He’d gotten a note from Hanks, which said, Message received. I’ve sent data to Mospheira and trust the phones will remain available at least from this side.
He received one from the elderly gentleman of Tano’s clan, which said, You have prolonged my life as well as my livelihood, nand’ paidhi. I hope at all times to render satisfactory service.
One from Ilisidi, saying: The flowers are delightful, but nothing replaces the sight of a young man in my apartment in the morning.
One—he hoped might be a telegram from his mother. But it was another one from Barb, saying, Bren, please call. I have a new number. It’s 1-6980-29-82.
He sat through another cup of tea, signing the very last cards, affixing ribbons and seal with the help of a pleasant older servant, a woman to whom he had already given a card, for her help with the messages.
He sat, he signed, he stamped, while Lamiji, which was the woman’s name, held the card steady for his one-handed effort; and he delivered the last few thank-you’s to junior staff, who expressed themselves as very, very pleased.
It was good, it was more than pleasant, to deliver gratitude to honest people who well deserved it.
He had replied to the dowager with, Please accept my intentions to attend breakfast on the 15th, to which I look forward as the reward of a long work schedule. I would be there every day, but my days break with phone calls and emergencies. I reserve the 15th with determination not to be cheated again of the pleasure I find in your company.
“Is it too forward?” he asked Tano, his arbiter of protocols. “Tell Cenedi to read it and send it back if it won’t be well-received. One doesn’t know how far I dare go with the dowager. But I esteem her greatly.”
And back came the message from Ilisidi herself, saying, If we were more reckless we would cause rumors, nand’ paidhi. Come early on the fifteenth. Watch the dawn with me. Let us worry the nosy old woman of the balcony next. I know she suspects the worst.
One could truly adore the old reprobate.
But in the world not of an atevi lord’s whimsy, one had to deal with a mother who didn’t answer the phone, didn’t answer telegrams, didn’t answer messages on the island-wide system, and hadn’t been in communication with Toby since his message.
Or if she had, Toby hadn’t seen fit to call through. And he generally expected better of Toby.
He went back to the lady Damiri’s office and put through a call to his mother’s number, which, as he expected, got the same recording.
Then he called the personal-emergency after-hours number at the State Department, which raised a junior assistant, whose answer to his query about threats against his family, specifically against his mother, was, “I really don’t know, sir. I don’t think I’ve heard of any trouble.” And: “I don’t have an authorization to call the city police, sir. I’ll give you their number.” With the sound of rustling paper.
“I have their number. Put me through to the National Security Agency.” He swore a change in procedures in State if he survived long enough in his job. He listened through the clicks and thumps as the call transferred to the agency and got another nighttime junior assistant officer.
“This is an emergency number,” that one started off.
“I’m aware it’s an emergency number. This is Shejidan calling. This is a senior State Department officer who’s advising you of a security problem.”
“What’s your name again, sir?”
“Bren Cameron. In Shejidan.” His tone was more patient, the madder he got. “This is the paidhi. I want you to call a senior officer. I want you to check—”
“Just a second, sir. I need a report form. Is this a complaint or a—”
He was a diplomat. He understood forms and reports. He wasn’t in the habit of slamming the phone down on confused juniors.
“Mister—what is your name?”
“Jim.”
“Well, Jim, I want you to get me Sonja Podesty. Now.”
“Ms. Podesty’s at home, sir.”
“I know Ms. Podesty’s at home. I want you to ring Ms. Podesty right now, and put me through. If I lose you off the phone, I want you to file a report of threatening anonymous calls against my family, namely my mother, possibly my brother, possibly Ms. Barbara Letterman and Mr. Paul Saarinson.”
“Would you spell Saarinson, sir?”
“Approximate it. Just ring Podesty.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a period of ringing. And ringing. And Podesty’s answering system. He repeated the names, the message, and lost the NSA off the line.
He thought in fact of calling the civil police, which would get another agency involved in what didn’t need publicity. He’d already stretched the point. He wasn’t sure threats existed. He wasn’t sure about anything he surmised, but it didn’t cure the worry.
He called Toby, up on the North Shore, and Toby’s message service said he was unavailable. The phone was making that sputtering sound that said there were real, not political, interruptions possible, and that the phones, installed early and not the most modern of Shejidan’s modern conveniences, might go down at least temporarily due to weather.
The paidhi on his schedule of meetings, interviews and briefings wasn’t having damned much luck making calls to relatives and official agencies at hours when people were in or officials who could do anything were doing business at all. Mospheira’s usual emergencies were drunken college students. Its criminals were mostly pilferers, card fraud and divorce cases; its lunatic bigots were legislators and department chairmen who generally kept their rank and file in line.
Except the occasional quiet sort who did try to bomb some legislator’s garage with garden chemicals. With moderate, even dangerous success.
He had official numbers left to call. There was one private number for someone who really ought to know what was going on, who at least could take the bus across town and find out for him—if he really, really wanted someone to do something reliably, and wanted to pay the price of such information.
He gave the operator the number. And waited through the relays. And the rings. Six of them.
“Hello?” Barb said, then; and his heart, unreliably informed that things were different, did a rise and crash.
“Hello, Barb. How are you doing? Congratulations.”
“Bren, I’m so glad you called, I hope you’re not mad at me.”
“No….” Maybe it wasn’t the most flattering, most truthful thing he could say. “Paul’s a nice fellow. I’m glad you’re happy. Sorry I missed the wedding. Congratulations.”
“Bren, I—really want to talk. I mean, I just couldn’t, we never could talk.”
“Yes, well, I know that. Nature of the job, Barb, I never made it out to be anything different than it is.”
“Bren—Bren, it’s not, I mean, Bren, I don’t know, I’m not sure, I’m just not sure anymore.”
“Well, it’s kind of too late for that, isn’t it?”
“I want us to get together, I mean, when you get back. Bren, I just need to think. There’re so many things I have to deal with.”
“There’s no use in talking about it, Barb. There’s no ‘get back.’ There’s no dealing with it. The ship doesn’t make it any different. It won’t be. You made your decision.” The bitterness was there, unwished, uncalled-for, and he bit it off, fast. “Which isn’t why I called, Barb. I’m not getting anything from Mother. I wondered if you might possibly have been in contact with her.”
There was a longer silence than he expected, one of Barb’s mannerisms when she wasn’t happy. Then, pure Barb, blithe and light: “Oh, well, I called her a couple of days ago. She was fine.”
“Could you get through?”
“Yes …”
“Toby said she was getting weird calls. I get a phone service recording. I hate to ask this. I know I’m imposing. But would you mind calling her tonight, and if you can’t get her, would you just take the bus over and check on her?”
Another prolonged silence. “I sup
pose.”
“Barb, level with me. I’m working blind from here. I can’t get calls through. Is there any trouble?”
And a third of those small silences. Those silences he knew he was supposed to read, to react to, and then beg her to tell him what was the matter. And dammit, he’d just asked her. He let the silence go on and on, beginning to see it in a different light than he ever had, resenting it more by the second.
“What do you expect there is?” Barb said, then, sharply: phase two, the emotional attack. “You can do anything you want over there, you can go there where you don’t have to have the people who confront you in the grocery store, or stand outside your apartment and ring up on the phones and leave you messages on the system because we’re in the public directory and they can’t get calls to you.”
“Has that been happening?”
“Yes, it happens,” Barb said. He could hear the anger, the accusatory tone. “It happens, it’s always happened. And I’m scared, Bren, I’m really scared.”
“It happens to me, Barb, it happens. I get my mail. I get phone calls when I’m home. What’s different?”
“You’re over there speaking to the legislature and talking to the ship, and we’re here taking calls from people who blame us because we’re the only people they can get to, and they’re getting scary, Bren. There’s this guy that calls me at work, and I changed my home number, but I can’t change my work number. There are a lot of people who are real scared, and real mad, and they think you’re going to betray them, Bren, they don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“Betray them.” God, how much did Mospheira know? “What’s this, ‘Betray them’?”
“The ship always favored the atevi, they always had this protect-the-planet argument when we wanted to land, and now they can deal with the atevi to get what they want and not even have to deal with us.”
“That’s crazy.”
“That’s what they’re saying, Bren.”
“Well, screw what they’re saying. —Who’s saying? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“It’s people they interview on the news, it’s Bruno Previn, it’s—”
“Bruno Previn, for God’s sake, what channel are you listening to?”
“He’s on the regular news, now.”
“He’s a crackpot.”
“They keep interviewing him. He has an opinion. Bruno Previn, Dorothy Durer-Dakan, S. Brandt-Topes—”
One had the idea. “Gaylord Hanks?”
“He’s been on. He’s demanding an investigation of why you were sent back when they threatened his daughter and why she’s not back.”
“Will you call him for me and tell him the family should have gotten a call from Deana today, and if not, still, don’t worry. She’s fine. I had lunch with her and she’s still his daughter.”
“Bren, I—don’t like this.”
“Have you talked to my mother?”
“Damn your mother! Bren, listen to me—”
“Have you talked to her, dammit.”
“Not directly, no, but you can call the building manager. That’s how I found out what’s going on.”
It was one route he hadn’t thought of. “Have you got the building manager’s number?”
“Just a second. —It’s 1-6587-38-48.”
He was writing with the phone stuffed between the cast and his cheek, and trying to make legible numbers. “Thanks, Barb.”
“Yeah.”
“Barb, I hope you’re happy, I really do.”
“Bren, I—still want to talk to you. I want to see you when you come back. I want—I don’t know.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think so, Barb.”
“I think I made a mistake. I think I made a terrible mistake.”
“Barb—I’m not coming there. You understand? It’s not going back to what we had. It can’t. It’s not your doing, it’s not mine, it’s nothing we can fix. The world’s changed and Mospheira’s changed. Just—that’s the way it is.”
“I don’t think I love him.”
“You should have thought of that beforehand, I can’t help you. I can’t be your answer, Barb, I’m sorry. I don’t know I can ever be your answer. I never promised to be.”
“Dammit, Bren!”
“I know, Barb, I know, but I can’t do any more than I’ve done. It’s not my fault, it’s not yours, it just is, that’s all.”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t find anything else to say. He finally added:
“Barb, I’m sorry. I wish it was better. I wish it could be. But it’s not my damn responsibility, Barb. I can’t fix things for you, I never could. You knew that was the way it would be. And you married the man, Barb, be fair to him.”
A small silence. Again. “The hell,” she said. At least that was the Barb he knew. At least she took care of herself.
Always depend on that. Self-sufficiency—that had been an asset in Barb—took a bent toward self-protection. Against him.
“Good night, Barb.”
“Good night,” she said. Then: “Bren, I’ll look in on your mother. I’ll take the bus. All right?”
“Thanks, Barb.”
He hung up. There was a lonely feeling in the small office, as if somebody who’d been there with him had gone away. Stupid feeling. But he felt drained by the effort, listless as if he’d landed on some foreign beach, no features around him, no landmarks, nothing that said, This way, Bren.
Nothing he’d care to explore.
The thunder rumbled, a constant complaint above the rooftops, and he walked out of the office and ordered the inevitable within-hail servant that the paidhi wanted—
Not tea. A drink. Which the servant hastened to obtain for him, shibei, dark and bitter, but safe for him. The servant—her name was Caminidi: he was learning them, one by one, and made a point of asking—was one of the number usually in the offices area, the ones who made spent teapots vanish and whisked wafer crumbs off the tables, as happened when a man blinked. Like the magic castle of fairy tales, it was. Things just were. Things just appeared and vanished. There were doors and halls a little less ornate than the ones the residents used, ways by which the likes of Caminidi arrived in one place and transited to another—but the guest didn’t use them, no, hardly proper.
Atevi manners. Atevi ways. Atevi didn’t go at you on an emotional pitch. Not—without expecting consequences.
He walked, drink in hand, to the more pleasant venue of the breakfast room—a servant appeared out of nowhere and started to put on the lights, but, deprived of a spare hand to signal, he said, “No, nadi, one enjoys the storm tonight.”
He had work to do. He was scheduled to fly tomorrow—ordinarily, he’d pack, but it was a day trip, out and back. He ought to read the Industry Committee report, answering his query about companies currently manufacturing components on a long list he’d bet Jase Graham was going to ask about earliest.
One didn’t want to tool up and train workers for a one-shot with no follow-up. It wasn’t going to be that, if the paidhi had his way. Their strangers from space weren’t going to get a gold-plated vehicle to leap from ground to starflight with beverage and dinner service even if they had one in their plans. They were going to get a reliable, no-frills creature well-integrated into the atevi economy. A workhorse. Lift cargo, lift passengers, and bring it back again with no extravagance of industrial development. If it took space-made exotics, make damn certain that atevi were up there on the station doing the manufacture: no dependencies, no humans at the top of the technological food chain and atevi at the bottom.
Not in this paidhi’s administration.
He only wished he had a better background in engineering. He had to cultivate both atevi and humans who did have, and ask the right questions and get honest answers from people with nothing to gain politically, provincially, or parochially.
Meaning people who knew real things about real substances.
Meaning a lot more plane flights, now that the barriers seemed do
wn and the paidhi had, for the first time in history, permission to move around the map instead of sit receiving information in Shejidan, behind the walls of the Bu-javid.
It didn’t bid to be a life that would let him go back to Mospheira that often. If he wasn’t in Shejidan, he might need to be God knew where, looking at plant output figures and talking to plant managers and line workers.
He’d told Barb, dammit, he’d told her from the outset she couldn’t make plans around his comings and goings; and now she expected him to fly in, run around with another man’s wife, and flit out again while Barb went back to her suburbs and her husband—if Barb thought it was going to be sequins and satin and nightclubs every few months, if Barb had married dull, computer-fixed Paul, as the high-income guy who’d be so immersed in his little world he just wouldn’t notice, or care—
No way in hell, Barb.
The upset came back. Anger crept up on him before he knew what he was feeling, and then decided it wasn’t fair to feel it. Barb had given him years of waiting around—he’d not cared—well, not asked—who else she spent her time with; it hadn’t been his business. And maybe it had been Paul, but he didn’t think so. Maybe he ought rationally to ask, at this point, how long that had been going on.
But he sure as hell wasn’t going to drop into town, sleep with Paul’s wife, and leave again. Even if there weren’t kids involved, there might be, someday; at very least it left Paul having to deal with the gossip, no illusions that people wouldn’t find out or that Paul wouldn’t, and Paul was a wounded sort, the way a human being got to be from too much intellect and not a soul to talk to on any regular basis—
God, didn’t that sound familiar?
But he, thank God, wasn’t Paul. Yet.
Maybe he didn’t remotely want a real life with Barb. He wasn’t sure, wasn’t likely to find out—though he was missing the idea of Barb enough to have a lump in his throat and evidently a lot—a lot—of anger; she’d told him at the outset that marriage and the settled life weren’t ever going to be an issue for her, and if that had changed, dammit, the least she could have done was tell him.
Which left him running curious comparisons with what he thought human beings were supposed to feel about a breakup, and the cooler, more analytical emotions he felt when he wasn’t actually on the phone with Barb.
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