Invitations

by C. J. Cherryh

  Ending with, yes, finally, mild amusement. He was sure of it.

  “You will provide this offer as a written report.”

  He bowed. “Nand’ aiji.”

  “Has your staff provided you a good coat?”

  Suspicion flashed through his mind, on that question, that it was not the Director of the Office of Bujavid Services who had decided to send him staff. Had Wilson had that offer?

  Or was the offer, and their actions, the aiji’s idea?

  “Tea,” Tabini said. “Tomorrow afternoon, just after lunch, upstairs, in our apartment. And you will bring the proposals in writing.”

  “Nand’ aiji.” Yet another bow.

  Tabini waved his hand, the opposite of the summoning motion. And that was that.

  Bren backed a couple of steps— one did, when there was that great a difference in rank. Then he turned and walked quietly toward the doors. The guards opened them, the outside guards turned to frame his exit, and he found himself out in the ornate hall, walking away... because if he stopped, if he momentarily stopped to think— he was going to have the aiji’s bodyguards staring at his back, and reporting that the paidhi seemed upset.

  Upset. Shaken. He thought he’d gotten out creditably. Tomorrow...

  Tea, for God’s sake.

  Moni and Taigi had gone back downstairs. He headed for the specific lift that had brought him, he pushed the button for the lowermost floor, where he had started. It took him down, opened...

  No Moni. No Taigi. Nobody.

  He looked down the hall. It had been a lengthy set of twists and turns getting to the lifts.

  And he didn’t half remember them.

  He was effectively lost. Or damned close to it. And there were no offices in this section, no open doors, no foot traffic to stop and ask, only a couple of people as they were walking here— and none at all now.

  He made his best guess. He turned right and walked, and took the second left.

  Not the turn he should have taken. He ended up in a hallway of small numbered rooms. Retracing his path brought him back to his starting point, and he tried a left turn a little farther on.

  That led him, by two wrong turns, to the kitchens, but from the wrong side, nothing like the counter outlet near his office.

  He had to do this route again tomorrow. He had to find his way not to the main hall, but to the aiji’s own apartment. He had to do it flawlessly and on time, and he could not gain a reputation for confusion and look like a fool.

  Hell, no, he was not going to ask the kitchen staff to guide him back to his office.

  He certainly was not going to call Bujavid security for help.

  It took him most of another hour to get to the other side of the kitchens. But he remembered the halls better this time. He had a section of them mapped in his mind, and to be sure, he walked all the way back within view of the lifts, then took the other corridor, and mapped the halls that branched off that.

  One led him to the mail room and the counter... where there was traffic. And offices.

  That included his office, and that included, in his office, Moni and Taigi— who, instead of sensibly waiting for him upstairs, in the hall, or where the lift let out, had left him stranded.

  Moni was sitting in his chair, and Taigi on the edge of his desk, the two in mid-conversation.

  They got up, immediately sober, and bowed.

  He walked in, walked past them. His immediate inclination was to frown and stand staring at them. But he didn’t. On an instant’s impulse, he made his face completely expressionless, as atevi did when they were not going to negotiate, and often when they were not in the least happy. He stood. He stared.

  And he said absolutely nothing, thinking, now that they had not waited at all. No. They had gone right back down, right back to the office, and left him to sort it out.

  Someone was testing him, and it wasn’t, in fact, Moni and Taigi who most wanted to know how he would react.

  He’d just met the man who would want to know that.

  Would he lose his temper— as well as his bearings? Would he find his way— or have to be led? Or would he call security? Raise another alarm? Panic? Throw a tantrum once he found his servants?

  Instinct wanted to say, to Moni and Taigi, I see the game. I know you’re not responsible.

  But he wasn’t on Mospheira. He wasn’t dealing with humans. He was, for the rest of his life, with occasional trips home, assigned to be here, dealing with Tabini-aiji, turning over enough human technology to keep the world advancing at a comfortable rate, and not enough to destabilize the arrangement they had. Radar wasn’t the only thing in the proposal he’d sent to State. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere if he didn’t figure how to react, and when not to react, and just let the opposition figure.

  Meanwhile— his servants were not his friends. Atevi didn’t form friendships. They had their own reasons, and orders from their central office were definitely part of those reasons. He was relatively sure now who was calling the shots.

  Tabini-aiji wanted one answer— are you Wilson? Do you solve problems like Wilson?

  He said, eventually, to his servants: “One is requested to be at tea with the aiji tomorrow, just after the lunch hour. Will the brocade be too much?”

  Taigi said, very quietly: “It will do very well, paidhi.”

  They’d had orders in the clothing purchase, too, he strongly suspected.

  Tea with Tabini wasn’t going to be a walkover, either. He’d prepared himself with facts, programs, the ability to ask and answer. He’d thought Wilson’s policy of dealing only in writing was inability to cope with the mathematics.

  He’d thought he was fast enough, fluent enough, to talk to Tabini-aiji. That it would avoid misunderstandings.

  If that were all— yes. He could.

  That smile. That expression. That amusement— not really at his expense, he had that sense— but because Tabini-aiji was actively enjoying himself.

  Deep, slow breath. He had to admit it— so, in fact, had he been enjoying the give and take. And he hadn’t lost his way or let Tabini bluff him into retreat. Tabini had force on his side— Tabini always had force, and guns: that went with who he was— the man ran nine tenths of the planet— but that wasn’t how Tabini had approached business with the new paidhi, either.

  Are you Wilson?

  Or what are you, paidhi? How do you react? Do you get angry? How do you treat your subordinates?

  Mutual curiosity, nand’ aiji. Will you try threats, next, or can we get past that?

  I’m not Wilson. You’ve figured that.

  And you admit you’re working on science beyond what we’ve officially turned over to you. You had no trouble at all grasping the technology I offered. You’re no technophobe. Some atevi are. You aren’t.

  We can steer the world, Tabini-aiji, we can steer the whole world onto a productive track, or a bad one. And I have a report already written, already translated. It’s ready.

  Has your staff provided you a good coat?

  He gave a very little laugh. His servants looked at him, worried.

  “Lunch, nadiin-ji,” he said. He added, deliberately, that little particle that was the closest safe expression of attachment, and smiled slightly, pleasantly, letting them wonder— whether he was upset, how much he knew, and what he was going to do about it.

  Dear Moni. Dear Taigi. I’m going to need that wardrobe.

  Go to tea tomorrow, was what he was going to do about it. Tea was for light conversation, pleasant conversation— before anyone could get down to real business. That was the way atevi did things.

  Tea brought him one rung up a long ladder, that was what. Tea would be another test, this time of his manners, his understanding of atevi gesture, symbol, and custom.

  Keeping his cuffs clean would be a good start.

  More from Closed Circle

  Books we offer

  Science Fiction:

  C.J. Cherryh: Heavy Time, Hellburner, part of th
e Alliance-Union universe. Deliberations: a Foreigner Short Story. Coming soon: Rimrunners, a major companion piece to Downbelow Station and Cyteen.

  Jane S. Fancher: ’NetWalkers series: a star-spanning regime threatened with meltdown—at the hands of a dead woman, a rebel, and a young man who’s gotten far too mentally connected to the subspace network for his own sanity.

  Fantasy:

  C.J. Cherryh: Faery Moon: if a man’s only friend is a pooka and he’s broken elvish rules, his future is in doubt.

  The Rusalka trilogy: involving a dead girl and her living lover, a young wizard, and all the magic of old Russia.

  Jane S. Fancher: Ringdancers: steam-driven fantasy, a dynastic struggle, magic and the delightful Mother and Dancer: Ring of Lightning, Ring of Intrigue, Ring of Change, and Alizant.

  Blood Red Moon: urban fantasy, vampires, and, well, cats.

  Lynn Abbey: Orion’s Children: urban fantasy, time travel and curses—with her inimitable grasp of history, here and otherwhere.

  Daughter of the Bright Moon: a daughter of the steppes refuses to die with her tribe. The Wooden Sword, the beginning of the Walensor Chronicles, a prince of a magical realm born under the unluckiest of omens.

  Nonfiction:

  C.J. Cherryh: The Writing Life: a blow-by-blow diary account of a new domicile in the great northwest, two writers, faithful cats, and what really goes on in the head of a writer.

  Reefs and Marine Fish Tanks: How To — one of C.J.’s other passions: years of experience, greatly condensed.

  With more books likely to show up at any given moment. We stick to no schedule. We’re writers first. Always!

  Find us at http://www.closed-circle.net —remember dot-net and that hyphen! It’s tricky.

  There are some free downloads and access to our Café Press store, where you can get merchandise with our logos and covers.

  Not forgetting our closely-connected blog/discussion-groups, either, to which all our readers are welcome. Closed Circle and cherryh.com both have links to take you there, and you are very welcome to join us. We talk about writing, the books, science, ponds, life and the universe, ball-jointed dolls and whatever else we’re doing at the time.

  Bonus Sneak Peak

  ’NetWalkers

  by J.S. Fancher

  A Ride on the Wild Side

  One look at Marani’s Stinger explained Smith’s abrupt turnaround.

  With star-strewn space waiting overhead and the station’s hull beneath him, Jean-Phillippe could only look on in envy as Smith settled into the Stinger’s sleek saddle and adjusted the straps. Smith’s hopper, the one behind whose dash he sat, was a good machine. State of the art, as he’d expect from Smith, but the gleaming red and gold Stinger was a custom job, and from the way Rani’s gloved fingers deftly adjusted the main engine settings, he could guess who the customizing mechanic had been.

  “You be careful, Smith.” Her voice, coming over the suit’s speaker, held the tone of an over-protective mother sending her only child out on a first date.“Hear me?”

  Smith’s gloved hands caressed the handlebars. “TLC, darlin.’” The helmeted head turned toward him and in the suit’s internal light, he saw the gleam of excitement on Smith’s face. “You set, JP?”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Marani tapped off Smith’s leg and shot over to the third hopper they’d extracted from the hangar, a virtual carbon copy of the one he straddled, save for color. His was red and gold, hers blue and silver. While she strapped herself in, he inserted the key card in Smith’s machine, and checked the thrusters. Once assured of all systems, he set the thrusters to idle, tapped the mooring pin with his boot to release the tie-down clamps, and gave a slight shove with both feet, setting the hopper in a conservative, non-powered launch.

  Once free of the station’s hull, he eased power into the thrusters, testing balance and maneuverability. It was, as he suspected, a hotter vehicle of its type than he’d ever ridden, but not (he rapidly determined) beyond his ability to handle.

  “How’s it feel?” Smith’s voice asked in his ear.

  “Sweet,” he answered. “Very sweet indeed.”

  “Take a bow, Rani.”

  “Bow, shmow, you just watch my fenders!”

  The distinctive vibration of a powered launch as heard from inside a pressure suit answered her. The Stinger lifted free in a high, arcing loop, clearing the hull and achieving free space in a heartbeat, where a series of thruster puffs set it spinning wildly, chaotically.

  “Goddammit—” Marani’s hopper shot after, slowed just outside of the wild orbit as laughter rang out through their localized com bubble. Three quick puffs, and the Stinger came out in a gentle, easy glide toward her, coming to a precise halt just short of her position.

  “Showoff.” Jean-Phillippe tapped the main thrusters, set the homing guide to their position and let the onboard computer determine the decel. As a child back on MStatBeta, he’d ridden hoppers daily, but those days were long gone. He’d had occasion to use the small single-passenger transports over the intervening years, but only for practical moving about between ships, stations, and, for a handful of horrifying months, on one of Antonia’s missions, between asteroids. He had none of his companions’ easy facility with the controls and wasn’t about to risk Smith’s hopper or his neck trying to prove otherwise.

  Fortunately, unlike the Stinger’s swivel thrusters, a complex, delicately balanced system that allowed for those fancy arcs and spirals, his hopper was limited to conventional straight-line maneuvering, and the feel for those simple controls rapidly returned. As he relaxed, the joy of being outside the station, floating among the stars as freely as mankind could, soon caught him up and he found himself following the other two in a rapid-paced scamper between stations, riding high above the commercial flight plane, exchanging waves with other, similarly independent-minded people with expensive hobbies.

  Planet to one side of that plane of stations, primary moon to the other. Everywhere else there were stars or stellar lookalikes. Solar panels formed a gridwork about the stations, generating power, storing it in a localized, subspace bubble that everything within that gridwork, from his computer to the hopper he rode, tapped. It was yet one more manifestation, as were the hyperspace drives of starships, their inter-suit communications, and the Nexus Space ComNet itself, of SS&W’s cracking of the multidimentional energy-state matrix.

  Their random path led them toward ComNet Authority Station. Smith, not content with their conservative vectors, literally rode circles around him and Rani.

  “Evidently not as incapacitated as he claimed,” he said on the smallest com-bubble setting, excluding Smith.

  She grinned across at him, her teeth a flash of white in the mostly clear helmet. “Knew it would do him good.” Her face turned back to Smith as he spun his vehicle through a particularly complex spiral. “Bastard. I’ll probably have to let him borrow it again—or give the damn thing to him.” She faced him again, but the smile was gone. “You know, the hell of it is, I can build it, but I can’t make it do that. First time at the controls, and he’s making it dance.”

  “Maybe you’re just not crazy enough.”

  Her laughter rang in his ears as Smith squeezed into formation between them, demanding to be let in on the joke.

  “Never. If you’re going to leave the party, you have to accept the consequences. —So, how do you like her?”

  “Like her? I’m in positive lust. The AG/CG is phenomenal.”

  “Do I get an explanation?”

  “I put a small grav-field generator in the seat and linked the directional thrusters to its input.”

  “Gives the unit a functional center of gravity,” Smith’s voice explained. “Turn it on and all I have to do is shift my butt, and she turns on a dime. Further you shift, the more she turns.”

  “Energy hungry as hell.” Marani said. “You’re paying my VEM bill for today, Smith.”

  “Worth every penny, love.” Smith’s gloved
hands stroked the handlebars. “She’s a beauty.”

  A tiny sigh reached his ear. He couldn’t see her past Smith, but something told him Marani had just given her pride and joy up for adoption.

  Smith, clueless as a newborn, took off, packing, one would extrapolate, as much into his two-hour test-drive as he could. His swinging, spiraling, rhythmic course took him to the apex side of ComNet Authority Station where he puffed to a relativistic halt, hovering above the third ring, waiting for them to catch up.

  Every station in Vandereaux, likely every other human built station in the galaxy, employed standard rotational artificial-gravity in a half-dozen different basic designs to keep coffee in the inhabitants’ mugs. CNAS was no exception. The smooth lines of the outer shell, looking rather like the earliest of UFO images, hid seven independently controlled rings.

  However CNAS, unique among all stations, did not rely exclusively on centripetal force for its artificial gravity. Its central core rose in elegant, glittering planetary-city-like spires, full of offices and conference rooms, consuming energy ruthlessly in a large, expensive, and oft-times cranky version of that grav-field generator that gave Rani’s Stinger its high performance.

  The first-born child of the Second Construction Wave, CNAS embodied all the ComNet Alliance had hoped to prove to the universe at large—in architecture as well as in spirit and in substance. It had been designed as a showcase station, a promise of things to come, but the reality was spinning floors, in whatever form, were simply more practical— not to mention economic and reliable— and so the CNAS towers remained a unique jewel in the art of station construction, a must-see landmark of the system, source of a major local industry, from tours to t-shirts to keychains, and therefore, taxpayers had decided, worth the cost of maintaining.