Visitor: A Foreigner Novel

by C. J. Cherryh

  She was logging every transaction, every minuscule reaction in her own system of reckoning.

  Cajeiri, too, had been extremely careful of his answers and his questions.

  Until Prakuyo asked, “You have associates same nine years?”

  Bren, momentarily deep in possessive pronouns, heard it and took in a breath. And faster than he could think of a distraction, Cajeiri said, frankly, properly:

  “Yes.”

  “On the planet? Station?”

  Cajeiri hesitated. Hesitation on a yes-no answer was not a search for vocabulary. It involved truth. And credibility.

  “Reunioners,” Cajeiri said on his own, and a half-heartbeat before Bren. “Reunioners come on ship. We talk. Associates.”

  Bren never looked up from his study. Intervening too emphatically would indicate anxiety on the point. He listened, trying to hope the boy could handle it.

  “Reunioners here on station?”

  “Yes, nandi. All here.”

  God, Bren thought, wondering if a proposal for tea, and a general session, could derail the conversation at this point.

  But Cajeiri added, quick as a breath. “I go on the ship two years, go down to planet—I see my mother and my father—and new baby comes. I have baby associate. Small. On the planet.”

  That produced a ripple of sounds from the kyo.

  “The young gentleman has a new sister,” Ilisidi said, as if she had understood it all, and: “One is curious. Did Prakuyo also go home after we met, or has he come here from Reunion?”

  A boom and thump.

  One might not understand every sound kyo made, but Prakuyo had reacted to that question and shut it down.

  “Do you come here from Reunion?” Cajeiri asked.

  Prakuyo had his own heartbeat of silence. Then his own diversion: “Reunioner associates on station, young aiji. Yes?”

  “Yes. On station.”

  “Come see talk eat teacakes.”

  “Mani?” Cajeiri said soberly, probably realizing how deep the waters had gotten. “One believes he is asking whether my guests may come here.”

  Attack and counter. Prakuyo had dodged Ilisidi’s question—with a countershot.

  He should have intervened before now, Bren thought. Intervening now—God knew it was a shade too late.

  “Nand’ dowager,” Bren said, pushing back from the table, “nandiin.” He walked over to the sitting area, gave a little bow to Ilisidi, and quietly took a chair. “Prakuyo-ji,” he said, “I have heard. Kyo upset the Reunioners. Children upset. Mothers and fathers upset.”

  “Fix,” Prakuyo said. “Want fix.”

  Was that a proposal—in the direction of peace? Or was it a maneuver?

  That proposal wanted the kids’ involvement—and meeting with their own lifelong nightmare.

  “Aiji-ma,” he said, prepared to translate.

  Ilisidi lifted her hand. “My great-grandson’s guests have ridden mecheiti. A peaceful meeting with foreigners will not discomfit them.”

  That—was probably true. And the dowager had absorbed much more kyo than one had possibly thought.

  Cajeiri looked at his grandmother. “Reni would come.”

  “I think Gene and Artur would not let Reni come alone,” Bren said quietly. He should, he thought, be appalled. He should feel shame and guilt, and he did. But the dowager had conjured an image: mecheiti outside the bus windows—intruders in the house at night.

  The kids had done what the dowager reminded him. They had seen things he was sure they hadn’t told their parents.

  He could evade an explanation. But they had, at least, to advise the parents on this one, or forever lose the parents’ trust in him and every other authority involved. He had to explain how it was necessary. Critical.

  “I shall ask Jase-aiji talk to the mothers and fathers,” Bren said to Prakuyo with a little bow.

  “Say mothers children safe,” Prakuyo said. “No upset.”

  “Tell them we request it,” Ilisidi said firmly.

  These—were the youngsters apt to be advising her grandson on things human, if they all lived that long. And the risk was not the kyo in this room, or a youngster panicking. It was that ship out there, against which they and the planet below had no effective defense.

  “I shall advise them, aiji-ma,” he said, “that this is what they have to do.”

  Follow the dowager’s orders blindly, because they were hers? No. Follow them because the dowager was going to protect the planet, protect the aishidi’tat, protect her great-grandson, and protect those kids her great-grandson valued, for reasons she saw. She had spent the last hour and more taking in an impression of the kyo, reading what signals she could gather, and she was no fool, nor one to be pushed. She had an agenda. She had added the numbers and met Prakuyo dodge for dodge. And she expected kids who were someday going to stand beside her great-grandson to come down here and do it now.

  “Aiji-ma.” He got up and went far aside, still remembering kyo hearing, and used the pocket com. “Jase. Jase. It’s Bren. We need you.”

  “Jase here,” the answer came back.

  “We have a request from Prakuyo and from the aiji-dowager. Prakuyo wants to meet the young gentlemen’s three associates. We need to arrange that without alarming the parents. If the parents want to come down here, not to be in sight, but to be near, to know what’s happening—they can use the inner hall and observe from my sitting room. My staff knows a little ship-speak. The parents can have tea and hospitality and I absolutely guarantee no harm is going to come to those children. The dowager will be supervising, and she will absolutely protect those children from any harm, mental or physical. Can you talk them into it, get them down here?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Jase?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jase said, himself from a culture that had never had an ability to exempt children from risk. “They were at Tirnamardi. There was no time they panicked.”

  “I don’t think I’d bring Tirnamardi up to the parents just now,” Bren said. “Just tell them they’re under the aiji-dowager’s protection, and they’re being asked to attend the young gentleman in a state function, if you will. They will not be hurt.”

  “Got it,” Jase said. A briefer pause. “Give me half an hour.”

  • • •

  Study went by the board, given the turn things had taken. Bren settled next to the dowager in the sitting area, listening as Hakuut and Cajeiri pursued their own definitions of relations and associations—shades of the same word in kyo. His mind wanted to dive aside after the entire concept . . . but the here and now demanded absolute attention, absolute readiness to steer conversation away from anything that might bring another, more problematic request from the kyo.

  He dreaded any call from Jase in the interval. Half an hour, Jase had said. And if the parents refused, they had to gain the youngsters’ cooperation all the same—or bring the kyo up there. And if the youngsters themselves finally reached the limit of strangeness they were willing to tolerate . . .

  But the longer he didn’t get that call, the more hopeful he became.

  Cajeiri was describing his associates at the moment, in Ragi, perfectly composed and pleasant, rattling on about how he had met them on the ship—one grew just a little anxious when he reached the part about them reaching the station and needing to race down to the planet, but Cajeiri very smoothly said that he had told his associates that they would come down and see him.

  Which they had done. With that, Cajeiri leaped over all the untidiness of conspiracy and murder—untidiness which had not taken a holiday when the three Reunioner youngsters had come down to visit.

  Steady lad.

  All of them had been steady.

  There’d been no word what the Andressen boy had decided to do, or what that situation was. One regretted now having dismissed all that set of decisions from his slate. He should have told Jase—

  No. No way in hell would Jase bring Bjorn’s father down with
the others. Artur’s parents, and Gene’s mother—all they had to be was, please God, quiet.

  Cenedi, in attendance on Ilisidi, said quietly, “The young people are on their way, aiji-ma. They are going to the lift.”

  “Well,” Ilisidi said. “We shall have a variety of teacakes, shall we not?”

  The kitchen, in their mingled household, was in the hands of the paidhi-aiji’s staff. And at Bren’s simple glance, Banichi nodded and made a call. Teacakes were on order. Water, in the samovar, was constantly hot.

  There was a little booming and thumping amid the arrangements, a little exchange of words, including the word Reunion, and ship, perhaps a discussion of everybody’s impression of what Cajeiri had just said.

  Narani was in charge in the apartment, Bren said to himself, with a very competent staff. If parents came down, and one thought they well might, Narani and Tano and Algini could show the parents exactly what was going on in their monitoring, and reassure them constantly that the youngsters were safe. He refused to worry on their account. What mattered was the youngsters’ nerve, the youngsters’ comfort.

  Kandana slipped out of the apartment and headed to the foyer doors without a word. That indicated their visitors were on the way, and a moment later all three kyo twitched a glance toward the right wall.

  The lift was stopping, Bren thought. He didn’t hear it. Banichi and Jago hadn’t reacted, perhaps because it was expected, perhaps because they hadn’t heard it either.

  “One believes they are here,” he remarked, and saw the kyo glance expectantly toward the door.

  If the parents had come down their voices would be heard, Bren thought.

  The outer doors opened. Kandana was in the foyer. So would several of the dowager’s bodyguard be in that foyer, perhaps with the Guild Observers.

  “Our kyo guests should know,” Bren said, “that it is the custom of atevi houses to have a hallway for servants to move about. We have invited the mothers and fathers of the children to come down, but they will come in by that hallway, to be near.”

  There was a little discussion on that matter—but the foyer door opened, and Cajeiri got up. Bren did. So did the kyo—to the sight of Irene and Gene and Artur arriving from the foyer, all three in atevi dress, advancing bravely and making their proper bows.

  “Nadiin-ji,” Cajeiri greeted them, and went to them, escorting them to the kyo and presenting them. “This is Prakuyo an Tep, about whom I have told you. These are his associates, Matuanu an Matu and Hakuut an Ti. These three are my associates, nandiin. This is Irene, this is Gene, and this is Artur.”

  There were bows on both sides, a little bobbing and booming, at which the youngster’s eyes grew very wide. Gene had Irene’s hand, held it fast.

  “Please come,” Cajeiri said, steering them to the left, toward his own chair, and Kandana and Cajeiri’s young bodyguard quietly moved chairs in, and little tables, so that they all could sit down.

  Bows to the dowager, a nod returned. The youngsters all settled on the edge of very large chairs, eyeing the kyo anxiously, as the kyo, bobbing and muttering, settled down.

  “Good, good,” Prakuyo said in Ragi, and Irene said, in a voice a little high and thin, “Thank you, nandi.”

  That drew a few booms in reply, bobs and nods, a gape-grin from Hakuut, and a nod.

  “Thank you,” Gene and Artur both said, and from Artur, a blurted: “One is honored.”

  Bren drew in a long, quiet breath and let it go as slowly. Ilisidi never faltered.

  Kandana and the dowager’s staff, meanwhile, with all the aplomb of service in any great house, set about arranging tea, filling pots, setting out cups, all the bustle and clatter so familiar to atevi households, and in that little moment of necessary movement, tea went into cups, on the little tables between the chairs.

  The dowager took two sips. They all took two sips, children and kyo alike, as did Bren. Ilisidi set her cup down. Bren set his cup down. Children and kyo set their cups down.

  “Reunioners,” Prakuyo said. “Good you come. Good.”

  “Thank you,” Irene said in the ensuing heavy silence, and in kyo: “Thank you.”

  Prakuyo muttered something in which Reunion figured, a place and a time which didn’t in any wise constitute pleasant memory. But he said to Irene, quietly, in Ragi, “Good. Good hear say.” Hakuut’s quick eyes swept the three. “All speak?” Hakuut asked, and Gene held up fingers measuring a little distance.

  “Little,” Gene said, and that provoked a little thumping and booming and discussion among the kyo.

  The whole household had stopped, servants and bodyguards standing like statues. Ilisidi lifted her hand in a circular gesture and motion started. Servants moved among them again, living barrier, not accidental timing, no. The servants offered teacakes and sandwiches, which none of the youngsters took. The dowager thoughtfully chose one of each, and let them lie. Bren took a cake and did the same.

  Prakuyo said, again, after a pause for two sips of tea, and not a bite of food, “Reunioners all talk Ragi?”

  “On the ship,” Cajeiri said in kyo. “We talk. They talk ship-speak, I talk Ragi. And kyo.”

  “Good,” Prakuyo said again, and had a sip of tea, as Ilisidi did. The kyo all drank tea. Cajeiri did. Irene sipped her own, and Gene and Artur took up their cups carefully.

  So did Bren. A little quiet space, tea, and wary looks. “Their mothers and fathers are watching us,” Bren said in Ragi. “The mothers and fathers do not understand Ragi or kyo. But they want peace.” Deliberate new word, one, with its opposite, that they’d tried back at Reunion—and gotten no satisfaction on.

  “Peace,” Prakuyo repeated, remembering. “No war.”

  “Peace. Peace—” He shifted to kyo, “No war, no enemy, no upset.” He didn’t use the word association to describe it—that hadn’t gone over well back at Reunion. “Peace means all good. All happy. No more upset. Peace. Atevi and humans want peace.”

  “Peace,” Prakuyo said, and a kyo word, the root of which looked to lie in quiet. Matuanu and Hakuut rumbled and hummed.

  “Peace,” Hakuut said.

  Prakuyo said a word, then: “Opposite peace. Fire. Burn. Wreckage.”

  “War,” Bren said in Ragi, and in kyo, the word they had used for war back at Reunion.

  “Big war,” Prakuyo said. “Many years war.”

  Vocabulary failed. “No word,” Bren said after a moment. “No Ragi word.”

  “No Ragi word,” Prakuyo repeated. “Ship-speak word? All gone. All wreckage. All wreckage.”

  “Annihilation,” Bren said reluctantly.

  “Big word,” Prakuyo said.

  “Bad word. Atevi don’t make annihilation. Mospheirans don’t make annihilation. Want peace. Want all people safe. No annihilation.”

  A ripple of soft booms, a series of nods, as if that question had been understood.

  “We talk to the children,” Prakuyo said, changing the subject, possibly because of the children’s presence, possibly because he simply wasn’t ready to address that issue at all. And in Ragi, with a look that included all of them before settling on Irene: “Children all go down to Earth?”

  “We went,” Irene said in Ragi, “to visit the young gentleman. It was his birthday.”

  “Birthday,” Prakuyo repeated.

  Birthday wasn’t in the vocabulary either. “The day the young gentleman is new baby,” Bren said. “Nine years now.”

  That produced a noisy stir of interest. Surprise. “Say,” Prakuyo said.

  “Birthday.”

  “Birthday.” Kyo mouths had trouble with that one. “Birthday!” Prakuyo seemed to find significance in the idea. “Good. Birthday. Come down Earth on birthday. Nine years. Felicitous nine.”

  “Yes, nand’ Prakuyo,” Cajeiri said. “Birthday. Party.”

  “Party?” Another difficult word for a kyo mouth.

  “Many guests. Many teacakes. Good food. Happy day.”

  “Party!” Hakuut said, with a flutter of bo
oms. “Teacakes!”

  Youngsters, Bren thought, with a feeling of things spiraling outside all careful boundaries, the safe words. Children didn’t think in terms of safe. They shared what was important. In a list of words of cosmic significance, he wouldn’t have thought of birthday. Let alone party. He wouldn’t have mentioned something that might have significance to the kyo and might go off in an extravagant and unanticipated direction.

  But the youngsters scored points for credibility, where credibility was life and death, where the kyo’s second word for war had a moment ago loomed dark and absolute.

  The kyo discussed among themselves for a moment, with a number of quiet sounds there was no interpreting. The tone was not threatening, more that, of all things, they had collectively discovered something oddly congruent in their cultures.

  They might, with thought, find something significant in Reunioner children celebrating an atevi child’s birthday. And not just any birthday . . . the ninth. And not just any atevi child: the child of the number one ateva, who governed the aishidi’tat. If Prakuyo had come looking for evidence of that elusive association between human and atevi, did he see it in this?

  Prakuyo asked the youngsters gentle questions, how old they were, how long they had been on Reunion—not as innocent as the youngsters might think, those questions. He knew what Prakuyo was fishing for. Prakuyo probably knew he knew. Possibly Cajeiri had that one figured out, and he was absolutely sure the dowager did. Cross-checking. Testing. Being sure the stories matched.

  The youngsters relaxed in questions they knew how to answer, the sort of performance even younger children knew how to give—and their faces began to echo their emotions. Bren was tempted to say something. He was about to issue a caution.

  And Gene laughed. Nerves. Surprise. Prakuyo had asked in Ragi if he and Irene were connected, but it sounded like the word married. And the kid, being rattled—laughed and said no, they were not married.