Convergence

by C. J. Cherryh

  No pins tomorrow night. Not at all likely.

  • • •

  The Red Train pulled up to the Najida station, with slow steamy puffs that eased down to one long sigh. It had been a quiet trip, nothing so exciting as the shuttle ride and landing. There had been work to do. There had been the rare chance of just putting one’s feet up and relaxing as the scenery flowed past.

  And there would be no more work to do here. Staff would want a celebration, and they were due it. So, for that matter, was his brother and Barb due a little celebration of their own, sheer relief, after what could have become a disaster in the heavens.

  Banichi and the rest were on their feet. Guild was talking to train crew, and to the several Guild who would exit the train to the platform, meet whoever was there to meet them, ascertain that everything was in order, and supervise the offloading of the baggage.

  One didn’t expect trouble—one was gratified to see, almost immediately, Banichi’s signal that they might disembark. Bren stood up, straightened his coat—Tano took up his personal case, which held his computer, the tablets, the personal items he might want before baggage could be unpacked; and the heavier small case which had two changes of clothes, a pair of deck shoes, and, which he had not taken aboard the station, his small pistol, Guild issue. He had a pocket com. He was never supposed to be separate from his bodyguard, or vice versa, and he was not supposed to need one—Guild forbade it, for security reasons. But he did carry one in recent years. There was also, in the wardrobe, several bulletproof vests, in a variety of brocades. That was his bodyguards’ insistence, and he’d agreed.

  But not for the Najida train station, which sat as a lonely waystation on a gravel road, on a ridge between Taisigi hunting lands and his own district of Najida.

  Banichi and Jago opened the door, Tano and Algini stood behind them, and as they walked out there was far and away more noise than he expected at the lonely train station. A lot of voices. All shouting, and shouting as he walked out, and there was the wooden platform full of people—his people. People so many they more than filled the platform and stood on the ground, and Toby and Barb were there, and Ramaso, and the estate staff, dayshift and night, and the Edi grandmother, and her council, Edi folk, the elders, and standing round about, mingled with Najida village folk. The estate bus was there, tall and glossy red and black, as modern as buses came; there was the baggage truck, and indeed, his luggage cases were coming out of the baggage car, with Guild help, and with staff help, for this very short train—but there were market trucks, there was the village fire engine—God only knew how so very many people had gotten to this remote train station, or how they proposed to get back, but here they were.

  He bowed. He gave a profound, lengthy bow, and the people fell silent and bowed. He looked up and the solemnity remained, all around him.

  He touched his heart. “One is profoundly affected, nadiin-ji. This is my home. This, above all other places, has become my home. Thank you. Thank you all.” Toby and Barb were in front of him. The human in him had planned, in the privacy of the bus, to give them both a hug. That was not going to happen. His aishid would see strangeness enough on Mospheira, and the villagers would be profoundly distressed. So he gave a second shorter bow.

  “Brother. Barb. Long road to get here. Let’s get to the bus, and give these people a head start getting home.”

  “Good to see you,” Toby said. “So good.” Toby didn’t touch him. Toby knew better. Barb looked agitated, but happy.

  “Bus,” Bren said, and switched to Ragi. “Jago-ji. As soon as we offload at the house, send the bus and trucks back for whatever people are walking.”

  “Yes,” Jago said. But never left his side, even so, on a relatively smooth progress to the edge of the platform and the steps down to the bus. Narani and Jeladi tried to pitch in to carry baggage, but Ramaso, Narani’s second cousin twice removed, and quite likely dying for a direct account, would not have them carry even their own bags, not a one, no.

  They waited there, Bren and Toby and Barb, an impromptu reception line as Ramaso marshaled Najida staff aboard as rapidly as they could move, familiar faces, known names, a second family, hurrying by with great excitement and shy salutations, and one somehow suspected they were not going to escape at least a standing buffet back at the house while the baggage loaded.

  “Boat’s ready,” Toby said in Mosphei’. “Weather’s clear. Wind out of the southwest. All we have to do is load. I took her out last night for a check. Did you know the navy moved in this morning?”

  “Navy?”

  “Two,” Toby said as the bus started up. “One gunboat, one little pursuit running with it. I thought it might not be unrelated.”

  Bren drew in a slow breath. “Tabini’s orders. I’d hoped to move this quiet.” He said this, on a bus so crowded with staff they were standing in the back of the aisle. Not mentioning the trucks. “I think I failed to realize the degree of attention.”

  “Everybody was scared, and now they’re just relieved,” Barb said. “We’re so glad.”

  “I’m glad,” he said.

  “You’re taking that treaty over,” Toby said.

  “Exactly.” The rest of it—he couldn’t say, even among these nearest and dearest. Some were too innocent, and trouble didn’t deserve advance notice. “The navy isn’t taking any chances with us springing a leak midway. But I’ll be calling the President, pretty soon after we leave dock—to let him know.”

  On Toby’s very high-end communications gear, that was, on a system which Shawn’s office had set up, and maintained, and which didn’t have the Messengers’ Guild’s fingers on it—or private interests tapped into various offices on the island. Things had improved since the upheavals in the last year or so, but security of messages was still not optimum—and depend on it: upheaval in the heavens was going to have certain ears listening intently.

  Toby and Barb both could guess that. They asked no more questions, and the bus rolled briskly on the gravel road, headed down the long rise, now, toward the coast, toward Najida.

  • • •

  Cajeiri passed the word to Eisi and Liedi about the dinner, too, at the next opportunity, with specific urging. His closet was still uncommonly empty, while all those massive cases they had flown up to the station and back again were probably being gone over in due course, with no sense of emergency—and they might all be hanging together in some recess known to the staff. But they were not hanging in his closet, which he was quite sure was because nobody on staff was hurrying on his account. His domestic staff was only his two valets, who were below Father’s staff and below Mother’s, even if they did not have most everything they owned needing cleaning.

  “Court best,” he said. “In the cases I brought back. I shall need it tomorrow night, but definitely nothing better than my father’s and mother’s.”

  “Yes,” his valets said, duly authorized to raise a protest, and went off to the depths of the suite, to the routes staff of whatever level used to make things happen.

  Staffs worked out such details among themselves. Eisi and Liedi would pass the word to the major d’, someone would talk to someone, and his closets would have clothes again.

  Domestic details. The world could rock on its hinges, but the cleaning staff would follow its routines and priorities, of which he was still a small one.

  He would so much rather run off with nand’ Bren, have stowed away on the boat and not come out until morning, when they would have no choice but take him with them.

  But that was only imagining. When he was younger, he might actually have done it. He would have done it. But now—

  Being a whole year older now, and a lot wiser, he simply opened the book Antaro had brought along with the guest list, the history of all the clans and subclans in the aishidi’tat, so he could be prepared, at least, to know these guests better than they knew him.

 
He was not going to be what they expected. He was going to be better.

  • • •

  The house sat overlooking Najida bay, rustic stone, with its new addition’s roof all tiled—Bren had to express delight and surprise at that: and it was real delight and surprise. Staff had put great energy into finishing it while he had been gone. A further surprise, Ramaso proudly informed him: Najida had its new windows in, the beautiful stained glass work that was the aiji-dowager’s special gift—one at the end of the entry hall, the old main hall, and the other at the end of the dining room in the new wing. And of course one had to go inside, see it properly.

  “I am amazed, Rama-ji,” Bren said, hearing about the windows, in the little interval as the baggage was set down. “A moment to set the loading underway, but we are not that rushed. I would wish very much to see them before we go.”

  “We would be delighted, nandi,” Ramaso said. “And by no means should you or your staff deal with the crates: we shall deal with everything.”

  “Then I have every confidence.”

  The gate of the truck banged down on the cobbles. Ramaso’s aide and Banichi both moved to give orders for the unloading of the baggage truck and for the transport of the wardrobe cases—the correct end up, look for the emblem!

  The massive cases had survived space flight. They would certainly survive Najida’s careful handling.

  His own precious hand baggage was accounted for in Tano’s possession, and nothing would separate Tano from that charge. Jago had the document case that contained the treaty, and would not relinquish it.

  “Go,” Toby said with a wave of his hand. “We’ve seen the windows, and Ramaso should go with you. We’ll get the crates down to the boat. We’ll all manage out here. Go. Ramaso has been burning to show you.”

  So he himself had no burden at all, and they all, including Banichi, walked with Ramaso through the restored doors and down the rustic hall, which looked again as it should look, with stained glass at the end, lit by daylight outside and casting colored beams into the hall. There were, on either side, two vertical companion panels, each with a tall oval inset, to afford a clear view of the bay—it was a new and welcome touch.

  “Excellent, Rama-ji!” he said, and let Ramaso and a small number of excited house staff escort them to a door which had used to lead to the garage and storage, but which now had a wood-paneled arch, and led to a hall with more rooms, and a stairway. And at the end, a grand entry to the dining room framed the second of the new windows, a pattern in reds, to catch, were it the hour, the setting sun, with the same sort of side insets.

  That sight came with the waft of food from this new dining hall. It was an ambush, a delightfully prepared one, and they would not escape unfed: Najidi dishes in a hall that still smelled faintly of new varnish—home made new, and no longer bearing the scars it had taken in the upheaval of last year.

  “We have set up tables in the village,” Ramaso said, “and there will be visitors to the village from Kajiminda.” That was Lord Geigi’s estate, neighboring theirs, and served by folk with ties both to Najida village and to the new Edi establishment on the wooded promontory. “All the houses are bringing food, like spring festival.”

  It amazed him, and made him wonder whether anyone in the village had gotten any sleep last night. His phone call and a word from Toby had launched it. There was very likely a picnic box in the yacht’s galley at this very moment, a supply which would carry them a distance out to sea and possibly all the way to Port Jackson.

  3

  There was a crowd at the pier as well, when, under a warm sun, well-fed, they headed down. Bren’s own Jaishan rode at anchor, in from her current job ferrying construction materials to Kajiminda Peninsula, in service to the locals, and with her brightwork shrouded in canvas—wearing her work-clothes, as it were. Toby’s Brighter Days had the only proper mooring spot, and now had a canvassed object lashed to her deck, ahead of the mast. Toby and Barb quietly inspected that with a walkaround, and then came back to the console, ready to go.

  “Thank you!” Bren called out to the gathering of staff and bystanders, waved to them as Toby fired up the engines and called for the mooring lines to come in. There was no shortage of hands to do that service, and Tano and Barb hauled up the lines and coiled them as Brighter Days began to move.

  The good wishes ashore faded under the sound of the engines as they drew away from land. It was more convenient to rely on the motor until they passed the point and reached the wider bay. Then the sail rose and the boom swung over and Brighter Days steadied down at a slight lean.

  Barb took Toby’s place at the wheel, then. Bren stood at the rail, waiting, with bodyguard around him and Narani and Jeladi waiting to be instructed.

  “Rani-ji,” he said to Narani. “You are officially on holiday until we reach port. I have my warm coat in hand luggage, and absolutely no need else. I do not yet know our sleeping arrangements, but there will be a cabin, rely on it, and I am equally sure our larder is full of small surprises from Najida’s kitchen. Go be at leisure, both of you.”

  He needed to talk to Toby, point of fact. He needed to have a long, serious conversation with Toby.

  But ahead of that, ahead of everything:

  “Toby. Need you to contact the President. Tell him I’m coming in at Port Jackson. Which I trust we are.”

  “Wherever you need me to go,” Toby said. They reached one of those little quirks of wind in the bay, and the sail thumped and filled again overhead, the boat steady under Barb’s hand.

  “I’m coming as Tabini’s representative. Court dress. All of it. Tabini’s orders. That’s likely going to upset some people.”

  “There’ll be a fuss about it. There’s a fuss about everything. Why should this be the exception?”

  “That’s kind. But I’ve reached a point it doesn’t matter if I make certain people unhappy. I’m not representing them. You might, someday.”

  “God, no.”

  “Things are going to change for me. I’m over here to make that clear, and to settle some issues. First thing—we’ve got a crisis situation on the station, not active at the moment: Gin’s using up supplies hand over fist, and that can’t go on: the Reunioners need to come down. There’s no Maudit colony in the works. That was never practical and everybody up there knew it, even if the world didn’t. Now five thousand people have got to go someplace, and they’ve got to start coming here in the next couple of weeks.”

  “Weeks. Good God, Bren, is it that critical?”

  “It’s critical not to lose the momentum. We can do it now. We can’t stall out. Not significant numbers at first, maybe not for most of the year, but they have to start, and we’ll start with the three kids and their families. That’s one thing. We also have a prosecution on our hands. Or Gin does. The treaty that got Mospheira into space in the first place says clearly the population up there has to be equal, atevi to human. Tabini’s put up with a situation that couldn’t be helped; but we now know the human-side stationmaster made a thorough hash of things, and Gin’s launched a probe of misconduct that may go under corporate doors and involve more than the stationmaster’s office. Tabini’s official reaction to that situation is one reason he’s sending me as he is—which is, let me say, a very serious move on his part, when the paidhi goes out ‘caisi linieiti,’ with instructions. That means I go in with a message—not a bad message, not a threatening message, but a serious one, meaning the aiji is pressing for action.”

  Toby gazed at him soberly. “So what is the opinion of the aiji?”

  “That we have a very narrow window to do things right, as regards the Reunioners, and he wants some changes. I know that my appearance here as an atevi official may stir up some resistance, but I’m to make it very clear that Tabini’s patience with human politics, going back to the mess that sent us to Reunion in the first place, is finite, and that something sensible has to b
e done, and quickly, without the Mospheiran legislature tying things up in committee. That’s the point. I know Shawn actually wants what Tabini-aiji wants. The world has just had a major scare because of human actions. We’ve managed to send the kyo away believing we have gotten our house in order—which makes it a very good time actually to set our collective house in order, and to cash in on whatever credit we all have gathered from the kyo treaty. I have to apologize—to you and Barb both—for whatever heat may spill over to you from the situation. And I hope—sincerely—that you’ll take it seriously and protect yourselves. If it gets hot, say anything that you need to say to distance yourselves—”

  “No way in hell.”

  “Listen to me. You know the people on the opposition. Some of them have a political point to make. That’s one thing. But the issue attracts unstable people, and it just takes one. We can put the kids in a security bubble. You’re out there coming and going—”

  “Bren, Bren, the isolationists are nothing. Bigger threats than that have been after us. We dodge.”

  “Take it seriously. Please. Unofficially, I’m offering you harborage at Najida any time you need it, as long as you need it. Lord Geigi would offer you the same over at Kajiminda. We could keep trading you back and forth, every forty-nine days, and stay within the regulations. I don’t think Tabini-aiji would officially notice. And if I have to ask permanent asylum—I think I can get it. Not for the Reunioners. But for you and Barb.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m serious. I’m absolutely serious. Our handful of homegrown problems haven’t met the ones who may have survived Reunion, and we don’t know how or when their issues may manifest. That’s one thing. I’m also worried about the consequences when the criminal investigation up on station begins to reach under certain corporate and personal doors down here. On the good side of the ledger, I know for damned certain that Gin Kroger won’t bend to threats up there, and Lord Geigi will certainly take his stand for what Tabini asks—not to mention the ship-captains, who know where their critical supply comes from. So no, I have no great fear for the station under current management, and Shawn’s capable of weathering the political storm down here. But I can’t be blind to the exposure you have. I came this route for several reasons, one of which is that it solves logistics and keeps us away from any official fuss with airport officials, police, and, well, you can imagine my aishid and the customs inspectors. But the other reason is seeing you. And Barb. And a thing—I’m asking myself if I want to tell you. And I think I do. But I’m not sure I want to tell Shawn, I’m warning you.”