Convergence

by C. J. Cherryh

“Speaking of whether that choice can work.”

  “I have reasons that wouldn’t be common.”

  “But you can make that transition. You have made it. That’s a question.”

  His mind leapt to recent memory, a cell, a human face. Guy Cullen. A man he’d outright lied to, and cast into precisely that situation, aboard a kyo ship still in the solar system. The kyo might have more in common emotionally with humans than atevi did. Were less like humans biologically.

  “Make the transition?” he said, recovering the thread of Shawn’s question to him. “Yes. I could. But I don’t have to, totally. I have Toby. I have Barb. You. The people I’ve called on. Jase, on the station. A lot of people that can pull me back.” He drew a deep breath, attempted a laugh. “But it doesn’t stick, these days. I dream in Ragi.”

  “Do you fill out Department forms for that?” Shawn said, in levity. The Linguistics Department had used to demand an accounting of every new word, every unapproved word used, back in Wilson’s time. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. You recorded every encounter. Your journal went back to the Department, every move and every new word written down to be analyzed and recorded.

  “Our own rise from the ashes,” Shawn said then, soberly, “was slower, you know, because we didn’t want really advanced tech getting across the strait, and if we had it, the aishidi’tat would find a way to get it. Now—we’re worried about space tech disrupting our own way of life, coming down on us too fast. Pacing still is an issue. It’s been a question, in the last two years—do we take everything the ship can offer? And now we’ve got Reunioner science coming down on us. There’s excitement about that in some quarters. But there will be resistance, too, of a sort that the paidhi-aiji is uniquely fitted to understand.”

  “Cell phones,” he said. “And sat phones. Very serious question. I’m not allowing them. I’ve thought about it, and, functioning in my old capacity, I’ve advised Tabini not to allow them for the public. It won’t be the paidhi’s decree. It’ll be his.”

  “They’re a damned nuisance. People walking into traffic—”

  “They’ll exist on the mainland, but they’ll be restricted to the Assassins’ Guild, who already have a similar technology. Clan lords, maybe: that’s still under consideration, but that’s a decision the Guild may make, with their own technology. I’ve said no. So I’m not totally done with saying no. And here I am, recommending Reunioner tech to the whole world.”

  “Most of which is in energy and materials, as I understand it.”

  “Which will change us both economically. You have to worry about the corporations, who’s to be blessed and who’s going to lose. Tabini-aiji has to worry about clans and regions. It’s the same, but it’s different. We get along much better as individuals than we do in groups.”

  “That’s not a uniquely atevi attribute,” Shawn said.

  “The difference will be,” Bren said, “is beginning to be—that the aiji is the one who’ll make the take-it or reject-it decisions. He’ll have access to everything. I’ll interpret it, and he’ll consider the impact, with my advice, but it’s his decision, moderated by other advisors. And his son, his heir, is not going head over heels for his experience on the ship, which pleases us all. He’ll have these youngsters, very likely, as advisors in one capacity and another. They need education as paidhiin. Linguistics, economics, geography, history, biological sciences, physical sciences. They’re the future. And they have to be human. The way the heir has to be atevi. That’s why Tabini is protecting them—but he’s sending them to you. Entrusting them to you.”

  “And the University.”

  “And the University. Let me be honest, Shawn. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have survived the University. They’d have put me at a desk and kept me in residency, knowing too much to be let loose, and too free with the rules to get the appointment when Wilson retired—too reckless to stay appointed without your intervention . . .”

  “And Tabini’s.”

  “Without his support, I wouldn’t have lasted a week. But without yours—it would have been a far rougher road.”

  “You’re asking me to look out for those kids.”

  “Definitely.” He hesitated, then: “I’ll have Sandra on it. And you will get reports.”

  “They’ll get to my desk,” Shawn said. “I’ll make a point of it. If I don’t hear, I’ll ask.”

  “Mr. President.” One of Shawn’s aides had stepped into the room, with an accompanying increase in noise from the opened door.

  “Well, Mr. Cameron,” Shawn said. “Shall we do our best?”

  • • •

  House security had a camera in the staff washroom, where Uncle had confined the intruder. Uncle’s aishid had questioned him, and Rieni and Cajeiri’s aishid had questioned him on the same points, over and over, and received the same limited information. The intruder refused to say more until he met with, as he put it, his cousin.

  Cousin was an odd way to think of somebody who had sneaked onto the grounds. He had come in the same way the last intruders had come in—but it was possible, Rieni said, that, it being known in the neighborhood that there had been an intrusion from the Kadagidi estate, he had simply looked for a breach on that side and found it.

  Indeed, he had damaged the new plantings, but not fatally, and a search had not turned up evidence of multiple intruders. That was good, Cajeiri thought. And that the path had led through the orchard was a good route: at least there were trees to climb, if the mecheiti had gotten wind of him. He had also not been there long, since the wind had been out of the south, and the day before, it had been out of the north, which would have betrayed his presence to the herd.

  So they had a good idea how long he had been there, and they had an idea what had prompted him to try—Uncle’s nomination and his presence, his younger and his senior bodyguards agreed on that . . . if he truly was Ajuri.

  He had maintained consistently that he was Ajuri. And he generally had done absolutely nothing to try to escape or to quarrel with anyone. He was waiting—waiting for a meeting or a resolution that had, in a proper house, eventually to come, whether in a case laid before the Guild, or in this case, before Father—or the meeting he asked to have.

  Uncle had afforded him proper food, proper care. He had wanted a bath last night. Uncle had allowed it.

  Had Uncle notified Father they had a problem? Cajeiri somewhat doubted he had, but it was possible the Guild had. Certainly very high-up Guild, as high as Father himself could send, was already on the premises, doing their investigation, and possibly asking questions elsewhere.

  But came breakfast, and everybody adult was still planning on him talking to this person, which—he had no desire to say—was scary, in the way the unknown was scary.

  He was absolutely certain nothing would happen to him. He thought about that, and thought that was not the reason he was afraid. It just would not happen, not while his aishid was with him.

  No, it was something more in his imagination than in anything physical—and maybe, he thought, maybe it was because this person might know something about Mother.

  He wanted to know—if there was something bad or something good. But he did not want to get something bad from an enemy. He wanted to be strong enough an enemy could not see whether he was upset.

  Mani was that strong. Father was. And if there was something he ought to know—then he had to go find out.

  “I shall talk to him,” he said to his aishid, older and younger. “I think maybe two of Uncle’s should hear. This is his neighbor.”

  “A good idea,” Rieni said, and sent Lucasi to bring them in.

  So it was with a lot of Guild attendance that he went down the stairs, and down to the lower level of the house.

  Servants attended, too, two men from the general staff, and with such a large group, he let Uncle’s men suggest they meet in the servant
s’ dining room, which was a comfortable place, with a long table. He sat at one end of it, proper and patient, dressed in soft country clothes, nothing remarkable, but he thought this self-claimed cousin should know who he was without so much a gold pin in evidence.

  Uncle’s men brought their intruder from his room down the hall. He was likewise in country dress, as he had arrived, but a good deal rougher, with a split seam in his coat and splashes of mud on his trousers and coat alike—old splashes, or he had made shift to try to rub them off this morning and look as presentable as possible. He had a hard face that could go much younger. It was not easy, Cajeiri thought, to be sure about his age, but it might be somewhere near his father’s. Wind and weather figured in it. And hard labor. The hands showed it.

  He was very conscious of his own age, but also conscious of as much force about him as his father would generally muster in a chancy meeting. He offered this intruder no expression, nothing so telling as a frown. Nothing. He made himself as calm as mani could be. At least he hoped so.

  “Sit, please,” he said. There was only one chair set at the table, and that at the other end, so it was a long, safe expanse of wood between them.

  Nomari gave a polite bow and sat down. “Thank you, nandi,” Nomari said, “for the meeting.”

  “Thank my great-uncle, nadi,” he said. “You really might have come to the front door.”

  A sharp look, measuring him, not the guard around him. “You are my cousin. Third cousin, it may be, but you are kin. Your uncle owes me nothing.”

  “Third cousin is not very close. I have a lot of third cousins. But I am here to listen.”

  “Then,” Nomari said, opening his hands. “I make a request. Your uncle’s nomination for Ajuri is not one Ajuri will ever accept.”

  It was a firm voice. An absolute one. It was odd, how much assurance was in it. And he threw it right back again.

  “I am sure my father did veto it. It is already done.”

  “Then there needs to be a new one. Young aiji, I have a thing to say. Let me say it.”

  “Say it, then.”

  “The lordship of Ajuri has been a death sentence. Two of your great-uncles, your grandfather, all dead. You would be qualified. I cannot think you would want it.”

  “I am not qualified in the first place. I am my father’s heir.”

  “Your mother could well take it.”

  “My father is not willing to confirm her.”

  “So no one in that line can hold the lordship—the one who would, your father will never approve. The one who could, your father has blocked from taking it. Lord Tatiseigi has nominated an old man, an associate of his with the blood—but he has only resentment within the clan. He would very likely die before the year is out, to no one’s advantage. But I would take the lordship. I could do it. I have support. I am your third cousin, through your grandfather.”

  “So why come here, and not there?”

  “If I should go in alone and raise a claim inside Ajuri, the ones in charge now will not back it and I probably would be dead in days, of some accident never even reported in Shejidan. I would vanish without a trace. That is why I came here. Now I cannot vanish. You have seen me. You are my witness. I am an answer that could raise Ajuri out of the pit it has fallen into. I am out of the cadet line, out of Nichono. I have served outside the clan, in the guilds, I have no ongoing quarrel inside the house, and hearing that Lord Tatiseigi had entered the question, and that you were guesting here—I came to present my case. Give me the appointment. Give us all the chance. Ajuri is too important, too old a clan to see it broken. And it is your heritage, the same as mine.”

  It was a lot to take in. Nichono. He could not even remember where that fit, or how that was related.

  A lot of twists and turns. He thought of his map, with all the holes in it, the wreckage of two clans that were, with Uncle’s clan and four others, the heart of the aishidi’tat. Ajuri might be a little clan, but it had wielded influence, and real power—power that had helped the aishidi’tat be born. It had never produced aijiin—but it had produced his mother, aiji-consort, lastingly married to his father. And through her, him, and Seimei.

  Should they destroy it once and for all, so that nothing else wicked ever came of its stealth and planning?

  “It was Ajuri itself that killed everybody,” he said. “It killed my grandfather for trying to talk with my uncle . . . because of what he might say about Ajuri and Kadagidi. I think so. Do you?”

  “I think you are probably more right than you know, young aiji.”

  “I think my uncle is right. He thinks so. Were you responsible?”

  “No.” The expression was even a little surprised. It looked like the truth.

  “Do you know who was?”

  A little hesitation on that answer. “I might. I have my suspicion.”

  “Who?”

  “I think it was my great-uncle. Shishogi.”

  They shared that relation, then, one he had rather not own. But so did his mother. One could hardly condemn him for that.

  “Probably you do need to talk with my uncle,” he said. “Shishogi is not a good name in this house. You should know that.”

  “It is not a name I favor—not now. And I am not alone in feeling betrayed. We had hope when your father came back. We had some hope. But people died. People who tried to do something—always died. My father, my mother, and my brother of another wife—they died years ago. I owe nothing good to his memory. You think Ajuri gained advantage from him—no. For most of us it gained nothing good. Families have set themselves against each other, families killed families to protect their own, because man’chi is broken, trust is broken, and it has been for years. There are those Shishogi favored—but it was not our family. We knew Shishogi—at least we thought we did. But Shishogi wanted no one to know him. He was a modest man. He never wanted to have his name on an order. He never sent anyone to do anything. But people died, who questioned things they should not. Some of us went into the guilds. Some of us just went away and nobody knows now whether they went on Shishogi’s business, or whether they are dead, or just living in hiding. That is how it has been. Lord after lord after lord has gone down, and now there is no one inside the walls who either can or will claim the lordship—a lifespan measured in days does no one any good.”

  It was a lot of information. He knew he did not know everything about Shishogi, who had sat in the heart of the Guild for years and years and years, in a cramped little office stuffed with paper records. Shishogi had been the Office of Assignments for the Assassins’ Guild. He had determined how teams were put together, and what teams were sent to what district, in the Guild’s insistence that the guilds should all be free of clans, and not go to areas where they had family. Assignments had let Shishogi move certain people about the aishidi’tat, give good protection to some lords, and not to others, arranging some to die, even within the Guild.

  Assignments had arranged the accession of certain lords and the fall of others, and set a collection of conspirators into position to kill people—including his father and his mother, all to set an association of very bad people in power.

  He knew those things, and nothing Nomari said was out of agreement with what he knew, but it did not prove that Nomari himself was not one of Shishogi’s people looking for a way to move back in.

  It was not a question he could decide.

  But his senior aishid, who had been deep in the Guild’s workings, and come back when mani and nand’ Bren had moved to take Shishogi down—they were listening, too, and so was Uncle’s senior aishid, who had lived right between Ajuri and the Kadagidi who had conspired with Shishogi; and even Antaro and Jegari, who had grown up in Taiben, sharing another border with Ajuri: the attack on Father had happened in Taiben, and Taibeni had been killed.

  Facts could be checked. Rieni could do it without appearing to do a
nything, in much less than an hour.

  “Is Nomari your name, nadi?” It was Haniri who asked that question, from Nomari’s left, along the wall.

  “Yes. It is. My father was Senarii. My father’s father was Anoji. Anoji’s mother was Nichono, Ajuno’s daughter by Haro.”

  Ajuno was a name he knew. But Ajuno’s legal wife had been Seniro. Dry as dust memorizations on a summer afternoon became vivid, scarily vivid. Who was Haro? Someone his tutor would hesitate to mention?

  “Your guild,” Rieni asked.

  “Transport,” Nomari said. “Ninth tier, third rank, line maintenance, in Shejidan and Asho.”

  Again, the Assassins’ Guild would contact Transportation and check it—fast.

  “I shall talk to my great-uncle,” Cajeiri said. “And tell my father . . . which is what you want, is it not?”

  A respectful nod. “Yes, nandi. It is. May I ask—there will be a number of people concerned for my whereabouts. One does not believe they would follow me onto these grounds—I asked them to wait for word. But would you—hang a white cloth on the main gate? It need not be conspicuous.”

  Set up his signal on Uncle’s gate?

  He wondered whether there was any chance Antaro’s and Jegari’s parents were still in camp, or whether they had pulled back. And who had intruded into Taibeni land.

  “What direction did you come?” he asked. “Did you cross Kadagidi land?” There was a Guild watch there, not lightly to be transgressed.

  “Only along the hedge. I came up from Sidonin.”

  “Not from Ajuri?”

  “No.”

  “Have any of your associates come out from Ajuri?” Rieni asked.

  “No. None of us have been in Ajuri for years.”

  That was one place where stories did not match. And Rieni had gone right to it.

  “I think you should go back to your room now,” Cajeiri said. “And wait. If you need anything, let someone know. Uncle has no wish for you to be uncomfortable.”

  “I should like a book, if it becomes convenient. I should like pen and paper.”