That Tabini, in the long run, had to act in atevi interests, and as an ateva, not in any human-influenced way that needed to make sense to him.
Intellect argued that he couldn’t waste time feeling anything, or interpreting anything by human rules. Intellect argued that he was in dire and deep trouble in this place, that he had a slim hope in the indication that Banichi and Jago were to stay here—an even wilder hope in the possibility Tabini might have been compelled to betray him, and that Tabini had kept Banichi and Jago on hand for a reason… a wild and improbable rescue…
But it was all a very thin, very remote possibility, considering that Tabini had felt constrained to write such a letter at all.
And if Tabini was willing to risk the paidhi’s life and along with it the advantage of Mospheira’s technology, one could only conclude that Tabini’s power was threatened in some substantial way that Tabini couldn’t resist.
Or one could argue that the paidhi had completely failed to understand the situation he was in.
Which offered no hope, either.
He handed Cenedi back the letter with, he hoped, not quite so obvious a tremor in his hands as might have been. He wasn’t afraid. He found that curious. He was aware only of a knot in his throat, and a chill lack of sensation in his fingers.
“Nadi,” he said quietly. “I don’t understand. Are you the ones trying to kill me in Shejidan?”
“Not directly. But denial wouldn’t serve the truth, either.”
Tabini had armed him contrary to the treaty.
Cenedi had killedan assassin on the grounds. Hadn’t he?
The confusion piled up around him.
“Where’s Banichi? And Jago? Do they know about this? Do they know where I am?”
“They know. I say that denial of responsibility would be a lie. But I will also own that we are embarrassed by the actions of an associate who called on a licensed professional for a disgraceful action. The Guild has been embarrassed by the actions of a single individual acting for personal conviction. I personally—embarrassed myself, in the incident of the tea. More, you accepted my apology, which makes my duty at this moment no easier, nand’ paidhi. I assure you there is nothingpersonal in this confrontation. But I will do whatever I feel sufficient to find the truth in this situation.”
“What situation?”
“Nand’ paidhi. Do you ever mislead us? Do you ever tell us less—or more—than the truth?”
His hazard didn’t warrant rushing to judgment headlong—or dealing in on-the-spot absolutes, with a man the extent of whose information or misinformation he didn’t know. He tried to think. He tried to be absolutely careful.
“Nadi, there are times I may know… some small technical detail, a circuit, a mode of operation—sometimes a whole technological field—that I haven’t brought to the appropriate committee; or that I haven’t put forward to the aiji. But it’s not that I don’t intend to bring it forward, no more than other paidhiin have ever withheld what they know. There is no technology we have that I intendto withhold—ever.”
“Have you ever, in collaboration with Tabini, rendered additional numbers into the transmissions from Mospheira to the station?”
God.
“Ask the aiji.”
“Have those numbers been supplied to you by the aiji?”
“Ask him.”
Cenedi looked through papers, and looked up again, his dark face absolutely impassive. “I’m asking you, nand’ paidhi. Have those numbers been supplied to you by the aiji?”
“That’s Tabini’s business. Not mine.” His hands were cold. He worked his fingers and tried to pretend to himself that the debate was no more serious than a council meeting, at which, very rarely, the questions grew hot and quick. “If Tabini-aiji sends to Mospheira, I render what he says accurately. That’s my job. I wouldn’t misrepresent him, or Mospheira. Thatis my integrity, nadi Cenedi. I don’t lie to either party.”
Another silence, long and tense, in which the thunder of an outside storm rumbled through the stones.
“Have you always told the truth, nadi?”
“In such transactions? Yes. To both sides.”
“ Ihave questions for you, in the name of the aiji-dowager. Will you answer them?”
The walls of the trap closed. It was the nightmare every paidhi had feared and no one had yet met, until, God help him, he had walked right into it, trusting atevi even though he couldn’t translate the concept of trust to them, persisting in trusting them when his own advisors said no, standing so doggedly by his belief in Tabini’s personal attachment to him that he hadn’tcalled his office when he’d received every possible warning things were going wrong.
If Cenedi wanted to use force now… he had no help. If Cenedi wanted him to swear that there wasa human plot against atevi… he had no idea whether he could hold out against saying whatever Cenedi wanted.
He gave a slight, atevi shrug, a move of one hand. “As best I can,” he said, ‘I’ll answer, as best I personally know the answers.”
“Mospheira has… how many people?”
“About four million.”
“No atevi.”
“No atevi.”
“Have atevi ever come there, since the Treaty?”
“No, nadi. There haven’t. Except the airline crews.”
“What do you think of the concept of a paidhi-atevi?”
“Early on, we wanted it. We tried to get it into the Treaty as a condition of the cease fire, because we wanted to understand atevi better than we did. We knew we’d misunderstood. We knew we were partially responsible for the War. But atevi refused. If atevi were willing, now, absolutely I’d support the idea.”
“You’ve nothing to hide, you as a people? It wouldn’t provoke resentment, to have an ateva resident on Mospheira, admitted to your councils?”
“I think it would be very useful for atevi to learn our customs. I’d sponsor it. I’d argue passionately in favor of it.”
“You don’t fear atevi spies any longer.”
“I’ve told you—there are no more secrets. There’s nothing to spy on. We live very similar lives. We have very similar conveniences. You wouldn’t know the difference between Adams Town and Shejidan.”
“I would not?”
“We’re very similar. And not—” he added deliberately, “not that all the influence has come from us to you, nadi. I tell you, we’ve found a good many atevi ideas very wise. You’d feel quite at home in some particulars. We have learned from you.”
He doubted Cenedi quite believed that. He saw the frown.
“Could there,” Cenedi asked him, “regarding the secrets you say you’ve provided—be any important area held back?”
“Biological research. Understanding of genetics. That’s the last, the most difficult.”
“Why is that the last?”
“Numbers. Like space. The size of the numbers. One hopes that computers will find more general acceptance among atevi. One needscomputers, nadi, adept as you are in mathematics—you still need them. I confess I can’t follow everything you do in your heads, but you have to have the computers for space science, for record-keeping, and for genetics as we practice it.”
“The number-counters don’t believe that. Some say computers are inauspicious and misleading.”
“Some also do admit a fascination with them. I’ve heard some numerologists are writing software… and criticizing our hardware. They’re quite right. Our scientists are very interested in their opinions.”
“In atevi invention.”
“Very much so.”
“What can we possibly invent? Humans have done it all.”
“Oh, no, no, nadi, far from all. It’s a wide universe. And our ship did once break down.”
“Wide enough, this universe?”