All Mospheirans descended—in both senses of the word—from a strayed colony, quite thoroughly lost and desperate when they’d arrived in orbit around the atevi world. When the ship Phoenix had left them—deserted them, in the minds of many—they’d dropped down to the world. The native atevi had given them a foothold, let humans trade technology for peace, and finally afforded them this one island for their own, separate and safe so long as they didn’t test their tolerance for each other too far.
Humans had done all right for themselves on Mospheira. For one thing, it was no small island, even for the modern population. And in the passage of time, the abandoned space station had become just a two-hundred-year-old curiosity, a star in the skies of a world that atevi had always called, sensibly enough and in their own language, Earth. Dirt. Ground. Home. Their planet.
The Earth of humans? Phoenix had unhappily misplaced that in the original disaster that had sent the ship so thoroughly off course and stranded them. Phoenix had spent the last two hundred years working their way along the track they believed would get them home—but things had gotten . . . complicated. Another intelligent species, this one spacefaring, had taken exception to Phoenix’s invasion of their territory, and had objected particularly to the other station Phoenix had built—right on the kyo’s back doorstep.
Which was why Phoenix had returned to the atevi Earth, still lost, short of supply and more desperate than they had wanted to confess to anybody at the time. The ship had wanted the station occupied again, wanted, in effect, fuel, food, and a place remote from troubles. In return, they would give the world the benefit of their presence—and hand over their ship’s technical archives . . . which might have let Mospheirans overwhelmingly outpace their atevi hosts, except for one thing. The necessary mineral resources and the manpower to get the station up and running—were all on the atevi continent.
So Mospheirans had joined with atevi in a massive campaign to get up into space, to build shuttles and to reopen the space station to serve the ship. And once the station was up and running, human and atevi would live and work as equals on that neutral ground—half the station human, half atevi.
Only after their ten year investment in time, money and delicate social adjustment, did the hidden truth behind Phoenix’s retreat come out: the possibility of survivors aboard that distant station. Some ship’s officers had known it. The ship’s crew hadn’t. There were questions—deep, angry questions among the crew. Phoenix had made the run back to Reunion to answer those questions, and found the Reunioners, the same people now at the center of the current crisis, holding on by their fingernails in the remains of the station.
“Tillington’s riding his heroics during the Troubles,” Gin said, “and the inclination is to say, well, he just went momentarily off the edge when the Reunioners came in. But the records tell a consistent story from the moment Phoenix left on the rescue mission—deals under the table, promises made that he had no right to make, and some very slippery dealing with corporate interests trying to get past Lord Geigi, especially after the atevi government had its Troubles. He’s operated up there as if nobody would ever check the records. He’s dealt with corporate officers, claiming that the Reunioners are here to take over and that Sabin and Jase Graham are behind it all, in some deal with you.”
Sabin and Jase were two of Phoenix’s four captains, the ones who’d taken the ship out and rescued the Reunioners.
“He’s crazy.”
“Crazy enough can be more plausible to some. The public needs to see this man without the varnish on. They need to see the people in the Reunioner sections using buckets for a water supply. This is overwhelmingly important, Bren. They have to understand.”
The Reunioners were descendants of former administrators and management who had, in the story that had come down to modern Mospheirans, abandoned them and gone off with the ship. Integrating the refugees into the Mospheiran population would be a delicate piece of work even without that ancient issue made active.
“What’s your timeline on releasing this vid?”
“Hope to broadcast it before the kids come down. Allow time for the storm to settle. The President likewise has a copy.”
“I’ll give it a close look.” Having Shawn’s eyes on it as well as his made him feel much easier.
“Another thing,” Gin said. “Since the young gentleman recently appeared on the newsfeed on Mospheira, I’ve dared to include some footage of his and the dowager’s visit to Central, and a little of their dealing with the kyo. I think the evidence of their help to humans reads extremely well. Appreciate if you could clear that with the atevi, if possible. I can edit it out. I’d rather not. I think it’s critical.”
“I’ll take it on my own head if it needs to be.” Footage of the aiji’s family was generally not permitted, except on state occasions. But there were judicious exceptions. The young gentleman’s first independent outing had been one such. Tabini himself had arranged that just in the last number of days. The paidhi-aiji might have to make an executive decision.
“You’re such a useful guy, Bren.”
“I try.”
Who would have thought, two hundred years ago, that the paidhi’s function would include vetting a documentary on a crisis in space and making sensitive decisions regarding the aiji’s own family?
For two hundred years, humans and atevi had managed not to kill each other on Earth, two hundred years during which each side had kept its boundaries and prospered, due in no small part to atevi willingness to keep their bargains and the fact that humans had been careful what technology they turned over and at what pace.
For two hundred years, the paidhi had been the fulcrum of that exchange, the translator to decision-makers on either side of the channel. Thanks to those conservative and careful decisions, technology had advanced slowly but steadily, not radically disrupting atevi culture, and atevi and human culture had slowly shifted, accommodating each other in a civilized way.
That controlled rate of advance had run amok once the ship had come back, urgently wanting the station back in operation. It had threatened to upset the balance of power, and atevi—controlling the vital resources—had finally pulled up equal with Mospheirans in technology—even passing them, where it came to computers and weaponry.
The nature and extent of those changes in relative power had brought him here to Francis House, the seasonal center of the Mospheiran government and the residence of the Mospheiran President—brought him here not as a Mospheiran citizen, not even as Mospheira’s representative to the atevi court, which was what he had been—but as the official representative of Tabini-aiji, head of the Western Association, the aishidi’tat.
That was to say, he now arrived in atevi court dress and spoke for the atevi government.
He had, moreover, brought his armed atevi security and two of his atevi household staff with him, and he had settled in to explain to the Mospheiran government precisely what the aishidi’tat would and would not accept in the solution regarding another shipload of humans arriving on the planet.
It was a decided contrast to his previous visits, as a mere employee of the Mospheiran State Department.
“Well, then. I’ll leave it in your hands. Should have downloaded by now. I’m for bed, but I won’t sleep well till I hear at least your initial impressions, so let me know soonest, please.”
“Soonest,” he said.
The line went dead. He put down the phone and turned to the expectant faces of his aishid.
A documentary on the station situation had the potential to blow a lot of historic misconceptions into dust, with absolutely unpredictable consequences. And Gin was counting on him to pass judgment on its effects.
God. He hadn’t bargained for any of this.
But who else could do it?
A flying trip back to Shejidan to consult, just for an hour? That might have been remotely conceiva
ble an hour ago. Now it was definitely not going to happen.
“We have a complication,” he told those expectant faces. “Gin-nandi is arranging a broadcast. She will show Mospheira the situation on the station. She will show them why these people have to come down now, as rapidly as we can manage, and why Tillington is under arrest for his actions. The Heritage Party has been organizing a public campaign of objection to Tillington’s dismissal. Gin’s broadcast will show the public in general things that will upset their understandings about the Reunioners. And they will see what conditions Tillington created. It will not be a pleasant experience for Mospheira and it will not be without repercussions. People will, for one thing, actually see the kyo in this broadcast. And there is, for good reason, a request that the young gentleman and the aiji-dowager be seen in this record. They were there. Much of our best visual record of the kyo includes them as participants. And they were, indeed, present and lending authority to Lord Geigi, lest anybody doubt where Tabini-aiji might stand on the matter. Gin-nandi’s intent is to show atevi dealing with the kyo and rescuing the whole world from threat.”
Sober looks. What Gin asked went entirely against tradition. “The paidhi-aiji will decide,” Banichi said. “And we will back him.”
“With advice,” he said. “With your advice and your good sense. I think the communications storage may have brought this thing down by now, nadiin-ji. We need to view it.”
3
The stairway down to the servants’ bath was empty, which was not surprising, it being almost dinner time.
Uncle—he was Great-uncle, actually, but Uncle seemed closer and kinder, so that was what Cajeiri called him—Uncle had three formal meals a day even when Uncle was the only one in residence at Tirnamardi, but somehow that seemed appropriate. The manor that presided over Atageini clan was a marvelous place full of traditions. Uncle had his own museum in the basement, a treasure house of wonderful things. He had a grand library of beautiful old books. He had his stable of mecheiti, one of the two best lines in all the world.
Uncle lived all alone in this great old house, with just his bodyguard and his staff. He had no close relatives except Mother, who was his niece, and she never visited, not in all the time Cajeiri could remember.
But lately Uncle had had him, and from early this summer, there was his new baby sister—real blood relatives, which meant a great deal to Uncle.
And for three days now, Uncle had had another guest, Nomari, a cousin, so Nomari said, on Cajeiri’s Ajuri side, and related to Uncle only remotely—and through an infelicitous marriage, at that. Nomari wanted to be the next lord of Ajuri and had come here to get Uncle’s support.
Nomari had sneaked in, more like, but Nomari had reason—assassination being the fate of every lord of Ajuri for generations.
Ajuri was a very tiny clan, and it held lands just beyond the border of the Atageini, Uncle’s clan. But, along with its internal bloodshed, little Ajuri had murdered its way to a power and influence far exceeding its size—all under the guidance of a terrible old man, Shishogi, who had been another great-uncle, and also Ajuri. Walled away in a messy little office in the Assassins’ Guild’s headquarters, sitting as master of Assignments, Shishogi, it had turned out, had been killing people for years, forging authorizations, moving Guild about the map, spying, ordering not legal assassinations, but outright murders.
Shishogi had tried to kill Father and Mother, and had killed Grandfather, beyond any doubt Cajeiri held. Shishogi very likely had killed other lords and would-be lords of Ajuri before that, when they tried to cross his plans. Oh, never personally. It was doubtful if Shishogi personally had killed anyone . . . but his murders were a long, long list, not even counting those dead in the coup, innocent people, like old Eidi, who had used to be Father’s major domo and who had died trying to defend the apartment.
Shishogi had created a Guild inside the Guild, an association they called the Shadow Guild, people positioned to bring down the government and kill people who might stop them. It had managed to put the government into Kadagidi hands, briefly, under a man named Murini, who had, after all, been all hollow. The real power had been the Shadow Guild, and that had been far harder to root out.
Shishogi was gone now, which was a good thing, but if his influence and the thing he had created remained anywhere at all, the ragtag end was very likely down in the Marid, and extremely likely—in Ajuri itself. It was Shishogi’s longtime supporters inside Ajuri that Nomari feared—quite reasonably so. And the process that looked set to appoint a new lord for Ajuri was why, Nomari had said, he had had to come to Uncle, not just for himself, but for all those other Ajuri who dared not speak out. It was, as they saw it, a last chance to put an Ajuri into the Ajuri lordship. They did not want any more Shadow Guild, but they did not want somebody from outside given power over Ajuri.
Nomari was an average-looking young man, rough and poorly dressed when he had arrived, having nothing of lordly polish about his manners, either. His hands were rough and scarred with heavy work, and his face, though pleasant enough, was habitually cold—though it could light into an engaging humor. Cajeiri found Nomari more than interesting, and interesting, too, the fact that Uncle seemed to approve of him and his associates—all of whom, over sixty in number, were currently camped on Uncle’s front lawn. Nomari’s people had arrived mostly empty-handed, without baggage, so Uncle had offered Nomari, if not the seventy or so people who had shown up to support him, the hospitality of the house—and provided the tents the estate maintained for hunting season to shelter the people outside. Uncle had also set his tailor to work and provided an indoor coat and several nice shirts for Nomari, so that Nomari, representing these people, need not appear in the house at any disadvantage.
But while Nomari had an invitation to stay in the house, where it was certainly warmer, he chose to spend nights and most of the daylight hours in the tents with his associates. Cajeiri approved of that decision—assuming, as seemed likely, that Nomari really was who he said he was.
But if he were in Nomari’s place, he thought, he would choose to stay with his associates as well, rather than stay alone in the big house with a lord with whom he had neither relationship nor agreement, no matter the promise of warmth and safety. One’s people were one’s people.
The relationship between Ajuri and Atageini had fractured when Mother was born. That was when. Mother was why.
Mother was why so many things had happened.
Because Mother, who was Uncle’s sister’s daughter, had been born in a Contract marriage, intended to be raised Atageini and become Uncle’s heir. But Uncle’s sister had died suspiciously just after Mother was born, and Mother’s Ajuri father had stolen her away, to be brought up Ajuri instead.
And that, Cajeiri truly believed, had also been Shishogi’s doing, to gain a claim on Atageini clan, while Uncle had no heir.
Nomari and his associates had risked everything to come to Uncle’s gates. Nomari had needed to speak directly with Uncle, and coming to Tirnamardi when Uncle was here was the only way he could do that—because Uncle was a great lord and difficult to approach when he was in Shejidan, in the heart of the Bujavid. Uncle always spent a good part of the year in Shejidan, in the Bujavid itself, living on the same floor as Father, and Great-grandmother and nand’ Bren—that was how important Uncle was in the government, and how thick security was about him. Uncle was very important among Conservatives in the legislature, and right now he was the most important lord still surviving in the Padi Valley Association—since Ajuri had no lord, Grandfather having been assassinated, and Father had yet to approve anybody to replace him. Kadagidi clan, right over the back hedges, was also lordless: Father had banished the Kadagidi lord, who had stood only as a puppet for Shishogi’s agents—removed him from lordly rank forever and sent him off to a little mill to work, with one chance to stay out of trouble forever.
So Uncle, lord of the Atageini clan, was
the most important voice left in what was the oldest association in the whole aishidi’tat. There was a list of people the Conservatives in the legislature wanted Father to choose from, to be the new lord of Ajuri, and they had wanted Uncle, as their spokesman, to recommend someone from the top rank of it. Nomari was not on that list—nobody, in fact, had even known Nomari existed, and Nomari, being in hiding, could never have gotten through to Uncle so long as Uncle had been in Shejidan.
But when Uncle had come home to Tirnamardi, Nomari and his associates had come here, hoping to tell Uncle their side of what had happened in Ajuri and hoping at best to get Uncle’s influence behind Nomari as the best candidate to represent Ajuri. Uncle had not yet taken a stand on their appeal, but he seemed to be at least leaning toward believing Nomari.
But the question that had not come up, so far, at least in the discussions to which Cajeiri had been invited, was where Nomari stood on those issues so important to the Conservatives . . . and where he stood on issues important to Uncle.
And those answers might just make a difference.
If Nomari just said what he thought Uncle wanted to hear and not what he truly believed to be best for Ajuri, Uncle would see right through him. Uncle was no fool. And Nomari did not have to agree in every point. These days, Uncle himself did not agree with all the Conservative notions—if he ever had.
Cajeiri might be only fortunate nine years of age, but he had gotten to understand Uncle better and better. His first memory of Uncle Tatiseigi was as a grim and scary old man, instantly critical of any breach of tradition . . . but he understood now that Uncle, being a very powerful Conservative, had to defend the traditions, because they meant everything to the people he represented. Uncle had started out extremely suspicious of nand’ Bren’s influence on Father, but that had all changed.
And while Uncle still disapproved of television and airplanes, he was reasonably approving of the starship.
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