Tano excused himself off to that task. Bren settled to stare out at the mountains, trying to imagine how much it cost to rent an office, hire fifty people, and pay for phones and faxes.

Which he couldn't do. He simply couldn't do it on his own, not if the letters came in sacks.

He had to come up with the statement for the children. That wasn't entirely easy.

He had to come up with a report for the various committee inquiries he was facing, one of which involved lord Geigi, and finding some way to explain FTL for the Determinists, who had to have a universe in unshakeable balance.

He had to have lunch with Hanks at noon – and, God, he'd asked for a call from the ship at the time he'd invited Hanks to lunch. He didn't know how that was going to work. But it might be an escape. Feed Hanks and dive off for a private call.

When he'd, given his leisure, like to go down to the library himself and spend the entire morning looking for astronomy references, until he felt he had some grasp of things he'd never had to wonder about. He was reaching into information he hadn't accessed since primer school – and it might be accurate: he didn't think astronomy had changed that much, but he didn't think a primer-school student's grasp of information was adequate to advise a head of state or argue with atevi number-counters, either.

He was drowning in details, none of which he seemed able to get to because of all the others, all of which argued he should have staff – but even having staff wasn't going to put enough knowledge into the paidhi's head to know where the ship might have been and how far it might have come or how he was going to explain it all to a province ready to erupt in disorder. The failing was in himself. He could usehelp from somebody like Deana Hanks, if Deana weren't an ass – which was an irrefutable condition.

He felt a mild headache becoming worse and called for another pot of tea.

And sent one of the servants, Dathio, on down to the library looking for references. The air didn't stir. Sometimes, in his experience of Shejidan summers, that heralded a hell of a storm.

But the one he expected at noon was sufficient.

Another bout of tape, a shower, a meticulous braiding of the hair – two servants to do that, who spent more time fussing than Tano would do, but Tano was clearly busy – Banichi and Jago the staff alleged to be awake, but both of them were immediately off somewhere about business. Algini was back, sore, stiff, preparing to take over the security station from Tano, who was off, Algini said, seeing about office space – so Algini had the post, and security had to be on duty if strangers were due in: Algini had certain inquiries to make just getting Hanks onto the third floor.

All of which left the paidhi alone and at the mercy of the staff.

If the paidhi had modesty left, at this point, he'd forgotten where he'd put it. He suffered the tape-up at the hands of pleasant and not entirely objective women, he had his shower, and thereafter abandoned himself to a pair of servants who thought his hair a complete novelty and argued over the job of braiding it; then a trio of dressers who, learning he was going to meet Hanks-paidhi, insisted on his best shirt, insisted on a little pin for the collar.

Last of all madam Saidin came to survey the result, disapproved of the pin and installed a larger, more expensive one the provenance of which he had no idea.

"That's not mine, nand' Saidin," he protested, viewing the result in the mirror, asking himself whether that jewelry was Damiri's, or some antique Atigeini motif he was going to catch hell for if someone saw it. He'd no reason to distrust Saidin. He'd reason not to trust all the staff, counting rumors that had drifted out to the dowager's household, but he'd hoped Saidin herself was Damiri's and not serving any other interest.

"It's perfect," Saidin declared with senior authority, and he was left with a feeling of being trapped into Saidin's judgment, once she'd taken a position contravening three others of the staff.

Perhaps he shouldn't be so naive or so accommodating. But it was only Hanks, who wasn't likely to discriminate a pin he owned versus one he'd borrowed illicitly.

So he let it stay and paced the sitting room, waiting for calls from space or an explosion from Hanks, he wasn't sure which. He'd drafted a letter to Mospheira, a letter to the President, which said, in sum, that atevi unease over the appearance in their skies had generated a flood of mail which was being directed to the paidhi, and which consequently required the paidhi to answer, and which the Mospheiran budget should pay for, as otherwise it compromised the Mospheiran nature of the paidhi's office.

The President was going to read that one several times before he figured out it wasn't a joke, and the man who'd just broken Departmental regulations, defied an order from the Department's highest officers, and revealed privileged and sensitive information to the atevi leadership in a nationally televised speech, was asking the Mospheiran government to fund an expansion of his office.

He heard the front door open. He forbore to go out to the foyer. He strayed deeper into the apartments, hearing the to-do he could detect as Deana Hanks, Deana's Tabini-imposed security, Algini laying down the rules of the house. Servants passed him at a fair clip, delaying for the bows that were the rule of this house, on their way to the kitchen.

He'd decreed the lesser dining room, an intimate lunch, a small staff, though he'd been tempted to install Hanks at the opposite end of the state dining table. And, coward that he was, he hoped Saidin's unflappable courtesy could at least take the edge off the woman – his nerves were not at their steadiest, he had too much on his mind to spare attention to a fool's bad behavior, and he thought Hanks might behave herself civilly, at least, without the provocation of his oversight.

So, having walked the length of the hall down to the library and the pleasant view from the windows, he walked the slow course back again, judging by the flow of servants, this time to the lesser dining area, that Hanks had made it that far without destruction of the porcelains and the bouquets.

He walked into the dining room – which forced Hanks, already seated, to rise, in strict atevi etiquette. She sat, which the servants couldn't but remark, her human face and pallid complexion in stark contrast to the whole world he expected to deal with. The dark coat did nothing to diminish the effect; dark coat, dark hair – in the requisite and modest braid.

He bowed. She didn't so much as nod, just sat there, sullen and sober.

"FTL," he said, still standing. "Shall we dispose of that, in Mosphei', and say we've said you made a mistake? Or have you an excuse for that, too?"

"What about it?"

"You mentioned it? Or did Geigi just add figures you gave him?"

Hanks' face remained impassive. "So?"

"So. Is that your excuse? So?"

"I don't have to stay here."

"You can go home in a box if you act the fool much longer. I'm still trying to save your neck."

"From a situation you created."

"I created." A line of servants was piling up at the door, bearing plates. One had to toss the fool into the outer hall or sit down and let the servants do their best to put a social patch on the event. He smiled. He sat. He gathered up all the calm and social grace he had. "Deana, you areamazing. I don't suppose you've devised a universe construct to go with it."

"With what?"

"You can only go so far on bluff, Deana. You're scared. Or you should be. I'd be, if I knew as little as you do. You've not made yourself popular and the servants in this house haven't received a good first impression, so smile." He changed to the atevi language. "Nice weather. Isn't it?"

There was no smile. "I don't have to stay for this."

"No, you can whimper your way home to your apartment." The servants were setting out the plates. "Ah, we've changed seasons today. And the kitchen is doing its best. I amsorry about the phone, Deana. I didn't intend that, but it was my fault."

That only seemed to make her madder. At least the frown deepened. But she stayed put, smiled grimly at the servants who offered her condiments and, the initial flurry of serving out of the room, filled her mouth with the kitchen's not at all bad cooking.

Certainly fancier than the Bu-javid kitchen's fare.

"I wanted actually," he said, "to get a list of persons you've dealt with and what promises you think I should honor. By the way, where's the seal?"

She laid down her utensil, reached into her inside pocket, and pulled out the small metal object. Tossed it at him, on the casted side.

He didn't even try to catch it. He heard it hit the wall. A servant left the doorway to retrieve it, and having looked at it in some dismay, offered it to him.

"Thank you, Madig. It's quite all right. Hanks-paidhi is a little on edge today. Would you deliver that to Algini and tell him what it is?"

"Yes, nand' paidhi," the servant said in a very quiet voice.

"You seem to have quite the life here," Hanks said sweetly.

"Yes," he said, in the atevi mode, unadorned, the sort of thing Jago was wont to do to him. "Quite frankly speaking, Deana, I'm sorry about the phone. I hadn't meant that, but it is my fault. If it were possible for us to ignore the politics that divide us —"

"Mosphei'," she said sharply.

"No, Deana-ji, I don't think our hosts can make sense of us without that critical point of information. I've made it clear we have political differences, I've some hope that after all our interests are the welfare of Mospheira andthe Western Association, and I hope that we can manage to do some work together. As long as you're here, I'd like to offer you the chance to patch up our differences."

"Of course."

"I'm quite serious."

"So am I."

He looked down the table at a very nice human face with a very reserved and inoffensive expression, the sort you practiced along with the language.

"Fine. Doyou know anything about the ship that I don't know?"

"I'm sure I don't."

"Deana."

"Bren, I don't know. I know you're in contact with them."

"Your sources keep you well posted?"

"I've no sources. Just occasional contacts."

"Like hell, Deana. But let's be pleasant. And let me tell you, if you embarrass the people who are dealing with you, you can make very, very serious consequences for them, not to mention yourself."

"Don't talk to me about dealing against regulations."

"I hadn't mentioned regulations. Regulations aren't what's at issue here."

"Damned right youdon't want to talk about regulations. Let me make a proposition to you, Mr. Cameron. You get me contact with Mospheira and we'll see what we can work out. You get the guard taken off my hall. You get me a meeting with Tabini."

"I'd be lying if I said I could get that. You've offended the man, and there's no patching that without action on your part, not mine. I might relay a message of apology."

There was no greater friendliness. There was, however, sober thought.

"Tell him I regret anything that may have offended him. I was afraid he might have done away with you."

"I'm touched."

"Which is the truth, damn you. I didn't know when I came over here whether you were dead, delirious with fever, or held hostage. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I talked to people who might give me other than official information. I triedto get you out of whatever you'd gotten into, in addition to doing your job."

That was at least plausible. Even a reasonable answer. He stared at her, unable to figure if it was something she'd only just thought of or actually the course she'd followed.

"Meaning," he concluded, "you wanted to be a damn hero. The service requires the job, Hanks-paidhi. Just the job, adequately done, nothing flashy."

"So where in hell were you? Malguri? Hunting in the hills with the dowager? Playing the damn hero?"

Nailed him. He didn't flinch from her level stare, but he didn't find anything to say, either, but, "Yes."

"So?"

"Point taken."

A tone of contrition. "I'm terribly sorry I tried to save you."

"I have it coming. Thank you for trying. Now can I persuade you to fly home? I might be able to get you a travel visa."

"I don't think you can, point one. I think the aiji is keeping me in reserve in case things blow up with your negotiations, or in case the next assassin is on target. And, point two, I'm no use there to anyone."

"It's a fairly accurate assessment. I still think I could get you out as a personal favor."

"Don't use up your credit on my account. There's still point two. I'm not going."

In Mosphei': "It's your funeral."

In Ragi: "Funny. Very funny, Cameron."

"If you'd make yourself just halfway useful —"

"Oh, tell me how."

Assign Hanks the mail. Let her affix hername to it, as if she had the office he was bound and determined to see her out of? Not likely. There wasn't damned much else she could touch without being a security risk to Tabini.

"You could write the everlasting reports."

"I could make the television speeches."

"I'm sure you could. But you do have areas of expertise —"

"I write them, you put your own gloss on them and look good."

"You write them, I delete the nonsense and the speculation and if they're useful I may moderate the report I've already sent in on your actions."

"Son of a bitch."

"That's ruder in Ragi than in Mosphei'. You really should watch the cultural contexts."

"You just can't say a pleasant word."

She was quite serious. He had to laugh. The servants took that for a moderately safe cue to refill the teacups.

"I tell you," Hanks said, in Mosphei', after a mouthful of pate and wafer, "high scores and all, I think there's a reason you're such a miracle of linguistic competency. I think you dream in Ragi."

It happened to be true, increasingly so. He found no reason to say so. Hanks was heading for some point of her own choosing.

"Did you know Barbara was going to marry?" Hanks asked in Ragi.

"No. It wasn't one of those things we discussed."

"What did you think? She was going to be there whenever you chanced in, for the rest of her life?"

"Actually, we'd raised the question. But that's Barb's business, not yours."

"I'm just curious."

"I know you are." He had a sip of tea. "You'll have to stay in that condition."

"You know your face doesn't react? Even when you're on Mospheira, you're absolutely deadpan."

"You lose the habit."

A tone of amazement. "You've really adapted, haven't you?"

Nothing Hanks meant was complimentary, he had no doubt. He didn't like this sudden pursuit instead of Parthian retreat, but he had a notion he was about to get an opinion out of Hanks, and maybe an honest one.

"What are you going to do, Bren-nadi? When are you going to come home? Or areyou going to come home?"

"I'll come home once I'm sure some fool isn't going to screw things up, Ms. Hanks."

"How do you define fool?"

"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."

"Oh, you've done more than wait." Hanks propped her chin on the heel of her hand and looked at him. "You're just so good. Just so fluent. Just so damned perfect. Look at you. You don't even question your ethics, do you?"

"Continually. As I trust you question yours."

"You're slipping, you know it? Going right over the edge. What happened to you in Malguri? What happened to the arm?"

"It broke."

"Who broke it?"

"A gentleman who didn't like my origins. That's always a danger."

"You'd rather be atevi, hadn't you?"

They were down to what she'd been stalking, he decided that: it was a tactic, it was no more sincere than the rest, but it still worked a little irritation – there were the servants in earshot, the woman's associations were closet bigots from the outset, and he didn't want Saidin or the staff exposed to that human problem.

"Ms. Hanks, you're a guest. Try courtesy. You'll like the result."

"I'm perfectly serious. I'm asking what happened at Malguri. What they did to you."

"Ms. Hanks —" He was exasperated. And halfway began to suspect the woman was serious. "They were courteous, sensible, and generally but not universally careful of our small size. I'm sorry to disappoint your well-intentioned though prurient curiosity, but I enjoyed the hospitality of an atevi estate, I made the acquaintance of a very gracious lady, we had to run like hell when rebels hit the place, and doubtless my fluency and my riding and my grasp of atevi numerical philosophy improved under fire, but I don't view myself as other than conscientiously human, irrevocably dedicated to the same objectives of technological parity that Wilson and paidhiin before me pursued, and thoroughly convinced that parity will through no fault of our planning occur in our lifetimes. Speak to the ship up there about the schedule if you don't like it. It's given us no damned choice but accelerate and given us a damnably difficult balancing act not to disrupt our economy or the atevi economy. I recall you did your thesis on economic dualism, Ms. Hanks. Let's see you do some creative work on real numbers, real provinces, real production figures. I'll give them to you. Plug those into your computer, produce some changes, and let's see if you're as brilliant without Papa's research staff as you are with it."

"I resent that!"

"My God, the woman has a sensitivity."

"Linguistics isn't the whole picture, Mr. Cameron. Give me the contact to getthe figures. Don't hand me your lame assemblage of data and then blame my results."

A phone line in Deana Hanks' reach wouldn't please his security. Or Tabini's. It didn't please him.

But Deana's one solid expertise – which wasn't his – was alleged to be finance.

Inherited it from Papa, some said. Or cribbed it from Papa's staff. He'd always believed she had. But the indignation was moderately persuasive.

Maybe there was actual, uncredited ability. Maybe there was substance.

"All right," he said. "I'll see what I can turn up for you."

"To put your name on!"

"Deana —" They were down to the bitter wafers and tea, and he swallowed one mostly whole and washed it down. "If you can work us out a course that won't shipwreck us, if you can even get a hint of acceptable schedule, nobody in the Department's going to think I did it. It's your chance, Deana. It's what you do that I can't. Points to your side."

"Damn you." Her clenched fist came down on the table, but it came down in prudent quiet, and the language was Mosphei'. "Damn you, you're promising them everything, you're giving away for freeeverything we have to bargain with."

"Naighai maighi-slii, Deana-ji. Urgent meeting. Prepare your damn vocabulary in advance." He kept his voice ever so calm, didn't look at her, and poured his own tea, no servant venturing near. "You give me the economic report out of the numbers I'll give you in such abundance your head will swim – you pull that off and I'll recommend you for an audience with Tabini, a council citation and a civic medal. Use university resources, use anysource you like, atevi or human, that's not hot for profit on the situation, and put your theory on paper. I'll listen."

"I need the phone," she said in a civil tone.

"I'll talk to security." He took a large swallow, and switched, back to atevi. "But if you launch out on this notion, Deana-ji, and if you hold yourself up to the aiji as competent to do this and he extends you the credit and the contacts to try – you risk, should I fall down the stairs and break my neck, becoming the paidhi who couldn't deliver. Shortly thereafter – the ex-paidhi. Possibly the late, dead, deceased paidhi. Does that worry you?"

"No," Hanks said sharply, though there seemed by now a little prudent fear in that tone. "Not your breaking your neck and not my ability, Mr. Cameron. I want the phones to work. This afternoon."

"I'll do what I can. Note, I don't sayI can. On this side of the strait, it's best to hedge one's promises. You should learn that. But you're in it. Good luck." He stood up, having decided that lunch – and his patience – was over. Hanks stood up, and he walked her to the door.

Jago was there. Jago, who delivered him an absolutely impassive stare and stood aside for him to show Hanks-paidhi to the foyer, into Algini's keeping.

He felt Jago's eyes on his back the entire time. She'd been here again, gone again, and came back, specifically, he suspected, to stand in the hall and listen to the negotiations with Hanks-paidhi, who had not made a good initial impression on Jago, not down in the subway and not by any behavior Jago had just heard.

"Algini-ji," he said to Algini, when he reached the foyer, and the station where Hanks' security, likewise Tabini's, waited. "Hanks-paidhi will go back now. – Good afternoon, Deana."

He offered his hand. He didn't think she'd take it. She surprised him by a light, strong grip and, in Mosphei', "It's Ms. Hanks, Mr. Cameron, thank you very much, I'm not your sister. Try smiling. You look so much nicer that way."

He didn't smile. He didn't appreciate the insulting coquetry, in front of staff, but she escaped with that. He wasn't interested in warfare, now, just the cursed numbers however she came up with them.

And interested in keeping her busy. Giving her a way out with her credibility intact. She had to know that it was an honest offer. It was a critical time, and paidhiin weren't that easy come by: the Foreign Office had years invested in Hanks, and she mightlearn – if she learned fast enough.

Noon had come and gone and he hadn't gotten his call from the ship – which, when he realized it, didn't improve his mood. There were a thousand possible reasons, including procedures aboard the ship, including long debates, including a ship that ran exactly like Mospheira, with no one willing to make a decision.

All the same, he'd hoped for sane and rapid agreement. Tabini had hoped. Doubtless the Space Committee would have hoped, and he had that committee scheduled for this afternoon.

He'd almost rather have Hanks' company instead. And that was going some.

CHAPTER 12

The paidhi didn't regularly speak at committee meetings. He usually sat in the corner in silence – he had a veto, which he didn't intend to use. He had no right to speak, except by invitation of the chairman…

"One understands, Bren-paidhi, that there will be changes, and rapid change. And clearly everything we've done and all materials in production – are subject to cancellation. We've promise of a building program that has no specifications, no design, that we've seen. Does the paidhi have any more information?"

"Nothing yet," he said. "I hope, nadiin, as you all do, that when information comes it will be thorough. Like you, I'm waiting for responses to questions. I'd say – there will be certain materials we'll use; we may go ahead with the launch program as a way to lift materials into orbit. There's still the construction for the launch site, maybe with modifications for the landing craft, unless whatever they propose can land at Shejidan Airport. Which isn't totally outside possibility. But we've yet to see."

"And Mospheira? The phones are down again." That was the representative from Wiigin, coastal and in a position to know when trade wasn't moving. "We take this for ominous."

Clearly Wiigin wasn't the only one to take that for ominous. Lord Geigi was on this committee. He wasn't one that Tabini had wanted on the committee, but lord Geigi did have the mathematical, and more, a scientific background rare for the tashrid.

Geigi didn't look happy. Geigi hadn't looked happy during the entire meeting.

"Nand' paidhi," another member asked, "what of Hanks' advice to expect far-reaching change?"

"Hanks-paidhi has decided to work with my office in certain areas in which she has considerable expertise. Economics, chiefly. She's not expert in space science. Nor, you may have gathered, fluent enough to pick up certain shades of meaning. It was brave of her to come across the strait to take up duties while she believed I might be dead —" He saw no reason to demolish Hanks' reputation with atevi, and gave her her due. "But she's straight out of an office on Mospheira and acquiring experience on the job. Thank you for offering her the help you have." That was for the opposition party, whom he didn't want to embarrass. "I think it exemplary of the peaceful system we've worked out that the office was able to function during the crisis, and I thank you in particular for your patience."

"Her advice has run counter to yours," Geigi said bluntly – and rudely – without the proprieties of address. "What are we to think? That juniors are free to advise us?"

"Our advice should not be that different." He felt giddy, blood as well as breath insufficient, or the heart not beating fast enough. Which seemed impossible. Like falling off a mountain. Like a fast downhill, on an icy slope. You could stop. But you didn't come up there to stop. He'd determined on his attack. He launched it. Cold and clear. "Let me be more clear, lord Geigi: in the State Department, there are divergent opinions: those who view that atevi and humans should always stay separate, a view which Hanks-paidhi has held; and those who believe as I do, that there's no unraveling a society that has become a whole fabric. I'm aware that certain atevi are equally apprehensive of true technological parity as if it were a subterfuge for cultural assimilation. That is the point on which Hanks' party and mine do find agreement: that cultural assimilation is not the ideal and not the target. The traditions and values of atevi are for atevi to keep. We know that attractions and change come with advances —"

"Television," a conservative representative muttered.

"Television," he agreed. "Yes, nadi, television. And we should nothave provided the formats for broadcast and news. Maybe the television stations shouldn't broadcast full time. Maybe we've made mistakes. I'd be the first to agree that following our pattern is attractive, both culturally and economically – my predecessor vetoed the highway bill becausehe viewed it as casting atevi into a human development pattern destructive of atevi associational authority, and, pardon me, he found extremely strong opposition to and resentment of that veto. I've moderated my own view on the matter, I understand that there were and are local situations that should receive exceptions, but that's beside the point: one can't carry local situations into a major, continent-spanning development of a technology that's going to disrupt atevi life. The paidhiin have always opposed that kind of development."

"But the damage is done, nadi. And whereare our traditions?"

"Nadi, I've recently been to the heart of the mainland, to a fortress built before humans ever left their earth – I've lived, as far a modern man can, the life atevi had before the world changed. I didn't come back unscathed, as you see. – Nor did I come back unaffected in my opinions. The course humans and atevi have followed has preserved such places and the land around them, and when we were struggling together for our lives, nadiin, with the shells flying around us, we found our instincts could work together and that we could fear for each others' lives as well as our own."

"All of this aside," the lord of Rigin said, "some would say this was no place for a human."

"Some would say the same of atevi on the station. I disagree, nadi. I agree it's a shaky cooperation. It will bea shaky cooperation, with exceptions to rational behavior, and it will be a carefully circumscribed cooperation, for our lifetimes at least, but consider, nadiin: there is one orbital space, one natural environment in which ships from this planet hope to operate, and we must each adapt to this new environment."

"With your designs. Your history. Your technology. Your path."

"Nadiin, there is one air, and one gravity, and one atmosphere through which airplanes move – atmosphere designs the planes, people don't. Some designs move through the air and stay in the sky more efficiently than others; and if humans had never come here at all, the airplanes you designed would work – in principle – exactly like our airplanes, because they operate under similar conditions. As they grew more efficient, they'd look more and more like our best designs, their controls would look very much like our controls – and the need to communicate about those machines at their speed would change your language, as it has, and change your attitude toward computers, which it has. Computers would have to exist. Television, whether or not you used it for general broadcast, would have to exist to give you efficient sight of things far off. And the ships you built for space would look very like the ship up there, once you've pared away all the nonessentials and adjusted the design to do what you need."

"These needs are still cultural decisions," the head of committee said. "That's why this committee exists. That's why we don't take your lordly designs, nadi, and go and build them exactly as you built them."

"Wisely so, my lord." God, he saw the cliff coming. Geigi was listening, chin on fist, glowering, and he took the jump, knowing the danger. "But cultural needs are one thing. There cannot be mathematical differences in our universes, my lord of Rigin. Physics is physics, whether accommodated by humans or by atevi."