“I shall tell him that, nadi.”
Jago was gone from the doorway, then, giving him the grace of privacy, but he was sure she’d gone no further than the hall outside to relay the message. And to achieve that composed manner he tried to widen his focus, to remind himself how very much was at issue, for three nations counting the ship Jase represented; and what a very extraordinary honor Tabini had offered him.
It was done for state reasons, he had to remind himself. For the same damn reasons of state that had put him in the position he was in.
He’d hung up on his brother.
And wouldn’t be home.
Fact. Fact. Fact. There was nothing that could change it, nothing that would get the barrier between peoples down any faster than the things he was doing. So it was two deep breaths and back to work.
He got to his feet and walked out into the hall, where as he expected, Jago was waiting; and where, in the distance, the television interviews were going on, with a scatter of the guests down there in the bright lights. He walked with Jago back into the crowded breakfast room, in which alcohol and alkaloids as well as the sweets were beginning to be a factor and the simple noise of conversation was beginning to sound like the subway below the building. Jase was still safe where he’d left him; and, not willing at this moment to talk to Jase or answer human questions, he tended toward Tabini, who was with Damiri, with Banichi, too.
Tabini’s regular security was at the moment hovering much closer to Tatiseigi, who was talking to Ilisidi.
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said quietly with a slight bow. “I heard your generous offer. I will present it at my first opportunity, but—” His wits unraveled. “I don’t know how to persuade them, aiji-ma. I wish that I could.”
“It seems to me,” Damiri said, “that this is a trap, nand’ paidhi. They wishyou to become concerned and to go there. This attack on your mother’s residence is not unrelated to this pressure on the Association and the outrageous behavior of your government. I even suspect the death of Jase’s father, but I know no design to make of it.”
He felt himself increasingly in shock, and willingto make patterns where possibly none existed. He dealt with atevi. And to the atevi mind there were patterns he could see, too, dire and threatening patterns; but he dealt so deeply in the language now he feared his own suspicions. “I know none, either, daja-ma, but I shall certainly think deeply on it.”
Another person moved up to speak to the aiji, a lord of the northwest coast, who was clearly waiting his turn, and he was, he decided, done with the things he could say. To be replaced was at the moment a relief from having to think in atevi complexity. He moved aside with the due and automatic courtesies—
And encountered lord Badissuni.
“Nandi,” he said.
“Nand’ paidhi.” The thin, unhappy lord looked sternly down at him. “Your security, one wishes to say, is highly accurate.”
What did one say? His heart was racing. “They areGuild, nandi.”
“Two of you, now,” the lord said. “Does Hanks speak for you?”
“By no means, nand’ Badissuni. I disapprove of her adventures and she wishes me dead.”
“So one hears,” Badissuni said. “ Isthis faster-than-light a lie?”
“No, nandi.”
“Will this ship fly?”
“I have no doubt, nandi. There is nodeception.”
“One was curious,” Badissuni said, and strayed off without another word.
More than damned curious. People were staring at him. He had the feeling he’d been used for display. A political prop. Talk to the paidhi. Be seen to talk to the paidhi. As he’d been seento talk with Tatiseigi and everyone else available. He didn’t see Jago. He didn’t think she’d approve his being used; and perhaps neither would Tabini, who’d nevertheless invited the man.
He retreated to the corner next to the doorway, next to a porcelain stand for abandoned drink glasses, where Jase, drink in hand, stood talking with his security, Dureni.
“What was that?” Jase asked. “Is anything wrong?”
A flash of dark and pale green advised him of someone of the house beside him, and he turned to find lord Tatiseigi himself under Ilisidi’s relentless escort, bound past them, he was sure, toward the interview area just outside.
“Everything all right?” Jase asked, and in that sense, yes, he was relieved to think.
Then something popped.
Security moved. Everyonemoved. Tatiseigi and Ilisidi were in the doorway and he didn’t think—he just shoved Jase to the floor as Jase was diving toward lord Tatiseigi in the doorway.
Lord Tatiseigi continued to the floor along with others diving of their own volition—Bren was down, half sheltered by Dureni; everyone was low; and an apparently unarmed security around the aiji had turned into a crouched, gun-bearing battle-line.
“A lightbulb exploded!” someone shouted from the interview area beyond the door, where indeed a deep and startling shadow had fallen. The lily room burst into relieved laughter, and more laughter, amid a murmur of disgust from Dureni and an apology as Dureni hoped he hadn’t hurt him.
“By no means,” Bren said, accepting a hand up.
Jase, meanwhile, was in very intimate contact with a very offended lord Tatiseigi as lights flared in the doorway, and the television cameras, a live broadcast, swept over the confusion, Tatiseigi, struggling to rise—and Jase, who got to his feet with more agility.
“Nandi,” Jase said faintly, edging backward, attempting to efface himself. But the camera tracked him relentlessly as the documentary reporter with a microphone turned up at Jase’s shoulder.
“Nand’ paidhi,” the reporter said, “an exciting moment.”
“I think dangerous,” Jase answered quite correctly, and Bren reached him, seized his arm, and propelled him back out of the spotlight, as lord Tatiseigi also escaped the cameras. “He wishes to convey his apology, nand’ Tatiseigi, and his profound concern.” He didn’t mention that the fall had happened partly because Tatiseigi had shown no reluctance to trample others underfoot reaching the door; and Jase had, indeed, tried to carry an adult ateva to the floor to protect him.
“Certainly it might have been more serious,” Tabini said. In the tail of Bren’s eye, Tabini came walking cheefully in among those who had hit the floor, including a wryly amused Ilisidi, whom Cenedi was helping to her feet. “Grandmother-ji?”
“Certainly an exciting party,” Ilisidi said, and the cameras were still going in the doorway. “What for dessert, nandi?”
There was general laughter. And Tabini, never slower than his grandmother, as the camera’s glaring eye carried it across the continent: “nand’ Tatiseigi! Good, good and fast! Our first line of defense, and damned well restrained, I say, of the lord of the Atageini, or there’d beno cameramen standing. My father used to call you the best shot in the valley, did he not, nandi?” Tabini waved his hand at the cameraman in the doorway. “Out, out, nadiin! You and your exploding lights! Take them out, out! You’ve seen the lilies! You’ve leaned over our shoulders long enough, you! Let us enjoy our evening!”
That was the aiji’s word. The aiji’s security intervened more directly, and the lights on which the cameras relied went out, all at once; someone had gotten the fuse. Lights died, cameras retreated.
Bren realized he had a death grip on Jase’s arm and let go.
“It’s all right,” he said to Jase in Mosphei’.
But Jase retorted in Ragi, “I thought they were shopping.”
There was an immediate and embarrassed silence. Then laughter from those in earshot.
“Shooting,” Jase said, and went red. And fled out the door and hardly got out of sight before security bounced him back, angry and confused.