He almost said—beyond calculation. But that was heresy. “At least beyond what I know, nadi. Beyond any limit we’ve found with our ships.”
“Is it? But what use is it?”
Occasionally he met a new atevi attitude—inevitably astonishing. “What use is the earth, nadi? What use is the whole world except that we’re in it? It’s where we are, nadi. Its use is that we exist. There may be more important positions in the universe, but from where we stand, it’s all that isimportant.”
“You believe that some things are uncountable?”
The heresy pit again. He reached for an irrefutable answer, knowing that, if the wrong thing went down on tape—the extremists had him. “If one had the vision to see them, I’m sure one could count them.”
“Does anyone have universal vision?”
Another atevi sect, for all he knew. “I wouldn’t know, nadi. I’m certainly not that person.”
Damned if Cenedi believed the numerologists. But what Cenedi might want for political reasons, he had no way to guess. He wanted out of this line of questioning.
“More tea?” Cenedi asked him.
“Nadi, thank you, I have some left.”
“Do you suspect me personally as an enemy?”
“I don’t know. I certainly hope not. I’ve found your company pleasant and I hope it to continue.”
“There is nothing personal in my position, nand’ paidhi.”
“I trust so. I don’t know how I could have offended you. Certainly not by intent.”
“Heresy is not the charge here, understand. I find all the number-counting complete, primitive foolishness.”
“But tapes can be edited.”
“So can television,” Cenedi said. “You provided Tabini-aiji with abundant material today.”
The television? He’d put it from his mind, in the shock of reading Tabini’s letter. But now that Cenedi said it, he factored it in with that letter—all the personal, easy questions, about himself, his life, his associations.
Double-cross, by the only ateva he absolutely trusted with his life, double-cross by the aiji who held all the agreements with human civilization.
Tabini had armed him against assassins—and in the light of that letter he couldn’t prove the assassins weren’t Tabini’s. Tabini gave him a gun that could be found and traced by the markings on its bullets.
But when he’d used it, and drawn blood, Banichi had given him another. He didn’t understand that.
Although perhaps Banichi hadn’t understood then, either, and done the loyal thing, not being in on the plot. All his reckonings ran in circles—and now Banichi’s gun was gone from under his mattress, when they could photograph anything, plant any piece of evidence, and fill in the serial numbers later… he knew at least some of the tricks they could use. He’d studied them. The administration had madehim study them until his head rattled with them, and he hadn’t wanted to believe he’d ever need to know.
Not with Tabini, no.
Not with a man who confided in him, who told him official secrets he didn’t, out of respect for this man, convey to Mospheira… “How many people live on Mospheira?” Cenedi asked.
“You asked that, nadi. About four million. Four million three hundred thousand.”
“We’ll repeat questions from time to time, just to be sure.—Does that count children?”
Question after question, then, about support for the rail system, about the vetoes his predecessor had cast, about power plants, about dams and highways and the ecological studies, on Mospheira and on the mainland.
About the air link between the island and the mainland, and the road system in Mospheira’s highland north and center. Nothing at any point that was classified. Nothing they couldn’t find out from the catalogs and from his private mail, wherever that was going.
Probably they hadfound it out from his mail, long before the satellites. They might have, out of the vacation catalogs, assembled a mosaic of Mospheira’s roads, cities, streets, might have photographed the coastal cities, where regular cargo flights came in from Shejidan and flew out with human-manufactured electronics, textiles, seafood and pharmaceuticals.
“Do you have many associates on Mospheira, nadi? What are their names?”
“What do you do regularly when you go back to Mospheira, nadi? Surely you spend some official time…?”
“You had a weapon in your quarters, nadi. What did you plan to do with it?”
Admit nothing, he thought. There wasno friendly question.
“I’m unaware of any gun.”
“An object that size, under your mattress.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it arrived and departed the same day.”
“Please don’t joke, nadi. This is an extremely serious business.”
“I’m aware it is. But I assure you, I didn’t bring it here and I didn’t put it under my mattress.”
“It appeared spontaneously.”
“It must have. I’ve no other answer. Nadi, what would I do with it? I’m no marksman. I’m no danger with a gun, except to myself and the furniture.”
“Nadi. We know this gun didn’t originate in Malguri. We have its registration.”
He looked elsewhere, at the double-edged shadows on the wall. Maybe Tabini had lost politically, somehow, in some way that mandated turning him over to a rival entity. He didn’t know who he was defending, now, in the matter of the disappearing gun, whether Tabini from his rivals or Banichi from prosecution, or whether Banichi’s substitution of that gun had muddied things up so badly that everyone looked guilty.
But he had no question now where the gun had gone.
And, as for lying, he adopted his own official line.
“Nadi,” Cenedi said. “Answer the question.”
“I thought it was a statement, nadi. Forgive me. I don’t own a gun. I didn’t put it there. That’s all I can say.”
“You firedat the assassin in Shejidan, nand’ paidhi.”
“No. I raised an alarm. Banichi fired when the man ran.”
“Banichi’s aim is not, then, what I’d expect of him.”
“It was dark, it was raining, and the man was running.”
“And there was no one but yourself in the room.”
“I heard a noise. I roused the guard.”
“Banichi regularly stands guard by your door at night?”
“I don’t know, I suppose he had some business in the halls—some lady. I didn’t ask him.”
“Nadi, you’re lying. This doesn’t help anyone.”
“Only three people in the world know what happened that night: myself, Banichi, and the man on that balcony—who was surely not you, Cenedi-ji. Wasit?”
“No. It’s not my method of choice.”
That was probably a joke. He didn’t know whether to take it as one. He was scared, and sure that Cenedi had information from sources he didn’t know about. Cenedi was building a case of some kind. And while there were laws against kidnapping, and against holding a person by force, there were none against what Tabini had done in sending him here.
“You have no idea how the gun got there,” Cenedi said. “You state emphatically that you didn’t know it was there.”
“Yes.”
Cenedi leaned back in his chair and stared at him, a long, long moment.
“Banichi gave you the gun.”
“No, nadi. He did not.”
“Nand’ paidhi, there are people of the dowager’s acquaintance, closely associated people, whose associations with Tabini-aiji are throughthe aiji-dowager. They don’t accept this piece of paper, this Treatywith Mospheira. Pieces of paper don’t impress them at all, and, quite frankly, they don’t consider the cession of Mospheira legitimate or effective.”
Thatcrowd, he thought with a chill. The conservative fringe. The attack-the-beaches element. He didn’t want to believe it.
“We’ve received inquiry from them,” Cenedi said. “In fact, their agents have come to Malguri requesting you be turned over to them, urging the aiji-dowager to abandon association with Tabini altogether. They argue the Treaty is valueless. That Tabini-aiji is leading in a wrong direction. We’ve arranged a compromise. They need certain information, I’ve indicated we can obtain it for them, and they’ll not request you be turned over to them.”