But self-blame was a state of indulgence he could not afford. Until Ilisidi did, for well-thought reasons, tell him go to hell, he had to get his wits working and do something constructive, if he could only figure what that was.
So he decided he had best shake the vapors, satisfy Jago, and eat the damned sandwich, bite by bite. Deal with the situation at hand, avoid paralyzing doubt, and try to think of first things first. Try to learn from the mistakes. That was the truly unique view he could bring to the situation. At least he’d had experience in mistakes. He had a very good view, from the bottom of this mental pit, of what they had been, and what not to do twice.
Dry bite of tasteless sandwich. One after the other.
If atevi affairs were to get fixed, the fix had to start from the top of the hierarchy. That was the very point of man’chi. He had to find out what had happened to Tabini, the foremost atevi who’d trusted him, and set things right in that regard, if he had to shoot Murini with his own hand.
There was an ambition worth having. Too late to utterly undo the damage, but at least, if he took Murini out of the picture, as should have been done in the first place, he could free the people of a leader completely undeserving of man’chi, of anyone’s man’chi—in his own admittedly human estimation.
He hadn’t asked himself, in those fast-moving days when the space program had been his only focus, why humans felt guilty if they didn’t spare their enemies, but, more importantly, he hadn’t asked himself why atevi had generally felt extremely guilty if they did. He’d been feeling all warm and smug in his accomplishments in those days, too warm and smug and convinced of his own righteousness ever to ask himself that question… like… do atevi have an expectation of certain behavior on all sides, that might be worth considering?
The human word gratitude had always translated into Ragi, the dictionary blithely said so, as kurdi, root from kur, debt. But what did it mean, derived from the word debt? A feeling of debt for an undue kindness? Good debt or bad debt?
And how was that to translate into atevi actions not within, but across the barriers of man’chi? There was the problem.
And translators previous to him had never questioned whether application of gratitude across man’chi lines was possible—had never taken any within-and-outside-man’chi applications into account because translators before him had never been in a position to see atevi cross those boundaries. Translators before him had never dealt with an aiji as extraordinary as Tabini, whose ambitions had crossed those boundaries and placed him into situations where inside and outside man’chi critically mattered. He hadn’t seen it. Bang! Right in the face, and he hadn’t seen it. None of his predecessors had suggested there might be a problem with the word, that concept, that assumption.
Welcome home, Bren Cameron. Welcome home, on the day all the mistakes suddenly made a difference. Bring the computer up, open the dictionary paidhiin had spent centuries building, and put a significant question mark not only beside that word kurdi, but add a note that every emotional and relational word in the dictionary deserved a number one and a number two entry, an inside meaning and an outside meaning. He’d let his dictionary-making duties slip, thinking they didn’t matter so much as his flashier, newer ones. Lord of the Heavens, he’d become. But where was the clue to his problems? Lurking, as always, in the dictionary, right where he’d begun.
The shuttle made its insertion into atmosphere on a route they’d never used before, so everything was tense. The station confirmed they had clearance from their landing site at Jackson, and from Mospheiran air traffic control in general—it was another worry, that some lunatic Mospheiran with an airplane might take exception to their landing or just, in great admiration, take the unprecedented chance to see a shuttle landing. Both sides of the strait had their patented craziness, and a man who wanted to think about such things could fret himself into deeper and deeper indigestion.
Jago noticed it, and inquired again: “Are you ill, Bren-ji?”
She had put away a fair amount of the offered pre-landing snack, and for answer, he simply gave her his dessert, a prettily wrapped bit of cake. “Would you, Jago-ji? I fear I may weigh my stomach down.”
She knew him. She knew he was worrying. She likely knew he was scared spitless. She floated across the aisle and back a row and shared her acquired pastry with Banichi. Then the two of them gave him analytical looks, and put their heads together and conferred.
The conference drifted up the aisle—literally, as Banichi and Jago floated forward—to Cenedi. Dared one wonder—or worry—that his anxiety might then drift over to the dowager, and reach the eight-year-old heir?
Bren felt his ears grow hot, a flush of thoroughly human embarrassment, and he shot Banichi and Jago a fretful look, trying to get them to desist from advising Cenedi. He signaled Jago, who pretended not to see. Now they were worried because he was worried, and because he had not informed them why.
His bodyguard was a delicately balanced, edged weapon. It was outright wrong to handle such an instrument with anything but precision and caution, and he had leaked human emotion into their situation. He had upset their calculations of the risks, not told them the nature of his worries, possibly tipped them toward distrust of the Mospheirans they might have to deal with.
Well, he could at least patch that problem. He insisted, caught Jago’s eye, and when she had drifted back to him:
“Have no concern for my surly disposition or my appetite, nadi-ji. Flying always upsets me. I particularly dislike it when there may be missiles aimed at us. Imagination quite thoroughly upsets my stomach. But I have confidence in our landing and great confidence in Mospheirans on the ground.”
“Do we rely securely upon the Presidenta?”
She was still ready, ready as Tabini had been, along with all their security, to take his word as truth, when his judgement was necessarily at issue in this whole business, whether he was at all reliable in his estimates of his own people, when he’d been so badly mistaken in reactions on the mainland. But there was no room for second thoughts. Gravity had them. They were headed irrevocably for Jackson, with no other landing site in the whole world available, carrying the most precious cargo atevi had, in the dowager and the (at present) bored, over-sugared, and over-stressed heir of the aishidi’tat.
The paidhi needed to get solid control of his own nerves, that was what. He could only think so many moves ahead, or go crazy trying to calculate the variables to a nicety. There was no calculation possible at present, except that they had to get down and get transportation to a place where they could gather more information.
“We may rely on Shawn,” he said. “The Presidenta remains a strong associate, reliable and, as far as I know, firmly seated in his power. I wish I might tell you the next steps we shall take, but I have been reluctant to discuss any specifics with him, for fear of interception by some less well-disposed party. We shall land, I suppose we shall spend the night near the landing field to consider our options and gather information, and by some means, in the morning, I expect, we shall cross to the continent as rapidly as we can. I trust the Presidenta will arrange a boat—that would be my preference.”
“Safer,” Jago agreed. “Slower transit, but one believes all of us agree. There will be surveillance, but surely more boats than planes go about the strait, particularly under these circumstances. I shall present it to the others.”
“Do so, Jago-ji,” he said, and she sailed forward, pulled herself down to a secure place in the seats forward and spoke gravely to Banichi and Cenedi, who had continued their conference, and doubtless were committing certain key things to memory. It seemed likely a plan was in formation up there—even, likely, a plan as to what they should do if all the paidhi’s assurances fell apart entirely and they were met with gunfire or treachery at highest levels.