Foreigner

by C. J. Cherryh

  But sulking at Tano and Algini wasn’t a fair treatment of the new servants, either: he knew it and, in proper atevi courtesy, tried not to show his resentment toward them, or his feelings at all, toward two strangers. He sat back instead with as placid a face as he could manage and watched the land and the clouds pass under the wing, wishing he was flying instead toward Mospheira, and safety.

  And wishing Banichi and Jago were culturally or biologically wired to understand the word ‘friend’ or ‘ally’ the way he wanted to mean it. That, too. But that was as likely as his walking the Mospheira straits barefoot.

  His stomach was upset. He was all but convinced now that he had made a very serious mistake in not calling Deana Hanks directly after the incident, while the attempt on his bedroom was still a matter of hot pursuit, and before Banichi and Jago might have received specific orders to prevent him calling.

  But he hadn’t even thought of it then—he couldn’t remember what he had been thinking, and decided he must have gone into mental shock, trying first to dismiss the whole matter and to look brave in front of Banichi; then he’d launched himself into ‘handling it,’ even to a fear of Hanks’ seizing control over the situation—meaning he was losing his grip on matters, and knew it, and was still denying things were out of control.

  Now he was well past the end of his options for action, so far as he could see, unless he wanted to contemplate outright rebellion against Tabini’s invitation to an estate hours away from the City—unless he was willing to break away in that remote airport screaming kidnap and murder, and appealing to the casual citizen for rescue from the aiji.

  Foolish notion. Foolish as the notion of refusing Tabini in the invitation, under the terms he had had—and now that he began to think about phones and the lake estate, and getting any call out to Mospheira, from where he was going—the request to transfer a call to the Mospheira phone system would have to go back through the Bujavid for authorization, so it was the same damned thing.

  Eventually his office on Mospheira would wonder why he hadn’t called … in, say, a week or two of silence. It wasn’t unusual, that lapse of time between his calls and consultations.

  And, after that two weeks of silence, his office might be worried enough to think about contacting Foreign Affairs, over them, who would tell them to wait while they went through channels.

  In another week, Foreign Affairs on Mospheira might have exhausted the approved channels it had at its disposal, and decided to send a memo to the President, who might, might, after consulting the Departments in Council, make personal inquiries of his own and finally lay the inquiry on Tabini’s doorstep.

  Count it the better part of a month before Mospheira decided for certain that Shejidan had somehow misplaced the paidhi.

  Disturbing, to discover that individual atevi he had personally thought he understood and an atevi society he had thought he intellectually understood suddenly weren’t acting in any predictable way. He felt it as an offense to his pride that he found nothing now wiser or more resourceful to do than to pretend he was, utterly naive and that he wasn’t actually being kidnapped across the country—where, face it, he could disappear for good and all. Nobody from Mospheira, not even Hanks, was going to fracture the Treaty looking for a paidhi who just might have made some unforgivable mistake.

  Hell, no, they wouldn’t demand him back. They’d just send a new one, with as good a briefing as they could manage and instructions to pull in a bit and not to be so stupid.

  He’d trusted so implicitly … never expected Tabini to be other than a hundred percent for atevi and his own personal interests, but he’d always believed he knew what those interests were. Tabini hadn’t resisted his suggestions: not in the rail system, not the space program, not medical research, not the computerization of the supply system. Tabini wasn’t opposed to anything he’d put forward, or, for God’s sake, Tabini could have said something, and they could have talked about it—but, no, Tabini had listened with intelligent interest, asking lively questions—Tabini’s predecessors had all listened to reason, and invested themselves to the hilt in the interlocking of ecology and technological advance, a concept that atevi were quick to understand.

  Reciprocally, there’d never been anything an aiji of Tabini’s house had asked that humans hadn’t done, or given, or tried to comply with, since the War of the Landing itself, right down to his current paper regarding processed meat, which tried … tried to explain to Mospheira that commercialization of meat production was deeply offensive to Ragi, no matter that Nisebi saw nothing wrong with it and were willing to sell. That cultural adaptation went both ways, and Mospheira ought to rely on the sea, and fish, which had no season, and thereby show their hosts on the planet that they had made an effort to change themselves to conform to atevi sensibilities, the way atevi had changed their behaviors toward humans.…

  Sometimes his job seemed like rolling the proverbial boulder uphill. Just not losing ground seemed hard.

  But atevi were on the very threshold of manned spaceflight. They had satellite communications. They had a reliable light launch system. They were on the verge of developing the materials that, with human advice, could leapfrog them past the steps humans had taken getting down here, right to powered descent, interlinked maneuvering—terms he was having to learn, concepts that he was studying up on during his so-called fall vacations, cramming into his head the details behind the next policy paper he might give—that he ached to give—some time in the next five years, granted the intermediate heavy-lift rocket was going to work.

  Not even that they absolutely needed to take that step; but the office on Mospheira said stall, let atevi develop the intermediate lift capacity. The quality in the synthetic materials wasn’t there yet, and the chemical rocket lifter and the early manned experience would give atevi the experience and the political and emotional investment in space—atevi were much on heroes.

  It was a cultural decision, a scientific decision … it disappointed hell out of him, because he wanted to be the paidhi that put them a hundred percent into the business of space, and he wanted it while he was young enough to go up himself. That was his secret, personal dream, that if atevi were going to trust any human to go, they might trust the paidhi, and he wanted to be that person, and steer the attitudes if not the spacecraft—

  That was the dream he had. The nightmare was less specific, only the apprehension which, long before the assassin tried his bedroom, he had been trying to communicate to Hanks and the rest of the office, that you couldn’t go on giving atevi bits and pieces of tech without accelerating the randomness in the process, meaning that atevi minds didn’t work the same as human minds, and that atevi cultural bias was going to view certain technological advances differently than humans did, and atevi inventiveness was going to put more and more items together into their own inventions, about which they didn’t consult the Mospheira Technology Commission.

  Thank God so far the independent inventions hadn’t been ICBMs or atomic bombs. But he knew, as every paidhi before him had known, that, if someday the Treaty broke down, he’d be the first to know.

  He watched the land pass under the wings, the farmland, the free ranges and forests … eventually a tide of cloud rolled under them, with the black, snow-capped peaks of the Bergid thrusting up like steep-sided islands—fascinating, to see the edge of his visible world go past, and exciting, in a disturbing way, to be seeing country humans never saw. Everything was new, hitherto forbidden.

  But after a time, cloud closed in around the peaks, and while the sky remained blue, there was a sheet of wrinkled white under them, hiding the land.

  Disappointing. This sort of thing set in over the strait and didn’t let up. Even the planet kept atevi secrets.

  Which didn’t mean there wasn’t useful work he could do while he was being kidnapped. He’d rescued his computer from baggage. He set it up on the table and brought up his notes for the end of the quarter development conference, his arguments for crea
ting a computer science center in Costain Bay, modem-linked to atevi students in Wingin.

  If there is, he wrote now, one area of technological difficulty, it is ironically in mathematics, in which the different uses of mathematics by our separate cultures and languages have led to different expressions of mathematics at an operational level. While these different perceptions of math are a rich field for speculation by mathematicians and computer designers for the future, for the present, these foundational differences in concept remain an obstacle particularly to the beginning atevi computer student attempting to comprehend a logical machine which ignores certain of his expectations, which ignores the operational conveniences and shortcuts of his language, and which proceeds by a logical architecture adapted over centuries to the human mind.

  The development of a computer architecture in agreement with atevi perceptions is both inevitable and desirable for the economic progress of the atevi associations, particularly in materials development, but the paidhi respectfully urges that many useful and lifesaving technologies are being delayed in development because of this difficulty.

  While the paidhi recognizes the valid and true reasons for maintaining the doctrine of Separation in the Treaty of Mospheira, it seems that computer technology itself can become the means to link instructors on Mospheira with students on the mainland, so that atevi students may have the direct benefit of study with human masters of design and theory, to bring computers with all their advantages into common usage—while encouraging atevi students to devise interfacing software which may take advantage of atevi mathematical skills.

  Such a study center may serve as a model program, moreover, for finding other areas in which atevi may, without harm to either culture, interface directly in the territory of empirical science and form working agreements which seem appropriate to both cultures.

  I call to mind the specific language of the Treaty of Mospheira which calls for experimental contacts in science leading to agreements of definition and unequivocal terminology, with a view to future intercultural cooperations under the appointment of appropriate atevi officials.

  This seems to me one of those areas in which cooperation could work to the benefit of atevi, widening intercultural understanding, fulfilling all provisions of the Treaty wherein …

  Banichi dropped into the seat opposite.

  “You’re so busy,” Banichi said.

  “I was writing my text for the quarterly conference. I trust I’ll get back for it.”

  “Your safety is of more concern. But if it should be that you can’t attend, certainly I’ll see that it reaches the conference.”

  “There surely can’t be a question. The conference is four weeks away.”

  “Truthfully, I don’t know.”

  Don’t know, he thought in alarm. Don’t know—But Jago set a drink in front of Banichi, and sat down, herself, in the other seat facing his. “It’s a pleasant place,” Jago said. “You’ve never been there.”

  “No. To Taiben. Not to Malguri.” Politeness, he could do on autopilot, while he was frantically trying to frame a euphemism for kidnapping. He saved his work down hard and folded up the computer. “But four weeks, nadi! I can’t do my work from halfway across the country.”

  “It’s an opportunity,” Banichi said. “No human before you, nand’ paidhi, has made this trip. Don’t be so glum.”

  “What of the aiji-dowager? Sharing accommodations with a member of the aiji’s family, with a woman I don’t know—has anyone told her I’m coming?”

  Banichi drew back his lip from his teeth, a fierce amusement.

  “You’re resourceful, paidhi-ji. Surely you can deal with her. She’d have been the aiji, for your predecessor, at least. …”

  “Except for the hasdrawad,” Jago said.

  The hasdrawad had chosen her son, whom she’d wished aloud she’d aborted when she’d had the chance, as the story ran; then, adding insult to injury, the hasdrawad had passed over her a second time when her son was assassinated—ignoring her claims to the succession, in favor of her grandson, Tabini.

  “She favors Tabini,” Banichi said. “Contrary to reports. She always has favored him.”

  She’d fallen, riding in the hunt, at seventy-two. Broke her shoulder, broke her arm and four ribs, got up and rode through the rest of the course, until they’d caught the quarry.

  Then she’d attacked the course manager with her riding crop, for the lost hide on her precious, high-bred Matiawa jumper—as the story went.

  “Her reputation,” Bren said judiciously, “is not for patience.”

  “Oh, very much it is,” Jago said “When she wants something that needs it.”

  “Is it true, what people say about the succession?”

  “That Tabini-aiji’s father died by assassination?” Banichi said. “Yes.”

  “They never found the agency,” said Jago. “And very competent people searched.”

  “Not a clue to be had—except in the dowager’s satisfaction,” said Banichi. “Which isn’t admissible evidence.—She wasn’t, of course, the only one so motivated. But her personal guard is no slight matter.”

  “Licensed?” Bren asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Banichi.

  “Most of her guard are old,” Jago said. “A bit behind the times,”

  “Now,” said Banichi. “But I wouldn’t say they were, then.”

  “And this is where Tabini-aiji sends me for safety?”

  “The aiji-dowager does favor him,” Jago said.

  “Well, in most regards,” Banichi said.

  The plane thumped onto the runway in a blinding downpour—other planes had been diverted out to the lowland airport. Banichi said so. But the aiji’s crew went right on through. Engines reversed thrust, brakes screeched on wet pavement, the plane veered into a controlled right turn and blazed a fast track to the small terminal.

  Bren stared glumly at the weather, at guards and trucks hurrying out to the aiji’s plane—a more elaborate reception than he got at Mospheira. But, then, the people meeting him on Mospheira didn’t carry guns.

  He unbelted, got up with his computer, and followed Banichi to the door as the pilot opened it, with Jago close in attendance.

  Rain whipped into their faces, a mist thick enough to breathe. Rain spattered the pavement of the runway. It veiled the scenery in gray, so the lake visible from the airport melded seamlessly with the sky, and the hills around it were banks of shadow against that sky.

  Malguri, he thought, must be somewhere on those high shores, overlooking the lake.

  “They’re sending a car,” Jago yelled into their ears—had pocket-com in hand, as a crew began pulling up a movable stairs for their descent. The device had no rain canopy such as Shejidan airport afforded. One supposed they were expected to make a dash for it, down the steps.

  One wondered whether, if Tabini had been on the plane, they would have found such a canopy. Or parked the car closer.

  Thunder rumbled, and lightnings glared off the wet concrete.

  “Auspicious,” Bren muttered, far from anxious to venture metal steps in the frequent lightning. But the stairs thumped against the side of the plane, rocking it; rain gusted in, cold as autumn.

  The raincoated attendants yelled and beckoned them to come ahead. Banichi went. Hell, he thought, and ducked through the door and hurried after, clinging to the cold, slick metal hand-grip, flinching as lightning lit the ladder and the pavement and thunder cracked overhead. Light up like a candle, they would. He reached the bottom and left the metal ladder with relief, spied Banichi at the open door of the transport van, and, trying not to slip on the pavement, ran for it, with Jago rattling her way down the steps behind him.

  He reached shelter. Jago arrived, close behind him, flung herself into the seat, rain glistening on her black skin, as the van driver got out to close the van door and stopped to stare, wide-eyed, while the cold mist gusted in. Evidently no one had told the driver a human was in the party.

 
“Shut the door!” Banichi said, and the drenched driver slammed it and made haste to climb in his seat in front.

  “Algini and Tano,” Bren protested, leaning to glance back at the plane, through a rain-spotted window, as the driver’s door shut.

  “They’ll bring the baggage,” Jago said. “In another car.”

  In case of bombs, Bren supposed glumly, as the driver took off the brake, threw the van into gear and launched into what must be the standard verbal courtesies, gamely wishing them Welcome to Maidingi, Jewel of the Mountains, a practiced patter that went on into the felicitous positioning of the mountains, cosmically harmonious and fortunate, and the ‘grateful influences’ of the mountain springs above the Lake, the Mirror of Heaven.

  The Mirror of Heaven reflected nothing, at the moment. Rain shattered the images of drowned buildings and gray void beyond the glass as the car sped along—Bren had expected them to pull up at the terminal and catch a train to Malguri, but the van had whisked them right past the terminal entrances, one and the next and the next, as they headed for the wire fence and the lake.

  “Where are we going?” Bren asked, casting anxious glances at Banichi—surely, he thought, Banichi would protest this strange detour; possibly they were all in danger and he should keep his mouth shut.

  “This is scheduled, nadi,” Jago said, laying a hand on his knee. “Everything as arranged.”

  “What’s arranged?” He was short of temper. He divided his attention nervously between the oncoming fence and Jago’s placid face, then paid it all to the fence, as collision seemed imminent.

  But the driver swung toward a gate, which opened automatically in front of them. And Jago hadn’t answered him. “Where are we going?”

  “Be calm,” Banichi said quietly. “Please take my assurances, nand’ paidhi, everything is quite in order.”