“And you can read them that fluently?” He was caught with his mouth open. He shut it, and bowed. “Yes, honored Father. I can.”
“And in which language does my son habitually speak with Gene?”
Deeper and deeper. And a lie would come out to his discredit, at the worst possible time. “Whichever one seems to fit, honored father.”
“Ah,” his mother said. “So Gene speaks Ragi.”
“A little. Just a little of the children’s language.”
“And you,” his father said, “speak the ship-language and Mosphei’ and this alien language, too.”
He bowed respectfully. “Yes, honored Father. Expediency.”
“Expediency. What a precocious choice of words.”
“Mani would say that. But she taught me, honored Father.”
“Well, well, two years in her care, and one is hardly surprised at such thoughts.”
“I ever so need to maintain these associations with the ship-folk, honored Father. You have nand’ Bren, and his advice. I have Gene.”
“A person untested and unadvised.”
“He will grow up, honored Mother. And so will I!”
“And you wish to slip a personal letter through this wonderful system,” his father said, “of course with a ship-aiji’s permission, asking that technical information be sent down—with or without the paidhi’s intercession?”
“It would be absolutely no inconvenience to the system, honored Father. And nand’ Bren would approve. And it is honorably owed that I present courtesies to Gene-nadi. I had no proper chance even to speak to them when I left.”
“Them,” his father said. It was a question.
“Gene, and Artur, and Irene, and Bjorn.”
“The convenient number of a personal guard.”
“They were that. They were, honored Father. They would defend me.”
“They are children,” his mother said.
But his father gave a small wave of his hand, which he dared hope was indulgent dismissal, with permission. “Compose a letter.
Nand’ Bren must approve it before sending. You will not ask for the theft of manuals. You may ask nand’ Bren what he will request for you, in that line, and what nand’ Bren approves may go out. Only what he approves may go. Is that clear? He is the paidhi, and he must rule on technological matters, even when we see ways around his authority. You will need his favor, and he will need my permission as we need his assent to obtain such books. That is the way the world turns. See to it.”
“Shall we have computers, if one can get the manuals, honored Father?”
“Ask Bren-paidhi, I say! Deal with him!”
Did his father already know how angry Lord Bren was with him, and that he had somewhat skirted the truth in that matter? It was possible. It was also possible that particular complaint was still to blow up as badly as it might. It was probably not the time to ask for a television.
“Honored Father.” He bowed. “Honored Mother.”
“You will not leave these premises without senior security,” his father said. “Deal with Lord Bren as best you can.”
“Yes, honored Father.” Another bow. One to his mother. And a retreat without argument. He had learned that with Great-grandmother: if one had gained something in the exchange, it was not time to risk losing more than one had come in with.
He exited with his tidbit of permission and walked, head high, back to his own rooms, collecting his two implacable Atageini guards and Great-grandmother’s two men, and Antaro and Jegari fell in as he went. Antaro and Jegari he bade come inside, and left the other guards standing at the door, if that was where they were determined to stand, in a household guarded by his father’s men, and all sorts of other precautions. He was what they were watching, not protecting his personal premises from intrusion. If there was intrusion, they were likely the ones committing it—which was the unfortunate difference between here and the ship.
Antaro and Jegari were too polite to ask what had just happened or how the interview with his father had affected their fortunes. So he told them. “I have permission to write a letter to the station. The misfortune is that those two outside have to go with us everywhere, nadiin-ji.” He was bitterly upset and tried not to let it affect his voice or his manner. “They are upset with us and now my father has said they have to be with us. So they will go with us to the library. I think my father has heard another story of where we went today.”
Their faces were duly sympathetic. “These guards outside our door are men who are in your great-uncle’s man’chi, nandi. They do not favor Taibeni.”
“They do not,” he agreed glumly, thinking that if he were clever he might still get out the door alone, but he had better make it worth it. In an otherwise idle portion of his mind, he wondered how Great-grandmother would deal with the situation if he and his staff simply went down to the public train and showed up at the Atageini station.
More to the point, he had to wonder how his father would deal with such a slippery move, and he did not think the outcome would be good.
Tano and Algini were on the next air cargo flight to the coast—Jago was in touch with them, and she would, Bren was sure, tell him if there was any glitch in their plan. Tano and Algini would reach the coast, the local boat would get them to the yacht, and they would go with the party from the household to make absolutely certain they could find Toby out at sea. They had the best of chances. The best of equipment, that was certain.
Bren rested on pins and needles the while.
And in the meanwhile, since a note had arrived from the aiji, he was already scheduled for a special meeting with Tabini before supper—God, there went the schedule. The note did not give the reasons of such a summons, and that meant having all his mental resources in working order. The occasion of the office party had at least gotten the staff together, and now the party-goers were at work restoring order in the premises and cleaning up the last of the crumbs, so that was handledc he had meant to go back, but postponed that.
By tomorrow, the office would be in full swing, and he had set its number one priority as getting communications established and bringing the shuttles—in some measure the paidhi’s particular responsibility from the beginning—up to operation as soon as possible. That had become the paidhi’s responsibility in the first place because building the shuttles had meant coordinating an immense volume of cross-cultural communications, and (which had never been the paidhi’s responsibilty, but which had become so) getting the secretive and jealous Guilds and various legislative departments into communication with each other.
And Mogari-nai was talking. The station was talking to departments again—granted the link stayed up. Tabini might want to get straight what the station had to say.
And for his own agenda, the earthbound Pilots’ Guild had to reestablish its training facilities, the technical branch of the Mechanics had to establish its space operations offices and get credentials in order. All of it, what little he had begun to heave into motion, had been on his shoulders until now. Now he had a thousand hands, a hundred small offices in communication with his staff. And it was not at all excessive for the task.
The whole space services system had to be repaired, from manufacturing and testing upwardc and his staff, who had done the bulk of the translations, now had to get those manuals and the people trained in the professions reunited, not to mention printing copies of the manuals and training and checking out any new personnel they had to hire—and then double-checking to be sure what was agreed upon to do had actually got done. Equipment had to be checked, down to the smallest detail, and materials and spare parts had to be found, a great deal of it unique to the shuttles, which meant a supply reserve of less than ten, down to spare bolts and cover plates, if they were lucky. The inventory system had gone into chaos.