Shuttle runway. Wheels down.
He had done precious little good down there, except to serve as a lightning rod for Tatiseigi’s irritations. Or possibly to provoke them. He had no idea whether Tatiseigi had included him in the breakfast of his own volition, or whether Ilisidi had insisted on it to annoy the old man.
Or to have a lightning-rod handy, to prevent topics being raised which she had no wish to discuss at the moment.
Should he send a message to the old man, request an audience independent of Ilisidi? He had not the least idea what to do now. He heard his staff talking quietly in the bedroom. He supposed that was a debrief and a strategy session. He ought to participate. He ought to have a brilliant idea what to do from here, and whether he ought to stay here, and urge the dowager to stay here, where there was at least reasonable protection—or whether he should go to Shejidan and present the untried arguments before Banichi’s Guild.
He knew what he had rather not do—which was to go to Shejidan. But it was fear that held that opinion. Logic might dictate otherwise, if he could summon the will to think straight.
Too much breakfast, too much comfort here.
He had to talk to his staff, once they’d had a chance to talk to everyone else, once Ilisidi had a chance, canny as she was, to figure what Tatiseigi knew or didn’t know. He was dim-brained because he had an adrenaline charge shoving his brain into all-out effort, he had a critical lack of information, and every instinct was telling him not to press Tatiseigi too hard, that there was a current flowing between Tatiseigi and Ilisidi that was critical, that he should not interrupt.
Waiting. Waiting was the very devil.
Chapter 10
He must have dozed, sitting there in the armchair, tucked up against the slight cool breeze from the open window. He came awake with the passage of a shadow between him and the light, and saw Banichi standing between him and the windows. Jago was with him. Tano and Algini were behind them.
“Nadiin-ji?” He sorted his wits for relevant recent information and remembered breakfast, and a post-breakfast conference in progress among his staff.
“We have a plan, Bren-ji.”
Wonderful. A plan. He so much wanted a plan. He had failed to come up with one, and he was sure Banichi’s was going to involve his staff doing something that would risk their lives.
He mustered the wit and fortitude to say no to those gathered, earnest faces.
“Sit down, please, nadiin.” He wanted a quiet conference, one in which they did not cut out his sunlight, or loom over him with superior force. “One hopes it by no means involves your going to Shejidan without me.”
Not a twitch. “No, Bren-ji.” From Banichi. “It involves Lord Tatiseigi’s men going there.”
“One would hardly count on his assisting us.”
“For the dowager’s sake,” Jago said. “One believes he would order it for her. Not for us, never for us, but possibly for her.”
“In Shejidan,” Tano said, “his messengers can enter the Guild Hall reasonably unremarked, under far less threat of hostile measures from the Kadigidi. And they can present the facts of the heir’s claim.”
“But to claim the succession—that would seem as if the Atageini think Tabini is dead, nadiin-ji.” He was far from sure that turning their support from Tabini to Cajeiri was a good idea. “And would it not look as if we support that theory?”
“Much as if,” Banichi allowed. “But if Atageini representatives can get the debate in the Guild centered on that topic, bypassing all the suspended question of their support for Tabini-aiji, and if, through that debate, we can inject evidence backing Tabini-aiji’s policies, there is some hope of presenting the report. By that means, the Atageini might prepare Guild support for the aiji’s position should he appear.”
His mind hared off in twenty different directions at once, Tabini’s safety, Tabini’s reaction, even Tabini’s sense of betrayal if he should appear to support Cajeiri’s claim.
Most of all, the volatile controversy of his own influence in the administration… because his influence was going to be the sticking-point in any presentation a third party made to the Guild regarding the mission that had cost the aishidi’tat so much. From the atevi end of the telescope, thinking what the Atageini might say, he saw the situation much more clearly. Very honest people viewed him as a long-standing and pernicious influence on Tabini-aiji, a human, an interloper whose advice was primarily responsible for all the difficulties the aishidi’tat was in now. Very honest people had reasons to support some other authority, no matter how objectionable on all other grounds.
Small wonder he hadn’t been able to persuade his brain to come up with the right words: he was the problem, and nobody he intended to speak to was going to hear him except through a filter that said all his past advice had been wrong, no matter how well-intentioned. That was what his better sense was trying to tell him. It was why the Guild hadn’t backed Tabini against this insurgency—and why in hell would it then listen to the paidhi’s arguments?
He drew a deep breath, facing these unpleasant truths. “But if all they hear, nadiin, is that I am here with the heir, what can they think? And if they cannot be made to understand that our judgement regarding the space program was correct and cannot be assured that their sacrifice was necessary—I am not sure Cajeiri will win any case with your Guild or with the legislature. If they cast Tabini aside because they detest my influence—where has Cajeiri been, but with me, for the last two years?”
“The paidhi has many allies,” Tano said staunchly, “who hold a very different opinion of his actions. People will rise to support us, nandi. I have no doubt. They only want to choose the right moment.”
Certainly he had faithful staff, in his apartment in the Bu-javid—who were likely dispossessed, if not worse. He had a secretarial staff, an entire office in Shejidan, loyal, gentle people who might have lost their jobs and found it precious hard to find others—if not worse. And he could not imagine that band of dedicated individuals facing down Tasigin assassins with a stack of contradictory records and soft protestations about right and reason and cross-species logic.
“I am not so sanguine about their chances of surviving the present troubles,” he said. “And if I cannot persuade Lord Tatiseigi—or even persuade him to listen to me—”
About the mission to Reunion, no chance. Not as things now stood.
But about the boy’s rights, and therefore Tatiseigi’s rights, and the need to advance them forcefully…
“He would want the boy to make that claim, would he not, nadiin-ji?”
“Exactly so,” Banichi said. “Exactly so, Bren-ji.”
“Endangering him.”
“He is already in danger, in danger, and without Guild protection, excepting those of us under this roof.”
“And what is there to support him, Banichi-ji?”
“The backing of Lord Tatiseigi, and a letter from the paidhi-aiji,” Banichi said, with an uncharacteristic leap of faith. Faith placed in him, God help them all.
And if the plight of his long-suffering on-world staff was a burden on his heart, that earnest look from Banichi, of all people, lowered a crushing, overwhelming weight onto his shoulders.
“What could one reasonably say in a letter to convince those who have been injured by my advice, Banichi-ji? I hoped to speak to Lord Tatiseigi after breakfast. I could not even secure that audience.”