Invader

by C. J. Cherryh

  Like the apparition in the heavens—which put the entire Treaty in doubt.

  Like a woman who’d consistently scored low on culture and psychology, who’d survived the academic committee winnowing process and gotten an appointment as paidhi-designate solely because she had high-ranking, narrow-interest support in the State Department—and a high-level finagle, he was sure of it, had landed her in a damned bad situation for novices.

  “I’ll advise the aiji,” Banichi said.

  3

  Tabini’s apartment, literally next door and centermost of the seven historic residences on this floor, was no strange territory: a young paidhi and an equally young aiji, both of them suddenly appointed to office with the demise of Tabini’s father and the abrupt resignation of Wilson-paidhi—in private, where no politics intervened, he and Tabini laughed and held discussions far more easily than certain powers on either side of the strait might like to think. They were both sports enthusiasts—he skied and Tabini hunted; both single men in high-stress jobs—but he had Barb and Tabini had Damiri for refuge, and they compared notes.

  They’d met in Tabini’s apartment times uncounted. Scant days ago they’d been on vacation together, hunting in the hills at Tabini’s country house at Taiben—where, in technical contravention of Treaty law, which forbade a human on the mainland carrying any sort of weapon under any excuse, Tabini had been teaching him target shooting. In the evenings they’d sat on the hearth ledge in that rural and peaceful house, looking forward to tomorrow and exchanging grandiose hopes for the future of human-atevi relations: a joint space program; trade city contact between their species, from the modest beginning of student computer exchanges—

  Now, with their respective armed security drinking tea and socializing quietly in the foyer, the two of them took to the small salon aside from the entry of Tabini’s residence—not a room he’d been in before, but Tabini had taken one look at him and ordered the little salon opened, so that, Tabini had said, the paidhi needn’t walk another step.

  It was a cozy chamber needing only a single servant, slight, bookish Eidi, who was probably a licensed assassin and undoubtedly senior security, himself—Bren had always suspected so—to pour tea and serve the traditional bittersweet wafers.

  “Thank you for coming,” Tabini said, protocols aside, and in the same moment Damiri herself turned up in the doorway.

  “Nand’ paidhi,” Damiri said, offering a hand, and Bren began to struggle back to his feet, the very least of courtesy he owed his hostess and Tabini’s official guest.

  “No, no, please, stay seated, nand’ paidhi. I’m so pleased you accepted my invitation. Has Saidin made you comfortable?”

  “Quite, nai-ma. Thank you ever so much. I’m overwhelmed at such courtesy.”

  “An honor,” she said, offering her hand, and taking it, he stayed entirely on his guard—at social disadvantage, of course, because he hadn’t gotten up; which left her free to be gracious. The lady whom Tabini approved—the atevi expression—was neither ingenue nor scatterwit, and she defined the meeting, she spoke for herself, and not coincidentally for the Atigeini, whose consent or lack of it in the hospitality he had not a clue.

  “I hope to be minimal bother to your gracious staff, daja-ma. It’s an extraordinary courtesy you’ve extended to the paidhi’s office.” He was very careful about that word “office,” not attributing the hospitality to anything personal, an instinctively diplomatic distinction which seemed to touch the lady’s fancy.

  “The aiji’s guest is my guest,” she said, and made a little bow to him, to Tabini, and left with some quiet word to Eidi.

  “Assure her, please,” Bren said. “I’m utterly in awe of the apartment. I swear to be careful.”

  “She’s very curious about you,” Tabini said, giving no cue whatsoever how much Damiri had just tried Tabini’s patience, or added opposition support to his questions, or acted in any wise by his consent. “Quite in touch with her staff, I warn you. But only from curiosity.”

  Possibly a signal of the situation. Certainly a warning. “Then I hope they report well of me.”

  “I’ve no doubts. Is it chill for you? A front moved through this afternoon. One could easily light the heater.”

  “No. Not at all. It’s quite pleasant. Thank you, aiji-ma.”

  “Is there pain?”

  “Some. Fever. I think that’s normal.”

  “I’m very glad to see you safe, nadi. How glad you cannot imagine.”

  “I should have stayed in Shejidan, aiji-ma. I’d no idea anything was in imminent motion. I earnestly wish you’d told me. I’d have stayed and talked to the hasdrawad immediately.”

  “I wanted you treated by your own doctors. That demanded I send you to the island. But I was extremely anxious, nadi. I swear I was anxious until I heard your plane was safely in our airspace.”

  “Aiji-ma.” He was somewhat surprised, even touched by Tabini’s expression of personal concern—and held himself mentally and emotionally still on his guard, not least because he was glad to be back and had to put the brakes on that warm little human reaction that answered no questions whatsoever that bore on atevi motivation.

  Like—whether the Western Association was holding firm around Tabini.

  Like whether all hell was continuing to break loose in the eastern regions of the Association, provinces where Tabini was most politically vulnerable. There’d been bombs dropping there as late as two days ago, to which he could personally attest—bombs that had killed men he knew. He didn’t know to this hour how that set-to had come out, or whether the provincial lords, reacting to a strong move by Tabini and a shift of certain lords to Tabini’s side, had taken a wait-see as he hoped had happened.

  The side-switching could include the Atigeini, but he had no information whether or not lady Damiri had courted assassination by her own family for siding openly with Tabini, whom her association had at first opposed and then only coolly supported; and whether her family supported her in lodging a human guest in rooms hallowed in Atigeini history—when, for all he knew, his broken shoulder owed something to Atigeini suspicions of Tabini.

  And he couldn’t ask. He daren’t ask until he knew more. There were conventions of politeness worth one’s life.

  “This ship above us,” Tabini began.

  “Yes, aiji-ma?”

  “Mospheira is carrying on conversation with it. What’s the general news? Were you able to hear anything?”

  “Just that, as I understand, aiji-ma, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind it’s the same ship that brought us here. Where it’s been for a hundred and seventy-eight years—that’s a serious question. Someone on Mospheira may know the answer. I don’t.”

  “Where do you guess it might have been?”

  “Aiji-ma, all I know is what I’ve been told since I was a child, which is that it went out looking for the auspicious guide stars to find out where we are.”

  “Easy question. Here is here.”

  “Not from their view. As I understand. There’s much more to it than that, but I confess, aiji-ma, as a student I didn’t study the business about the ship with anything like the attention I should have. It just wasn’t expected that the ship would ever come back.”

  “So. And what opinions are officials debating, now, in the high offices of Mospheira?”

  The questions, besides being something he didn’t know, tended a step over the edge of the aiji’s need-to-know. The paidhi didn’t, on principle, provide information on Mospheira’s internal politics or Mospheira’s moment-to-moment internal debates. The paidhi wasn’t officially, at least, supposed to provide such information, as the aiji wasn’t, by the Treaty, supposed to ask him.

  “Tabini-ma, you know I can’t answer that.”

  Tabini took up his teacup, balanced the fragile porcelain in his fingers. Atevi eyes were gold. Tabini’s were a pale shade of that color. Some called them a sign of his father’s infelicity. “Bren-ji, whatever we can and can’t answer, whatever
promises we make, many things will change now, between you on Mospheira and us on the mainland. Is this not a realistic assumption—that change is inevitable? And I ask the paidhi, who is supposed to interpret humans to atevi, in what direction those currents are flowing.”

  It was so, so quiet in the room, with only the voices from the other side of the foyer carrying through. He tried to gather a breath. Just a breath. He’d not thought of these things, not to the degree he needed to. He’d been preoccupied with a great deal of pain. And flying bullets.

  “Tabini-ma, the Treaty created the paidhiin to be honest brokers for either side. Didn’t they?”

  Tabini took a sip of tea. “And for how many sides, nadi, can you be that honest broker? Are there three conversants, now—or still two?”

  “I hope to give you an answer.”

  “Surely the paidhi can answer that one very simple question. Try this one: do you direct that ship? Or does that ship direct you?”

  Adrenaline was definitely flowing. He’d literally bet his life on Tabini in coming back to the mainland. And he knew right now that in the condition he was in, he had no business coming in here to fence with Tabini. He should have taken another pain pill, no matter the urgency, and gone to bed where he belonged.

  “Nand’ paidhi? It seems to me a reasonable question. Am I unreasonable?”

  “I just had my shoulder broken, Tabini-ma, I just had the hell beaten out of me by people who thought they could use the paidhi or get the paidhi to say things they could use. I held out against them. I—” He had to set his cup down. He couldn’t keep his hand from shaking. “I would serve you and Mospheira both very ill if I injected my own half-minded interpretation of some official’s hasty and possibly uninformed opinion into what I tell you or them. Especially if I myself were as underinformed as I am right now, aiji-ma. The aiji I’ve dealt with is too wise a man to destroy my value.”

  “Ah, flattery, now, Bren-ji. Not your usual standard.”

  “Honesty, Tabini-ma, is my only value. I stand between. I’ll carry your messages to Mospheira. I’ll tell you what responsible authorities answer after they’ve had time to think. But I won’t inform on debates in progress, theirs or yours. Or the ship’s. And, Tabini-ma, consider that I’ve been out of the information loop for days, I’ve been hours under anesthetic, I’ve had a pain pill and I’m not clear-headed at the moment. In such circumstances I can only—only stand by the strict interpretation of the Treaty. I would be ashamed to give you less than my best advice or, worse, to misinform you.”

  Atevi so rarely showed inner feelings. Tabini’s face was an absolute mask, but it became a gentler one.

  And, oh, Tabini could use the charm when he wanted to.

  “I’m aware of your injuries. I asked for you back, Bren-ji, because I’m convinced of your good will, I rely on your candor, and I urgently need to know, before making any policy decisions, what this ship is saying and what Mospheira is saying to it. I need some warning what Mospheira will decide to do so that I’m not caught by surprise. I know that this may violate the language of the Treaty, but the collapse of the Association will abrogate the Treaty entirely and put everything in question. Believe me: we are in the midst of a crisis and, Bren-ji, let me urge upon you that I’m not the only one playing games with the Treaty when Mospheira sends me two paidhiin.”

  “It’s ordinary when I’m not on duty. And I’d been out of touch for days. Surely you can’t fault—”

  “I’m aware of the scene downstairs. She claimed she was going to the airport, when in fact she had no travel pass and no clearance. Her intention was plainly to accost you publicly and create gossip.”

  “If it was to make dissent in the paidhi’s office evident, I fear she succeeded.”

  “One fears so, yes. Bren-ji, I’d gladly have taken her to the airport under guard; I’d gladly set her adrift in a row-boat, if I didn’t feel such a dismissal would not better relations with Mospheira.”

  “I ask you to give her the travel pass, aiji-ma.”

  “Is this so? The Treaty says there shall be a paidhi. So since you won’t answer my questions about their intent, at least tell me who are you? Do you still have the office, or does this woman hold it? Does her arrival have more to do with your absence from Shejidan—or with the appearance of that ship in our sky? Do you see the drift of my thoughts, Bren-ji? Who is in charge, now, in your government, and whom does this woman represent?”

  He felt himself short of breath, putting together the threads—and not certain he had all of them. “There’s no change in government or policy that I’m aware of. But I went straight from here to hospital. And my mind isn’t clear, aiji-ma. Someone may have told me about Hanks’ whereabouts. I—just—can’t remember. I—can’t—bring that back.”

  “The day you left for Malguri, your government requested you to answer a message sent to your office. You weren’t here, obviously. More messages followed. One can guess their sudden urgency had somewhat to do with the apparition in our heavens.”

  “One would—indeed—think so, aiji-ma.”

  “On the third day an aircraft requested landing with this woman aboard. We saw the likelihood of close questions regarding your whereabouts, so we asked for the television interview with you, for—”

  “For tape of me?” One didn’t interrupt the aiji when he was talking. “Forgive me, aiji-ma.”

  “It was useful,” Tabini said “One learns about television, among other blasphemous possibilities, that it plays very interesting games with time, with scale, with numbers in general. An impious device. A box of illusions. But it did quiet some general questions about your good health. And it maintained the idea in the public mind that you’d never ceased in office. —But you keep evading my very serious question, Bren-ji. Have they sent you back merely to quiet my demands—or are you back with real authority?”

  “The most of my authority, aiji-ma, is the plain fact that I speak the language of the chief atevi Association, and the equally plain fact that I’m here by your invitation and that you choose to deal with me. I assume that you deal with me.”

  “True.”

  “Have you dealt at all with Hanks? Is there an agreement? Are there negotiations in progress? Are there proposals on the table?”

  “With the likes of Taigi and Naijo. With every damned potential conspirator in the Association—possibly. With me—no.”

  Appalling information. “Surely she’s sought meetings with you.”

  “Shall I empower this interloper? I dealt with this woman once and only once, when I told her to tell Mospheira send you back immediately or I would have her shot. By the result, I believe she transmitted my message faithfully.”

  God—was the gut-level, Mospheiran reaction. But this wasn’t Mospheira. Indeed Tabini could have had her shot. And if Tabini had threatened it—Tabini absolutely would have had to do it if Hanks hadn’t complied.

  “I have to ask for her safety,” he said quietly. “Please, aiji-ma.”

  “Does the paidhi ask? Do you have the support of the Treaty?”

  “I trust,” he said, light-headed with the awareness he was hedging on a breach of Department rules and the Treaty, “that if persons in authority on Mospheira did send me, they sent me by the terms of your request, and by that, if they receive messages from me they’ll know they’re your messages faithfully and accurately rendered. I don’t believe they consider me corrupt, or incompetent. Logically speaking, aiji-ma, if you choose to deal with me rather than with her, what can they do, if they wish to continue to receive your communications?”

  “They can ignore my communications.”

  “No, aiji-ma. They can’t. What atevi do and think is vastly important.”

  “Then why send this Deana Hanks in the first place? And why is she listening to unacceptable people?”

  He temporized. “She is my legitimate successor. If I was gone—”

  “She’s a fool.”

  “Aiji-ma, the presumption on Mos
pheira clearly was that I wasn’t on the job, for whatever reason, in what they knew was a very touchy situation. Possibly they sent her with absolute good will to you, as the best stopgap they could manage if some accident had befallen me—such as assassination at the hands of some opposition movement—”

  “They needed to select a fool?”

  “There are very, very few humans who speak the language, only three who can think in it.”

  “There are two. You and Wilson-paidhi. This woman does not think.”

  Tabini was damned mad. Clearly. And there was far more at issue than Hanks’ life. Or his.

  “Possibly—possibly, aiji-ma, once the State Department is sure I’m well enough to carry on my office, they may indeed recall her. And if they don’t, I’ll urge they do. I assure you.”

  “This woman is interfering in our politics. Where is their intelligence, nand’ paidhi? Is this a deliberate act to violate the Treaty? Or is some other, perhaps ignorant, party now directing human affairs?”

  It was a very frightening question, at depth—even confining the implications of that question to the State Department, which he knew wasn’t Tabini’s entire concern, considering that ship in the heavens.

  More, the paidhi didn’t have the definitive answer to give. The Foreign Office called talks with the ship touchy. “I’ll make your displeasure very clear to the responsible parties, aiji-ma. In the meantime, please, no move to remove her by force. Let me arrange it, in my own way. I believe I can do it without disturbance.”

  “You’re asking a great favor, Bren-ji.”

  “I know I am.”

  “And favors have returns.”

  “I know that too, aiji-ma.”

  “So what is the momentary thinking inside the President’s office?”

  God, his wits were hazed. He should have seen that coming.

  And he did from time to time take chances on Tabini, monumental chances, once he’d felt out the ground underfoot—once they were both sure of the extent and purpose of the question.