Inheritor

by C. J. Cherryh

  Came then the geometries of tiled roofs, marching in numerically significant orders up and down the hills — little roofs, bigger roofs, and the cluster of hotels and modern buildings that snuggled as close as possible to the governmental center, the ancient Bu-javid, the aiji's residence. It was daylight. One saw no neon lights.

  The plane banked and turned and leveled again, swooping in over the flat roofs of industry that had grown up around the airport.

  Patinandi Aerospace was one: that large building he well knew was a maintenance facility. The aiji had spread the bounty of space industry wide throughout the provinces, and the push to get into space had wrought changes this year that wouldn't be stopped. Ever.

  There was a new computer manufacturing plant, and atevi designers were fully capable of making critical adjustments in what humans had long regarded as one of the final secrets, the one that would adjust atevi society into a more and more comprehensible mold.

  Not necessarily so.

  Faster and faster the pavement rushed under the wings.

  Wheels touched dry pavement, squealed arrival.

  The paidhi-aiji was as close to home as he was likely to come. This was it. Shejidan.

  And hearing the wheels thump and roll and hearing the engines brake and feeling the reality of ground under him again, he let go a freer breath and knew, first, he was in the safest place in the world for him, and second, that he was among the people in the world most interested in his welfare. Delusion, perhaps, but he'd grown to rely on it.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  « ^ »

  The van transfer to the subway in the airport terminal was thankfully without extravagant welcome, media, or official inquiry. The paidhi-aiji was home. The paidhi-aiji and his luggage, this time together and without misdirection, actually reached the appropriate subway car, and without incident the car set into motion on its trip toward the Bu-javid, on its lofty and historic hill on the edge of Shejidan.

  Then, while he leaned back in comfort and velvet splendor, there arrived, via his security's com link, a radioed communication from the airport authorities requesting an interview with the aiji's pilot and copilot, and reporting the identity of the pilot of the strayed prop plane: the son of the lord of the island of Dur, one Rejiri of the Niliini of Dur-wajran, whose affiliations Tano and Algini were ordering researched by grim and secret agencies which, God help them, the lords of Dur-wajran had probably never encountered in their wildest imaginations.

  Figure that the owner of such a private plane was affluent. Figure that on the small island of Dur opposing traffic wasn't a problem the pilot, possibly of the only plane on the island of Dur, had ever met.

  But as an accident, or near accident, it wasn't the paidhi's business to investigate or to deal with. Someone else had to explain the air traffic regulations to the lord's son. He sat back in the soft red seats of Tabini's private subway car and had a glass of fruit juice, confident his second try at a drink would stay in the glass. He timed the last sip nicely for the arrival at the station.

  He let a junior security staffer carry the computer as he rose and left the car. He let others, very junior, carry the baggage while the clerical, Surieji, carried the voluminous physical notes. He let Tano and Algini deal with the details of routing himself and his entourage together down the concrete and tile walk in the very security-conscious Bu-javid station. The whole apparatus of government as well as the seasonal residences of various lords was above their heads in this echoing cavern, and he walked entirely at his ease to the lift that would carry him, Tano, and Algini to the third floor of the residences.

  His apartment, on loan from the Atageini, was next door to Tabini's own residence, a location he could hardly complain of for security or comfort; but getting to and from it was a matter of armed and high-clearance security. There was no forgetting something at the office, for damn certain, and dashing solo back after it.

  But long gone were the days when he could go anywhere unguarded, anyway.

  "Tabini-aiji wishes to see you personally," Algini reported to him as they activated the lift, information doubtless from the device he had set in his ear. "But nand' Eidi says that the aiji is occupied with briefings at the moment. He says further that you may rely on him that the aiji will, contrary to his expectations, be occupied all evening, and Eidi-nai will take the responsibility of saying so. He hopes that the paidhi will rest comfortably, quite likely for the night, although I myself would never promise that that will be the case. The aiji does as the aiji will do."

  Eidi was Tabini's chief of household staff, an elderly man, whose good will and private counsel one wisely kept.

  "I have no regrets for a night of rest, nadi-ji, I assure you." The business with the stray plane had taken the spare adrenaline out of him. He felt bone tired, and a quiet dinner and a night of sleep in a familiar bed before dealing with any political matters, especially the very far-reaching politics afoot at the moment in the aiji's residence, came very welcome. He'd regretted the day's vacation he couldn't get, but now he wondered where he'd have gotten the energy to go out on the boat, let alone fight a fish of record proportions.

  He wondered, with the comfort of familiar things, what Jason Graham had been doing in his absence, and how Jase had fared, left alone with the staff who spoke nothing but Ragi.

  And he wondered whether or not the workmen repairing the historic Atageini lilies in the breakfast room (a casualty of a security incident) had gotten the painting done. They'd proposed to do that during the dry weather that had been forecast — accurately, as happened; he'd followed the weather reports as one touch he could maintain with Shejidan.

  He'd imagined the tiled roofs of Shejidan under sunshine, under twilight — security might change the view on him, moving him here and there within the Bu-javid, and he knew that one of these days the Atageini clan who really owned the apartment he was using had to repossess it, but for the while it was home to him; and the weather on the television in his hotel room had linked him with this place, and with what had become home.

  And, oh, he was glad to be back, now. If there was a piece of hardwiring atevi and humans must share, he thought in that wandering way of a mind unwinding its tensions, it had to be the instinct that needed that anchor of a place to come back to. He felt vast relief as the lift let the three of them out upstairs, in the most secure area in the Bu-javid, a familiar hall lined with extravagant porcelain bouquets in glass cases, marble floor hushed by a broad carpet runner, gold-colored, hand-loomed and elaborately figured.

  They reached the door of the apartment, a short walk from the lift, which would bring up more of the party, and items of luggage. Instead of using the key he was sure Tano had, Tano quietly rang for attention.

  The lift opened again. Their luggage was catching up. The door in front of them opened, the deadly devices deactivated, one sincerely trusted, which would have been the delay, and a servant let them in, as a half dozen other servants (they were all female in this household, which had been lady Damiri's before she scandalized the whole Atageini clan by moving next door and residing openly with Tabini) converged to take custody of the paidhi and his coat and his luggage.

  "Nand' paidhi." Saidin, major domo of the lady Damiri, came from the inner halls to meet them in the foyer. She was a genteel and gentle household administrator who took her human guest's comfort and safety very seriously — and who probably rendered reports to lady Damiri on a regular basis. "One is very glad to see you safely arrived, nand' paidhi."

  "Thank you." He'd bet any amount of his uncollectible wages that Saidin was well-briefed on the reason for the just slightly early arrival, maybe even on the ATC incident; and he knew by experience that everything he could possibly need would appear like magic.

  "Bath and dinner, do we correctly apprehend your wishes?"

  "Nand' Saidin, very correctly."

  He was hungry, and in no mood to deal with the message bowl which sat on the small ornate table b
y the entryway, but he could see there a number of waiting cylinders. The only such that reached his apartment nowadays were messages his clerical staff couldn't handle without advice. And there was a fair collection of them, about twenty, most in metal message cases; but one — one was a caseless vellum scroll characteristic of a telegram from the wire service. It could be from some department across the country, some place he'd visited. The rest could wait. He picked that one up, cracked the seal with his thumbnail, scanned the content, because there was the remotest chance it might be from Barb, who had sent him a couple of messages on island gossip since her marriage; or it might be from his mother; or even from official channels in Foreign Affairs.

  It was from his brother. From Toby. Dated two days ago.

  Mother's been in the hospital. I've asked her to come and stay with me. If you can bring any influence to bear, it might help. She says her doctor's there and she won't leave the city. I'll write you a longer letter later. Don't worry about it, but I think we need to bring some pressure to bear to get her to move. I want your backing in this.

  Damn, he thought. Just what their mother needed. Pressure.

  Damn, again.

  He supposed he'd stopped quite still, when in standard procedure he ought to have left the foyer and let his staff get to work on his behalf. They were all standing there. The door was shut. There came a rap from outside.

  "That will be the luggage, nadi," Tano said, and took a look outside to be absolutely sure before he opened the door.

  Bren pocketed the message. Write you a letter later. Hell and double hell. He didn't think Toby had anything pleasant to say in his next message. Toby never had made the obvious complaint to him: Give me some help, get home, brother, do something to reason with the government — it's not fair what you're doing to us. It's not fair what you're doing to Mother.

  He couldn't go home and fix things for his younger brother. There wasn't a way in hell.

  And their mother had been headed for this crisis for some time. Maybe her doctors would finally sit on her this time and make her take her medication and watch her diet.

  Phone calls at three in the morning didn't help. Knowing her grandchildren were being followed on their way to school didn't help. He wasn't sure it would be better for her to move to the north shore, where the police and the phone company seemed to ignore Toby's complaints for what he feared were political reasons.

  Damn, damn, damn, and damn. He'd been in a good mood until he met that, which wasn't the first time their mother's health had been a concern. It wasn't even an acute crisis with their mother's health. It was just an ongoing situation. It was the first time for her checking into the hospital, but the doctor had been saying all along if their mother didn't get some rest and mend her ways, she'd have to go in, and it was probably good news in its way. They needed to get her to slow down, calm down, stop yelling at the fools that called at three in the morning: it only inspired them.

  And for God's sake, she needed to stop arguing with the newscasters. Toby had already reported she'd called a national program and accused the head of the Human Heritage Association of harassing her with obscene phone calls.

  Then she'd said, also on the air, that she didn't like her son living on the mainland with a lot of godless aliens.

  He didn't know what to do about that. He really didn't. He'd written her letters. He'd gotten one furious letter back. She'd said he was ruining his brother's life.

  The servants had opened the doors: the rest of the luggage had made it in, a considerable pile which they'd apparently waited to accumulate outside until it was all there before the security personnel handling it asked that the apartment door be opened. Maids valiantly seized cases and carried them off to deal with laundry and unpacking. His security was getting and giving information via their own pocket communications and the larger array in the security station just off the foyer, where several black-uniformed Guild members clustered.

  Madam Saidin, chief of domestic staff, was still waiting.

  He expected one other person to have come out to meet him, and stood, a little dazed and battered, looking toward that vacant hall that led to the private rooms.

  "Where's Jason?" he asked Saidin. Jase was shy, still struggling with fluency, and for that reason generally avoided mass gatherings of servants, but he'd have expected Jase to be standing in that hallway by now, at least. The hauling about of a large amount of luggage had to advise Jason he was home early.

  "Dressing, I believe, nand' paidhi."

  Dressing? Dressing, at this hour. That was very odd for Jason, who kept a meticulous schedule and always bathed precisely at the same time every morning, and wanted breakfast precisely at the same hour every morning.

  More, there'd been just a little hesitation on Saidin's answer. Has he been ill? he almost asked her. Perhaps he'd been studying late?

  If he asked that question, he might get an answer.

  Before his shower.

  Before dinner.

  Hell, no, he didn't ask. They had a deal. The day started on Jase's schedule, like clockwork. The day ended on his, when he managed to find time to eat. Jase would show up for supper. Whatever was going on to have thrown Jase off his meticulous schedule, he was bound to hear the details. He had faith in Jase that if the foyer looked intact and the servants were still alive, it wasn't catastrophic. He had faith in Saidin that if it were outrageous or against the dignity of the Atageini, he would have heard it implied much more strongly than that.

  The hot water in the Atageini residence was, to Bren's experience, inexhaustible. The force of the spray, set at atevi height, could drown a man of human stature, and after traipsing about all day up and down steep atevi-scale steps and after having been spattered with sticky fruit juice at 5000 meters Bren was oh, so willing to melt against the shower wall and stand there unmoving in one of the few places of utter, total privacy available to him. He breathed a froth of water and air and let the spray hammer a knot of muscles in the back of his neck he'd forgotten to unclench.

  He trusted Tano and Algini. He'd had no hesitation at all to put himself in their hands during the trip.

  But he grew just a little anxious when unscheduled planes veered into his path. It probably was exactly as security said, an island pilot not used to the concept of air traffic, let alone control. The son of the lord of Dur was not a likely sophisticate, much less a plotter in high places.

  He shut his eyes and was there again, in the same plane seat where he'd spent so many hours this last, long, meandering trip. He could all but feel the cool surface of the juice glass in his fingers, a contrast to the heat of the water that pounded down on him.

  He could if he thought about it look again out that aircraft window onto the vast mineral-blessed south, Talidi province just off the wingtip, misty blue-green hills, grass with that slightly younger green of springtime, well advanced in the south, and all that pollen, hazy clouds of it.

  Talidi province and the Tasigin Marid.

  He couldn't say he blamed atevi for asking themselves at least now and again what the paidhi-aiji or their esteemed aiji had in mind for the nation, in moving the paidhi into such prominence and now having two paidhiin in residence under the same roof, when the very essence of the Treaty was emphatically one paidhi. Some lords of the Western Association had indeed been more than a little suspicious of human motives even before the ship had shown up.

  While a handful of truly devout conspiracy-theorists believed Tabini had known the ship was coming back and that he'd been in collusion with the human president on Mospheira from the day of his accession: a more unlikely combination one couldn't imagine.

  But since the events of today, everything in that equation had to be re-reckoned.

  Not that one expected immediate capitulation in the fall of a major player in the opposition to Tabini today: atevi lords weren't so graceless or quick to desert former allies. But they might sidle gracefully and as unobtrusively as possible closer to center, and c
loser to Geigi, who would thus undergo the most dangerous period of his rise in importance, because the neighbors would try him, now. They would test Geigi's cleverness, his finesse, his business acumen and his personal dignity. It was almost a sure bet that no less than Direiso would, directly or indirectly, test Geigi's security.

  But no one had to tell an atevi lord that.

  And since, with the lord of the Tasigin Marid dead, Talidi province, in which the villages of the Marid lay, now found its best customer for industrial supplies in lord Geigi's province, that would surely give the pro-Tabini dissidents and the worker associations within Talidi province the encouragement to turn toward Tabini and the central authority, not toward the coalition that had been trying to form in the Marid.

  It was typical of Tabini's politics. A river would be flowing in one direction, and Tabini would place a charge to divert it so suddenly into another channel the fish swimming in it had no warning.

  As Direiso up in the Padi Valley (she was not a peninsular lord) had to be doubling her security this evening, perhaps not even yet believing the degree of danger she was in if she didn't change course fast: she was clever and quick — she was alive because of that. But she was self-confident, meaning she had no man'chi, meaning she felt no man'chi, as aijiin of highest rank had and felt none, and was not a follower of anyone, but attracted man'chi: that meant she was dangerous in a way other atevi weren't psychologically armed to be.

  Her followers were scattered, and would act after her death, breaking up into smaller associations difficult to track and possibly attracting others due to the different chemistry of the sub-associations. That was the protection high lords always had against assassination: kill them and you had not one large problem but twenty smaller ones, harder to track.

  But so did Tabini have that defense. More so. Direiso only thought she could ride the waves Tabini's fall would generate. It was a time when atevi, threatened from the skies, could least afford to be indecisive, and most of the lords of the Western Association knew that Tabini was the only leader saving them from civil chaos.