Convergence

by C. J. Cherryh

  What could one say? He barely followed what he was supposed to do, except attract attention and have the news of his presence as Uncle’s guest be far noisier than the rumor that Uncle’s influence had not been enough to get his faction’s candidate put in as lord of Ajuri.

  Mother might be upset about him going to Tirnamardi. Mother and Uncle were on good terms now, but that situation was not reliable—and everybody knew that the candidate for lord of Ajuri most directly in line of succession—was Mother. And him. But he was his father’s invested heir, so he was out of the question.

  His going up there, however, reminded everybody that his father’s household had a strong connection to Ajuri, and Ajuri had a strong connection to Uncle.

  Everybody was married to everybody. That was how everybody got into trouble up there.

  “Of course,” he had said, with, in his mind, the last time he had tried a subterfuge of guesting in Tirnamardi—which had ended with Kadagidi going down in fire and ash, and Grandfather being assassinated.

  “Good lad,” his father had said.

  So here he stood, contemplating the map: Uncle’s estate at Tirnamardi, where the Atageini pins stood in a desert of missing pins.

  Ajuri, and all of Dursai province, which it dominated, with its subclans: Jaibon, Seigin, and Muri. Pins all gone.

  Kadagidi— Well, Kadagidi had never been one of his pins, and Kadagidi was responsible for that gap around Uncle Tatiseigi being so very large. Kadagidi was another of the seven oldest clans in the aishidi’tat, and it was the other clan missing a lord, having connived with the Marid, down south, in one part of which he did now have a pin. Kadagidi had also connived with Ajuri, the foundation of all troubles, and all that had led, finally, to a Kadagidi with roots in the Marid rebelling against his father and killing all the staff he himself remembered in his youngest days—poor old Eidi, his father’s major domo, who had been a kind old man, and who had died right in the foyer trying to hold back the people trying to take over the government.

  Father and Mother had not been home when the cowards had hit the Bujavid apartment. He had been up in space. Father and Mother had been in Taiben, on holiday, and the Kadagidi had tried to find them there. Their attack had killed all Father’s aishid, and no few of the Taibeni, but Father and Mother had gotten away, all the same, and lived to take back the aishidi’tat, because the people—the people of the aishidi’tat had had enough, and supported Father, and Great-grandmother, which was the position his father was in right now, a strong position. There was no doubt of that. They had taken down the Shadow Guild, which had put a Kadagidi lord, Murini, in power.

  But while they’d taken care of the Shadow Guild and Murini, they had not quite dealt with the Kadagidi’s bid for power. That was one problem. They had arrested the new Kadagidi lord, Aseida, who was still supporting the Shadow Guild, so there was no lord now over the Kadagidi. And it had turned out the reason there was a Shadow Guild at all was because of a little old Ajuri man, one of Mother’s great-uncles. That little old man, Shishogi, his own twice-great uncle, had held an important post inside the Assassins’ Guild, and he had been putting people where he wanted them for decades and decades. And when Great-grandmother had found it out, and Banichi had, and Father had, then they had taken down Shishogi.

  But not before somebody, maybe some unknown Kadagidi, or maybe Shishogi himself, had assassinated Grandfather, who was the Ajuri lord.

  He had pulled all the Ajuri pins. And there sat Uncle Tatiseigi, with two of his three neighbor clans not having any lord, and with his conservative allies all upset because the conservatives had lost two lordships they were scared they were going to see filled with liberals.

  What Father might do was dissolve Ajuri and dissolve Kadagidi all into smaller clans, who then would lose all their seniority, and become something new, losing some of their subclans to Atageini and other neighbors.

  Father could also just let both clans go along for another year with no lords, which meant nobody representing them in the legislature, nobody taking care of hospitals and fire and schools and such, which was terrible for the people, besides creating continual upset around Great-uncle, whose situation made the map in that region look very sad, and really upset the conservatives.

  So Father wanted him to go see his mecheita, and say just a few words for the news services, quietly indicating the aiji’s approval of Tatiseigi himself, and showing that Great-grandmother’s departure to the East was not a gesture of displeasure.

  Will Mother be upset? he had asked, and his father had said—

  “At cheering up her uncle? No. At my sending you into this region alone, yes. She might be.”

  “With my aishid. With my servants.”

  “That is the exactly the point. Eisi and Liedi are two excellent fellows, cheerful and willing and very happy to be in your service, and they would fling themselves between you and any hazard, but with little else they could do. Your aishid is remarkably able for their age—but they are not senior Guild. They will be, someday. But they are not yet.”

  “Casimi and Seimaji—”

  “Are going with your great-grandmother. No. I am assigning someone more permanent to you, and I am moving in added protection for your great-uncle. And do not give me that face, son of mine. I am giving you, permanently, someone both Banichi and Cenedi approve . . . granted they are willing to stay.”

  So he had agreed. He would have more bodyguards. What else could he do? He was given a responsibility, he was given a thing to do for his father and for his mother. And for mani and Great-uncle. He was given a chance to ride. And he had always traveled with senior Guild in charge of the party. The difference was that this time Father was sending him off by himself.

  The difficulty was in his upside-down aishid, in which the youngest were first, because he had promised them always to be first, before he had had Veijico and Lucasi handed him during the situation in the south. Now they were all to be outranked by somebody permanent and high in the Guild.

  He had not even told them. He had to, in the morning. But he also understood why it was necessary for his father to add that protection—not just for him, but for his household and for everybody around him.

  He had no idea where he would even put four senior Guild, in the confines of his little suite.

  But being grown-ups, and senior at that, they probably would not appreciate the silliness that went on in his suite. They probably would be grim, and serious, and they would be much happier operating out of the regular Guild office for the whole household. That would be better for everybody.

  But . . .

  He had to get up early and pack in the morning, and at noon, after lunch with his father and mother, he was to go down and take the Red Train, which was back from its trip to the coast, and after that, he would be on his own, with his staff.

  And he would take Boji, he decided. He was taking Eisi and Liedi, who were the ones who cared for Boji, and he could not ask regular staff to do it.

  If he was to have new staff, they would just have to get along with Boji and all his nonsense. It was the way his house was. His aishidi had to have some patience with all his associations, which were not what everybody would have patience with.

  And that was the way he would have it.

  5

  The sail came in, with no shortage of hands to help—but Bren was obliged to stand clear of the action and watch in lordly dignity as they came in sight of the harbor. Narani and Jeladi had, an hour ago, extracted and opened the smallest of the wardrobe cases. The locker in the cabin had received the comfortable deck shoes and the casuals from the luggage, as well as the traveling clothes he had worn on the train. He was kitted up now in pale beige with collar and cuff lace, his queue was done up in a fresh white silk ribbon, and the pale blue silk vest, glittering with gold embroidery, was bulletproof—but not up to handling rope.

  Toby fi
red up the motor while they were still underway, and eased them into the harbor under power.

  They had an appointed berth, which Toby’s communications had assigned them this morning, number seven, a politic choice, a number which humans and atevi alike found fortunate . . . not a marina berth, but a massive floating dock used by the ferries, the water taxis, and the small Mospheiran Navy craft, which doubled as sea rescue.

  A police boat lazed slowly along, turned, and began to pace them at a respectful distance, escorting them in, one supposed—acceptable so long as it kept its distance. Bren’s bodyguard was close by him, Tano and Algini paying attention to that presence and Banichi and Jago watching the landward side as they came nearer. Vehicles and people were gathered there, up on the pier, and on the dock a police boat sat at mooring, while the other hovered off, turning now.

  A band struck up, tinny with distance.

  God. He hadn’t expected that.

  News trucks up on the landing. He saw the emblems. He saw the murky green and black of Mospheiran military vehicles, and black ones, officialdom at very least.

  Deep breath. “It is possible,” he said in Ragi, “that the Presidenta is meeting us in person. If he is, there may well be news services. Expect too that some persons may attempt to touch, without ill will. Concealed weapons are the danger. The Presidenta may have people to spot any such, and not all will be in uniform.”

  “One hears,” Banichi said, never taking his eyes off their landing.

  Nearer by the second, across the green water. There were metal barricades up top, yellow warning banners that secured the stairs. One thing they did not have was their own baggage handling, and he was not going to leave either pair of his aishid to deal with it, or expect Toby and Barb to do anything but get the crates off their deck as rapidly as possible and move out beyond the territorial limit, where the atevi navy would be waiting. Narani and Jeladi had volunteered to stay and deal with the problem.

  “Narani and Jeladi cannot move the crates ashore,” he said. “We shall have to have local people boarding.”

  “They are sealed,” Algini reminded him. Which was so. Nobody in an ordinary time frame could open the crates without leaving evidence. They would know. What they could do about it was limited. But the things snoopery would truly want to know about were not in those crates. They were in the black leather bags, much more portable.

  And he simply had to trust that Narani, with Jeladi assisting, would be safe, and unmolested, in their getting the baggage moved.

  They were close enough to distinguish individuals. And to see, standing down on the dock itself, a man in a dark blue suit among other people in gray business dress. Shawn, one would bet on that stance, that familiar way of moving, Shawn with aides and a security detail, waiting right down on waterside, and with a handful of other people in suits at the stairs that led up to solid land. Those black vehicles up above likely were the trappings of the presidency.

  Toby slowed their progress, began to work with the local currents, which Toby knew well—it was his home port—and carefully brought them in against the buffers, and indeed, it was Shawn, with security, and aides. Barb and Jeladi flung out the mooring lines as Toby reversed and held the boat steady.

  Algini and Tano ran the gangway out, thump, resting with necessary give on the heaving dock.

  Bren gave a little nod to Toby, one to Barb.

  “We’ll be waiting,” Toby said.

  Safer, Bren thought, for being under atevi guard. Jago had the treaty in her keeping, but he took the document case into his own possession, slung the strap from his shoulder, then said quietly, “We shall go.” He could see Shawn waiting with anticipation, surrounded by his own complement of security, same dark suits, same short haircut, women and men alike.

  Banichi and Jago went across first. Bren went second, Tano and Algini following, with Narani and Jeladi staying aboard. Shawn walked forward to meet them, and bet on it, there were cameras on them. Bren gave a little bow before Shawn could extend a hand, lifted his head, smiling—as much breach of atevi protocol as he was going to afford.

  “Good to see you,” he said to Shawn. “Very good.”

  “Good crossing?” Shawn asked.

  “Smooth as silk.”

  “Surprised you came by sea.”

  “Massive baggage,” he said, indicating the cases on the boat. “And after the station, I frankly wanted the sea. We all did. I also wanted to give you a little lead time on this.”

  “Useful. Yes. There’s been, you can imagine, a stir of one kind and the other.”

  He was well aware as to which kinds. “I need to get my wardrobes ashore. My two staffers will go with them.”

  “No problem. Your message said baggage. We’re prepared for anything.—You’ll be my guest at Francis House, I hope.”

  Not the Grandview, but the local presidential palace, one of three official residences—one at Port Jackson, one at Bretano, and one on the Southern Shore, that the President used in a several month rotation, keeping current with various sections of the island.

  “Honored,” Bren said, already parsing the politics of it. Advantage to Shawn for receiving a first atevi delegation, for the reflected glory of the mission that had turned aside the kyo threat, for getting a direct visit from the aiji in Shejidan—and disadvantage, in certain quarters, for dealing with atevi on sacred Mospheiran soil, for letting atevi handle the kyo negotiations, because Bren Cameron didn’t count as human; and for receiving atevi officially in the Presidential residency.

  Everything anybody did on Mospheira was subject to dual interpretation, depending on the political party. What counted was the disposition of the audience and majority sentiment, and what determined that was where the attention of the Mospheiran people, who had lately been highly agitated by a threat in space, happened to be focused. The Mospheiran people en masse rarely awoke from their own concerns . . . rarely took a long view or a wide one about an issue; but when they’d been scared by it, they had opinions, loud ones. And that awakening had happened several times in recent history—when Phoenix had turned up in the heavens and reoccupied the space station; when Phoenix had left the world again, looking to find out the fate of a colony at Reunion, giving Mospheira no vote in the decision; when Murini’s conspiracy had overthrown Tabini and Mospheira had found itself facing alliance with atevi counter-conspirators on the one hand and hostilities from the atevi side of the strait on the other. Now they’d just seen an alien ship capable, so they’d been told, of wiping out civilization arrive in the heavens, had had to sit quietly as it talked with the atevi, leaving Mospheirans to accept whatever deal atevi made with them—and it was still here, in the act of departing.

  So were the Mospheiran people currently focused on foreign relations?

  They were. But being Mospheiran they wanted nothing more than to leave the fearsome issue behind and sink back into their own habits, their own domestic concerns.

  He could give them that chance. He wanted to give them that assurance that all was well and would be.

  Unfortunately, what he also had to give them was five thousand human foreigners, some of them with issues of their own and others with ambitions. Not as frightening, perhaps, but dangerous? Possibly. Disruptive? Absolutely.

  Shawn led the way up the steps. Bren let Shawn and his people go first, he and his followed. He had to trust Barb and Toby and the Mospheiran government to see to the offloading, and the Mospheiran government and Shawn’s security to get it to Francis House.

  He and his aishid mounted the last steps up to the wooden pier, where cameras and onlookers abounded, spilling onto solid land, behind flimsy yellow barriers. Mospheirans who didn’t work at the airports or the shipyards were getting their first-ever firsthand look, not only at atevi, but also seeing one of their own, the human paidhi who had served Mospheira, who had walked the streets of Port Jackson looking no
different from themselves, turning up in full-on atevi court dress—which everyone knew he wore, but Mospheira had never seen him in that mode. That he was here now representing atevi interests, as they could well guess—that was what the paidhi-aiji was supposed to do, but Mospheirans had never had that called to their attention—until now—and they had to figure what to make of it—along with the news that atevi had done the negotiating with the kyo. Atevi weren’t exactly enemies. But they were the majority. They weren’t enemies. But they notoriously didn’t understand the word friendship.

  And atevi hadn’t set foot officially on Mospheira in the last two centuries.

  So what did it mean? they might ask themselves. The paidhiin had been the go-betweens for them for two hundred years, the only go-betweens, and here was their paidhi not going between any longer, but coming ashore with an armed atevi guard, and getting an official welcome from their President, to talk about what had just happened up in the heavens? What did it mean for them?

  He couldn’t be what he had been—not when he wore what he wore now. He maintained the demeanor of an atevi official, the solemnity of an atevi official. He walked closely behind Shawn, and behind two of his aishid, the rest following him. He had not planned to intersect the cameras as anything but image.

  But the crowd was not unruly and the cameras were close enough to catch a word—casual or not. He made up his mind on the instant and paused, with a little, a very little bow, and a pleasant look acknowledging the crowd. News services moved directional microphones so quickly he saw his security twitch, just slightly. Shawn delayed.

  “The aiji in Shejidan,” Bren said, fully conscious of the physical risk an unscreened crowd posed, pressing hard against the barriers, “sends regards, and wishes you to know you are safe. With the cooperation of Gin Kroger, Lord Geigi, and the Phoenix captains, the aiji has secured a treaty with the kyo. President Tyers—” He glanced toward Shawn, but spoke loudly enough for the microphones. “We are glad to say the kyo are satisfied that we mean them no harm, and they assure us they mean none to us. They are leaving the solar system as they came, and wish to remain unvisited for some time to come, since they are at war on one frontier, and hope to resolve that conflict without others’ involvement. We wished them, in the President’s name and in the aiji’s, likewise to respect our territory, and assured them we are peaceful people and good neighbors, which they were very glad to confirm.” He unslung the document case from his shoulder, and held it aloft, in public view. “I have with me one of the three documents that gives us all that assurance, with no real concessions on our part.” He handed it to Shawn on the spot—impromptu, but perfectly opportune, and in full view of the cameras. “This is the kyo’s promise, their recognition that this is our solar system, and they will honor our boundaries as we honor theirs. One copy is in the hands of the aiji, one copy is aboard the kyo ship outbound from this solar system, and the third copy you now have in hand, Mr. President, with the aiji’s good wishes.”