Текст книги "Explorer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“One has known lords of the Association to do the same,” Jago said dryly.

“One has known lords of the Association to be completely paralyzed in such debates.” Recalling the Transportation Committee, of, God! such tame, quiet days. “One wishes they would remain paralyzed, but one fears Braddock-aiji will not act like the Presidenta of Mospheira—more like one of the ship-aijiin, without consultation. If he lets passengers board us, he will attempt to infiltrate his agents among them. I expect that, next. But the ship has foreseen unruly passengers, and installed precautions. So that becomes a smaller worry.” Crew had spent their voyage reorganizing systems and isolating those decks: granted anything less than a nuclear device, what happened on those decks should be limited to those decks. Switches governing air circulation, light, and temperature were all governed from the ship’s bridge. “One hardly knows, Jago-ji, what Braddock-aiji will do. Or what that ship out there will do.” He adjusted his cuffs. He had one of the most essential jobs of his life before him. “One assumes the dowager expects a report before I get to work.”

“She says: Visit when you have ascertained the nature and quality of this foreigner. Her own bodyguard has reported to her.”

Common sense and her own channels. Thank God. The dowager was a veteran of fast maneuvering and practical necessity.

“Shall we go with you to deal with this foreigner, Bren-ji? We both strongly urge it.”

“I entertain no other thought, Jago-ji,” he murmured. His initial session with their guest might be lengthy and tedious, and he wished his staff might snatch a little rest; but they were, themselves, skilled observers, and they had the strength and size and foreignness to keep their guest focused on communication, not thinking he could overwhelm a small individual of the same species that had kept him caged for six years.

So, yes, he decided his staff’s help might be a good thing.

Banichi joined them on their way down the corridor, Banichi and Jago neither one having yet found time to change to less businesslike kit, except to put away the heavier weapons and the heavy jackets. They had likely gone straight to a debriefing with Cenedi, which might already have involved the dowager—he rather bet that it had.

“One can observe our guest by way of the security station,” Banichi informed him, “should you wish to do that unnoticed, Bren-ji.”

“Excellent,” he said. Surprised that his staff had arranged surveillance? Not in the least. Narani’s cabin, so graciously tendered, had given their guest adequately sized furniture, an atevi-scale bed—and by fairly fast and discreet work, had given them direct surveillance on a monitor in the security station, where Asicho kept faithful watch.

“He has paced out the room, nandi,” Asicho reported when they stopped there to observe. “He has investigated the switches, tested the mattress, the chair and the cabinets, which are emptied, nothing damaged. He has bathed and dressed in one of Bindanda’s robes and nightshirts.” Tape accompanied this report, a quick skip through key actions, and a sequence of their guest in the bath, gray-skinned, with heavy folds that might indicate, unlikely as it seemed, given such a bulk, emaciation. Embarrassing, perhaps, to observe an individual in such a state, but necessary for their collective well-being.

“One fears they didn’t feed him near enough, nadiin-ji,” Bren murmured. “Or perhaps the station food disagrees with his stomach. We shall endeavor to better that. Advise Bindanda.”

“Yes,” Asicho said smartly, and did that.

In subsequent scenes their robe-clad guest drank multiple cups of water, five cups, as Asicho commented, before testing the bed gingerly and lying down.

Evolved in conditions of more water, rather than less. More vegetation rather than minimal, one might then guess. High water need. Heavy skin, the evolutionary value of which eluded his meager study. He wished he’d borne down just a little more on the theoretical end of his biology classes, back in his monofocussed youth. If a fact hadn’t applied to atevi, in his youthful arrogance, he hadn’t been interested. Now he was extremely sorry.

“Narani-nadi has discreetly estimated his size for better tailoring, nandi,” Asicho said sotto voce. “Bindanda is attempting to construct suitable clothing as quickly as possible.”

“A very good idea,” Bren said, with a mental image of their guest in atevi court attire. But who knew? Being dressed like his hosts would surely be a psychological improvement over the prison garb, an evidence of better fortunes.

“He seems in many points like us, nandi.”

“That he does,” Bren said. Four limbs, a similar musculature to move them, an upright stance and the spinal curve and gait that kept a bipedal creature from falling over. A not exclusively vegetarian dentition, Banichi informed him: meat was likely, then, on his menu.

And jaw curvature and fine control of tongue and throat for articulate speech? In that broad face, yes, likely so. In that large head and that ship waiting out there for six years, definitely a brain and a sense of purpose, however he communicated.

Eyes, two. Nose, useful to any species, short, broad, positioned above, not below, the mouth, a sensible design, in a human’s estimation.

A bullet head that sat down onto huge shoulders. Broad grasping hands, flat, broad feet that certainly weren’t going to fit into any boots they owned—nature of the toes wasn’t clear.

Huge rib cage. One assumed it protected the breathing apparatus and that digestion fit rather lower into the frame, the finish of that process as far from the intake as anatomy could manage, simply to give chemistry as much time to work as feasible… again, a reasonable arrangement, as seemed.

Sex indeterminate in folds of skin, if the location of the distinction was involved neither with respiration nor digestion, and the young, connected with that process, had to get out of the body somehow: again, design seemed to follow gravity. He as a pronoun was a convenience, not a firm conviction.

And while gravity and the need for locomotion, perception, and manipulation of the environment (wasn’t that what his professors had said?) might make biological entities look rather more alike than not—gravity had nothing in particular to do with the mind, the language, or the attitudes of a long cultural history, which could be damnably soft, mutable, and difficult to predict.

His professors would be highly useful right now. He wished he had the whole resources of the University on Mospheira, and their labs and their committees, to back him up.

He wished they were safely back in orbit around their own planet and he could take years doing this.

But they weren’t, and he couldn’t. He gathered himself up with a deep breath. “Do not hesitate to notify us, Asi-ji,” he said to Asicho, “if there should be any word from Jase or the dowager on any account.”

“One will be closely attentive, nandi,” Asicho assured him softly.

He left, Banichi and Jago close on his heels…

And outside, he discovered Cenedi. So the dowager was interested, and not entirely patient.

And with Cenedi and his two men came a very unofficial presence, Cajeiri, tagging the dowager’s men at a safe distance, looking as inconspicuous as possible. And—one should note, who hoped for quiet and sanity—Cajeiri stood eavesdropping, toy car in hand.

“The dowager inquires,” Cenedi said.

“I am proceeding immediately,” Bren said.

Cajeiri noted that look. “Might one just see this foreigner, nand’ Bren?”

Cenedi bent a stern look aside and down.

But, it flashed across Bren’s mind—in the naivete of that question: in the extreme pressure of time, to convince another species that one was not a warlike, ravening enemy—dared one think?

Dared one remotely think a child might be useful?

“Perhaps the dowager might permit him, Cenedi-nadi. What if we were to work on this foreigner what we worked upon Becker-nadi? What if this foreigner were to see we have young children and elder statesmen aboard?”

His own staff looked at him, appalled. Cenedi looked decidedly uneasy. “Hurrah!” Cajeiri cried.

Yet was it not the case, the paidhi asked himself? The fragile, troublesome side of every intelligent species must be its young—young in an intelligent species requiring a prolonged learning phase. Young who were apt to do any damned thing. Young who routinely made naturally forgivable mistakes.

How best, without words, to demonstrate one’s pacific intent, than to show one’s softer side? The dowager had rarely come under that description. But she could manage a grand graciousness. The ship’s crew venerated her.

“Perhaps, Cenedi-nadi, we shall invite our guest to the dining hall for refreshments—tired though our guest may be, he would surely like to know his situation, and perhaps we can demonstrate our hospitality. Perhaps the young aiji might indeed come and bring his toy. Though it is a very adult business, and the young aiji must bear extreme tedium with extraordinary patience. Perhaps the dowager herself would come and observe.”

Cenedi looked worried. “One will certainly relay this invitation, nandi.”

An invitation unwritten, testing the limits of atevi courtesy: but Cenedi clearly had no doubt the dowager would be amenable, and laying her own schemes on her next breath.

“Shall we speak to this foreigner, nadiin-ji?” Cajeiri asked.

“Perhaps,” Bren said, “we may convince him even our youngest are civilized and polite.”

“A subterfuge,” Cajeiri said with restrained excitement. “A subterfuge, Cenedi-nadi?”

“His new word,” Cenedi said, and to the offspring: “If mani agrees, you may be present and you may speak, young lord, but judiciously , and one does not believe the paidhi-aiji intends civility as a hollow subterfuge.”

“Yes, Cenedi-nadi!”

“We shall ask your great-grandmother,” Cenedi said—indeed, ask the dowager, who thought a headlong ride down a rocky mountain was sport, at her age. Cajeiri worshipfully tagged Cenedi down the corridor toward the dowager’s door.

Bren looked at Banichi and Jago, knowing– knowing that he was about to test the limits of reasonable risk and his staff’s resources. He would assuredly have his own fragile neck at risk, and if he showed a potential enemy their softer side, he also showed that enemy a softer target—not even figuring it might go all wrong and he might offend or disgust the individual they had to reach. There were no certainties. The fact was, there were no facts to work on: they had the what, but not a shred of the why.

“Safeguard the dowager and the heir at utmost priority. I insist, nadiin-ji. They would be the soft target, if I make any mistake. You will give me an opportunity to retreat. And I assure you, I promise you, I promise you twice and three times—I shall run.”

“One agrees,” Banichi said—viscerally as hard for his own bodyguard, that promise to abandon him, as a leap off a cliff. All instincts warred against leaving him. But they were not slaves to those instincts. They understood him. “Yes,” Jago said flatly.

“Nadi-ji.” A little bow. He trusted word was already passing, from them to Asicho, from Asicho to both staffs. Information flowed, swirled about them, a constant bath of attention and preparation.

And he walked calmly toward that other door, bent on testing the waters before he committed their more fragile elements. He rang for admission, as if their guest had any control over his own door, before Banichi reached out to the button and unceremoniously opened it.

Their guest, dressed in Bindanda’s blue bathrobe, met them on his feet, apprehensive, to judge by the rapid pace of the nostril slits. The room smelled of hot pavement.

“Good afternoon,” Bren said in Mosphei’, showing empty hands and making a small bow—aversion of the gaze was a fairly reasonable, though not universal, indication of quiet intent. He laid a hand on his own chest, avoiding a rude stare in this formal meeting, experimenting shyly with eye contact. A glance seemed accepted, maybe expected, though met with a stony stare in a face that held little emotion.

“Bren. Bren is my name.” A flourish of a lace-cuffed hand toward his staff. “Banichi. Jago.” An expectant, hopeful flourish toward their guest.

Who simply turned his back.

Well. There was a communicative gesture.

“Be respectful,” Banichi said in a low voice, in Ragi; but Bren made a quiet, forbidding gesture.

“Have patience, nadiin-ji. His treatment by humans was hardly courteous. It’s a very small defiance. Perhaps even a respectful dispute, in his own terms. Let me see.” He walked over to the corner of the room, gaining at least a view of their guest’s profile, a precarious proximity, though he had Banichi and Jago looming at his left.

“We would like to take you to your ship,” he said quietly, soothingly, to that averted shoulder. “We wish to take the occupants of the station onto this ship and leave this station. We are here to help, not hurt.”

It was a lengthy speech, in Ragi, certainly pure babble to alien ears. But it won a direct gaze, sidelong and, dared one think, perhaps reckoning that that was not the language, and therefore not the culture, he had met before.

“We hope you will be comfortable aboard until we can arrange your return to your ship,” Bren said in a low, talking-to-children tone, still in Ragi. “Narani, the senior director of my staff, has disarranged himself to provide you this comfort, giving you his own bed. Do treat his cabin with respect. He’s a very fine gentleman, and offers you the use of objects which he greatly values.”

A profile, now. A mouth like a vise, a brow that lowered over large eyes to shadow them—not actually an unpleasant face, once one tried earnestly to see the symmetry of it. But Jago had warned him there were very good teeth, and he could see for himself the huge hands, a grasp which had challenged even Banichi’s strength.

“We talked to your ship,” Bren said, this time in ship-speak. He kept the vocabulary small and repetitive and the syntax very basic. “They showed us pictures, how station took you. Your ship says bring you back. We say yes. We leave this station. We take all the people out of this station and go. We want peace with you and this ship.”

Now the full face, as their guest turned to face him—a scowl, was it, or a friendly face in sullen repose? And did turning toward him and meeting his eyes express courteous attention, or defiant insult?

Massive hand went to massive chest. “Prakuyo.”

“Prakuyo.—Bren.” He made a bow: one didn’t hold out an intrusive hand, not with atevi, at first meeting, and not to any foreigner, in his opinion, without knowing the other party’s concept of body space and invasion. On the contrary, he kept his hands to himself and dropped his eyes for a moment, primate respect, before looking up. “Do you understand, Prakuyo? We take you to your ship.”

The jaw remained clenched.

But the eyes darted aside in alarm as a disturbance reached the open door.

A very junior disturbance, as might be, who brought up short and wide-eyed, and who for a moment distracted him, distracted their guest– not , however, Banichi, as Jago alone gave a measured look at the doorway.

One hardly needed guess Cajeiri had escaped the dowager’s party.

“This is the foreigner,” Cajeiri surmised.

“Young lord,” Bren said, now that his pulse rate had slowed, “kindly go back to Cenedi. Immediately.”

“He’s as large as we are,” Cajeiri said, marveling. The heir, highly overstimulated by the situation and long bored, was being a seven-year-old brat.

“Go,” Jago said, just that, and the boy ducked back out of sight.

“Pardon. He’s a child,” Bren said calmly, as their guest continued to gaze at the vacant doorway—as if, next, fairies and unicorns could manifest. Interesting, Bren thought. Even encouraging. “This room is in our ship. We live here. This is not a prison.”

Prakuyo, if that was his name, turned a burning look his way.

“Do you understand?” Bren asked him. “Six years on the station—I think you might have learned good morning, hello, goodbye .”

“Damn dumb shit,” Prakuyo muttered, in a voice that sounded like rocks hitting together.

Had he just heard that? Damn dumb shit .

Yes, he had heard that. So much for good morning, good afternoon and other station attempts to establish communication.

“ Thank you,” Bren said all the same, and made a bow. “Go home . Does that make sense?”

“Madison.” It wasn’t a particularly happy tone.

“Do you want Madison?” Bren asked. That was the person who’d been in charge in that prison. He laid a hand on his own chest. “Bren, not Madison. I don’t know Madison. I make the law here. Do you want Madison?”

“Madison.” Prakuyo hit fist into palm, not a good indicator for Madison.

“Bren,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “Thank you.” Another bow. And the paidhi-aiji, in a sense of timing that had served well enough among atevi, made a wide decision—that even a small advance in communication had to be rewarded, that body language and cooperation indicated they dared run the risk of a boy not being where he was supposed to turn up. He recklessly indicated the door and trusted his staff together could flatten their guest, if they had to. “Come, Prakuyo. Walk with me. Outside.”

That upset their guest’s sense of the universe. Nostrils worked hard. Need for more oxygen was a basic biological preface to high action, one could take that for a fair guess, but it could also accompany decision. Bren walked easily, cheerfully, to the door, bowed his courtly best and made a clear gesture of invitation outward—spying, in the process, a clear corridor.

Their guest advanced to the door. And ventured out. Bren showed him the way down the corridor, walking with him, Banichi and Jago a little behind.

“We live in these rooms,” Bren said, gesturing left and right, prattling on mostly to keep the tone easy as they walked. “My companions are atevi. I’m human. Not station-human. I live on this ship. What are you, Prakuyo?”

He got no answer to that attempt, not the dimmest hint of understanding. Prakuyo lumbered slowly forward, with heavy swings of his head and shifts of dark, large eyes, taking in every detail of a corridor Narani had done his best to render kabiu and harmonious. Certainly it had to be better to alien eyes than the sterile prison section: a little table, a few hangings… one hanging, to be sure, harmonizing the troublesome dent.

“Come in,” Bren said, showing their guest through the door into their dining hall.

Again, not ship-bland. Atevi-scale chairs sat around a large table. A tapestry runner relieved the sterile modernity of the arrangement. Wall hangings provided a sense of space and harmony. A graceful vase sat in the center of the table—a moveable object, Bren noted. It held lush greenery, from Sandra Johnson’s now wide-spread cuttings.

Prakuyo stood stock still.

Bren laid claim to Banichi’s ordinary chair on the doorward side—his security had hammered home such points with him; Banichi and Jago stood, not inclined to sit down, but their looming over the table intimated a threat that scarcely helped.

“Do sit, nadiin-ji,” Bren said quietly. Their guest picked a central chair on the opposite side and sat down… whether that was his preferred posture or not: the chairs here were at least of a scale that would bear his weight.

Prakuyo was cooperating, at least… cooperating, possibly, to learn what he could before making a break for the vase as a weapon. But they couldn’t act as if they expected that. Prakuyo’s momentary attention was for the vase—or the greenery, that anomaly in this steel world. His eyes showed numerous frown lines, a clue, at least, that the general lighting might be too bright.

“Jago-ji, dim the light a little.”

Jago rose and did that, and Prakuyo looked up, the frown lines relaxing.

The lights might be too bright, the air pressure was probably a little lower than their guest truly liked, but the cooler temperatures seemed not to bother him. He’d had all the water he wanted, on the whole, surely that brought an improvement in his mood.

“The station was not good to you,” Bren said, deliberately rattling on, to see if the vocabulary provoked a reaction—or whether their guest’s comprehension went beyond single words, to syntax. “Station did bad. Were you angry with them?”

Silence.

“Or were you angry at the ship?” Bren asked. “Did the ship go somewhere they shouldn’t have gone? Did they do something that offended you? Something that scared you?”

Silence still.

“Can I ask him what his name is?” Cajeiri turned up at the door. Another skip of the heart.

“One believes you have just done so, young sir. And his name seems to be Prakuyo. But if he doesn’t understand my language, I very much doubt he understands yours. Have you brought your car?”

Cajeiri brought it from behind him. Their guest looked alarmed.

“Run it end to end of the table,” Bren said.

“Shall I use the remote, nandi?”

Bright lad.

“You can. Just run it very slowly down the table.”

Down the sacred dining table. That was a daring enterprise. Cajeiri took the remote from his pocket, which Prakuyo watched apprehensively, and operated his car very slowly, quite circumspectly.

Bren paid all considerate attention to the toy, which made its way at a jerky pace past the antique vase of greenery and into his hands.

“Now call it back.”

Cajeiri did that. Grind and whir. Wobble and correct. The car did far better with grand movements, and one so hoped the young fingers would keep the rate steady and not zip it into their guest’s lap. By now Cenedi’s men were in the doorway, watching this performance.

Their guest, Bren marked in his peripheral vision, had looked ready to bolt at the first manifestation of the car, and at the remote control, and now just stared as the toy zigged and zagged and trundled safely back down the table.

“And back again,” Bren said. While the fate of worlds trembled in the balance, while armed security outnumbered the civilians. And while a traumatized foreigner watched a child’s toy wobble down a table top.

“Does he want to try it?” Cajeiri wanted to know.

“One hopes not to offend our guest’s dignity,” Bren said. “But our guest should know we do other things less terrible than shoot at those who don’t look like us, should he not?” He smiled. Deliberately. “Are we having fun, young lord?”

“Shall I make it go fast now?”

“Slowly,” Banichi said in his low tones. “Slowly.”

Surely if Cajeiri were demonstrating the car for another boy, fast would have been very impressive. But Cajeiri, despite one accidental spurt, dutifully concentrated on keeping the movement slow. And at that moment Bindanda excused his way past Cenedi’s two men, bearing a tray with a sizeable pitcher of ice water, and fine crystal cups, and a pile of white sugar cakes that smelled of fresh icing and recent baking.

“Excellent,” Bren said. Whirr went the car, rapidly back to Cajeiri. But the car was forgotten. Their guest’s attention was on those cakes.

“Danda-ji. Thank you.”

Their guest duly accepted a crystal cup of water, formally served, sipped it with restraint, accepted an atevi-sized tea cake, eyes sparkling with animation and excitement.

Dared one think that tea cakes had not regularly been on the station’s menu, for their prisoner? That for most of ten years, the fare had been ship-fare, bland yeasts and synth?

Cajeiri wanted his tea cake, too, but waited, hushed, toy car tucked out of the way, waiting his turn as Bindanda served all round, served Banichi and Jago as well, and deftly replenished Prakuyo’s cup with ice water.

“A welcome to our guest,” Bren said then, lifting his cup in salute. “ Welcome , Prakuyo-nadi.”

“Welcome,” Cajeiri said in great enthusiasm, and likewise lifted his cup.

Could such an immensely strong hand tremble? It did, and spilled water over the rim of the cup. Prakuyo drained another icewater, crunched the ice in, yes, very healthy grinding teeth behind those incisors—definitely an omnivore—and followed it with the cake. Bindanda poured yet another water, and with a re-offer of the plate, indicated Prakuyo should take more tea cakes, until he had fortunate three—in such arcane ways culture manifested itself.

Then their guest looked doubtfully at Bren, perhaps realizing he had just forgotten that cardinal precaution appropriate in prisoners—that he had just ingested doubtful cakes and suspicious ice water.

Greenery. Cakes with natural sweetness. Greatly appreciated: Prakuyo, or at least his culture, was not that long divorced from blue sky.

“It’s safe,” Bren said, lifted his cup and drank, and took a bite of cake. “ Tea cake . Safe. Eat.”

Prakuyo ate another, no question. The cakes disappeared, each almost at a bite.

“More tea cake?” Bren asked. “Danda-ji, perhaps an assortment of breads and cheese as well. A small offering of meat. One can’t know his customs. Provide a picture of the game offering, so he may know what it is.”

“Nandi.” Bindanda bowed and took the service and tray away for a refill.

Prakuyo’s gaze traveled after him, dared one say, with longing and deep thought centered on those tea cakes—perhaps telling himself that these tall black ones were very different from little varigated humans, offering much better cuisine.

“He’ll bring more food,” Bren said. Certain needs were, if not wholly satisfied with mother’s cooking and a sight of home, at least assuaged. Their guest’s facade of glum indifference had given way. That was a success. They had a few words, reinforced with food—dared they say their guest knew a Ragi word now, for tea cake? The situation with Gin and the fuel remained unresolved. God only knew what the Guildmaster and Jase were were doing with each other. But the paidhi’s universe shrank necessarily to this deck, this room, this table, and he carefully, slowly, drew out of his inner coat pocket a few folded sheets of precious paper, and out of his outer right pocket a writing kit.

In fair sketch, on a blank sheet of paper, he drew a burning sun, a planet, a station, a ship tied to the station with an umbilical, just exactly their situation.

“The world and the sun,” Cajeiri said helpfully in Ragi, leaning, elbows on table, past Jago. Then: “Is it our ship, or his ship?”

“Shall we see?” In Ragi. Then in ship-speak. “Ship,” Bren said. “Sun. Planet. Ship. Station. Here.” He tapped the table, waved a hand about the room. “Ship.”

“Ship,” Prakuyo said suddenly, explosive on the p , which alone distinguished that word from his other notable ship-speak phrase. “Bren ship.”

“Human and atevi ship. Human station.” Bren drew another ship, far distant, off to the edge of the paper. “Prakuyo ship.”

Prakuyo paid burning, deep attention to that.

“Shall you not ask him where he lives, nandi?”

Surely when the legendary paidhiin of the past had done their work, they’d done it without an inquisitive boy at hand.

But the toy, at least, was useful. “Car,” he said, in ship-speak, and indicated the car in Cajeiri’s possession. “Kindly make it run again, young lord, slowly.” Cajeiri ran it. “The car goes.” All the way to the end of the table. “The car turns. The car comes back.”

Not a helpful word out of their subject, but Prakuyo watched intently.

“Station.” This was the vase. And the drawing. “Ship.” This was the car. One hoped the capacity for abstraction existed in Prakuyo’s kind. One rather expected that basic gift in spacefarers. “Send the car to the end of the table, young lord. Just so.” In ship-speak: “The ship goes.” In Ragi: “Now to the vase, young lord, if you please.” In ship-speak. “Bren’s ship goes to the station.”

“Bren’s ship goes,” Prakuyo said obligingly, fighting a valiant battle with the consonants. “To the station.”

Bren drew hasty tall stick figures on the paper. Numerous. With a loop that made a station. “Human. Human go human ship.” Never mind grammar. Finesse came later. He had Prakuyo’s attention. “Prakuyo go Prakuyo’s ship.”

Long concentration. Tension, Bren much feared. Worlds hung in the balance.

The car whirred. Jerked forward on the table. Cajeiri grabbed it. Hugged it close, wide-eyed. Banichi’s attention and Jago’s was immaculately for Prakuyo.

“One is very sorry, nandi.” This from Cajeiri, with the offending car hugged tight.

And just about that moment there was quiet noise outside—Bindanda, Bren thought at first, and their second snack. But the approaching tap of a cane foretold a more notable intrusion. He rose, and Banichi and Jago did, Cajeiri, too, and bowed, as, sure enough, Ilisidi arrived, with Cenedi. The dowager bent a forbidding look at her great-grandson, then a benign and gracious one toward their guest, who slowly got to his feet and gave a little bow himself.

“Well, well,” Ilisidi said, clearly pleased, leaning on her cane, surveying the room. “Present this person, nandi.”

“This is Prakuyo, nand’ dowager. One fears communication is at a minimum.”

“Nonsense.” Ilisidi said cheerfully, and moved to take the seat at the head of the table, Cenedi assisting her with the chair. “He has a sense of courtesy; we shall manage. Sit. Sit, Cenedi. Make us a fortunate number. My great-grandson with his foolish toy will have us a war before we achieve understanding. Say to this individual that we consider war is foolish. That we offer alternatives. Let us get to the point, nand’ paidhi. Let us get this individual to his ship and get your troublesome relations to fuel us and get themselves aboard, shall we not?”

“Nandi.” Bren gave a little bow, then sank into his chair as others did, feeling overwhelmed.

And yet—weren’t they well on their way? Wasn’t it, after all, the ability to wish one another well—civilized and peaceful?

“One very much regrets the car, mani-ma.” This from a great-grandson whose whole universe still revolved around his own mistakes, his own necessities.

“We are quite sure,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her hand.

And in the next moment Bindanda hastened through the door with tea cakes and offerings of bread, seasoned curd and meat. With an illustration of the fish involved… wise choice. In no wise an intelligent-looking fish.