Invader

by C. J. Cherryh

  “What are you going to do, Bren-nadi? When are you going to come home? Or are you 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 get the 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 free everything we have to bargain with.”

  “Naighai maighi-shi, 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 any source 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 say I 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 might learn—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.

  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 info
rmation?”

  “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 not have 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 because he 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 where are 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 be a 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.”

  “There is one universe,” Geigi muttered.

  “As efficient machines are what they need to be, no more, no less. To be efficient in a given environment, they turn out to look very much alike, nadiin, and manuals for running them turn out very similar, and people who run them eventually think very similarly, apart from their philosophical beliefs. Given that humans and atevi need similar machines to explore the same environment, we will grow more and more alike in our thinking. Physics guided even the wi’itkitiin, in their evolution, to have wings and not fins, to adjust their wing-surfaces in flight, as airplanes do, as atevi and human pilots do; in short, nadiin, neither humans nor atevi are immune to the numbers of the natural world. And atevi who live in space will use true numbers to understand its demands, and therefore enter harmony with the behaviors of humans who likewise live in harmony with those numbers. Numbers rule us all, nadiin. We admire atevi minds and your language that so readily expresses the harmonies of numbers: atevi have that advantage over us. We can admire. We respect atevi ability. We want association with atevi not least of all because of your remarkable language and your faculty with numbers, which may well develop new understandings in this new environment.”

  “Not when ships violate natural law,” Geigi muttered. “I want to hear an explanation for your ships moving faster than light, nand’ paidhi. I want to see the numbers.”

  Tension hung heavy in the conference room. Civil peace and civil war hinged on
that question. Lord Geigi posed a demand the answer to which could shatter his belief, his political stability, the existence of his house and the institutions it supported, and he did it in public, with his personal fortunes at absolute low ebb—a man with nothing to lose but the philosophy on which he pinned his beliefs.

  “Nadi-ma,” Bren said, “I will find you an answer. I promise that. Mosphei’ doesn’t express such concepts easily, which hampers my understanding of the physics as well as my attempt to translate.”

  “Does that ship exceed the velocity of light?”

  “Mosphei’ expresses it in that way.” The paidhi was desperate, and the tape around his ribs made him short-winded and probably pale as a sheet. “But the human language often approximates more complex situations, lord Geigi, since we have no convenient way to express what the atevi languages do—especially in high numbers and spatial concepts. We’re entering on a field of math that I’ve never tried to express.” And never damn well understood. “Let me work on the problem a few days. I’m sure there’s a better way of putting it than either I or Hanks has done.”

  Lord Geigi was not a happy man. Perhaps he’d hoped for the paidhi to deny it outright. There were uneasy looks elsewhere at the table.

  But the Minister of Transportation moved for the paidhi to undertake such a study, the committee expressed confidence in the paidhi’s research on the matter, and they went on to specific topics like the cost estimates on the launch facility and what they ought to recommend to the legislature on continuation of the rocket engine project, in serious doubt pending the receipt of far more modem design, with the contractors justifiably besieging the legislators’ doors and demanding some payment on work already completed.

  He thought—he thought that FTL encompassed areas of math he’d never completely understood, and he thought at least he knew where his deficiencies began. The paidhi had to have mathematical ability: it went with the job, and one learned it right along with a language that continually made changes in words according to number and relationship—sometimes you needed algebra just to figure the grammatically correct form of a set-adjective, when the wrong form could be infelicitous and offend the person you were trying to win. You formed sets on the fly in your conversation just to avoid divisible plural forms, like the dual or quad not offset by the triad or monad, and in learning rapid conversation, even with the shortcut concepts the language held, your head hurt—until you got to a degree of familiarity where you could chain-calculate while holding a conversation, and no restaurant ever got away with padding your bill. He’d slid out of higher math in desperation for more study time, found later that he could sight-solve the problems in the math he’d skipped if he thought in Ragi, and the university had given him six credits he’d never sat in class for.