Bren said sharply, “I’m sorry.”
“Where is the ocean, nadi?”
“Clearly not here. Let me explain.”
“In my language! Please!”
He’d said that in Ragi. Which said Jase was at least getting the reflexes under control.
“Five fast minutes, then, inMosphei’. You remember how dangerous I said Tatiseigi was?—Well, the aiji-dowager is the focusof every anti-Tabini dissident in the country. Shehas the legitimacy Tatiseigi doesn’t. Except for the legislature voting the other way after her husband died, she could have been aiji. Except for them voting for her grandson after her son died, she could have been aiji. She could step in tomorrow without the country falling apart, and she’s the onlyone who’d avoid an unthinkable bloodbath, but she’s also—” One was neversure a room lacked bugs. And was always playing for an audience. “She’s also fair and honorable. She’s been exceedingly moral in all her dealings with the welfare of the Association. It would have been a loteasier for her to have raised a civil war against her grandson. But she didn’t, and I’m alive to say so. So keep objections to a minimum. And for God’s sake don’t make any objections to her. I asked her to show you atevi life as it was before humans came!”
“This is it, then, this falling-down ruin?”
“You listen to me, Jase.”
Jase shoved him, hard, and he grabbed Jase’s coat to prevent a swing at him.
“I’ve beenlistening to you,” Jase said, trying to free himself, and shoved again.
“You’re being stupid, stupidis what you’re being! Stand still!”
Jase clawed at his hand and he let go. And they stood and stared at each other, Jase panting for breath, himself very much on the verge of hitting him, someone, anyone.
“All right,” Jase said. “All right, I’ll go along with this. I’ll play your rules, your game, let’s just keep smiling.”
“Let me explain, before we switch languages again. If you insult this woman, you could have a war. If you insult this woman you could be killed. I am not exaggerating. We are dealing with cultural differences here. We are dealing with people who don’t owe anything to whatever code of ethics lies in our mutual past. So whatever happens, you get a grip on that temper, Mr. Graham. You get a grip on it or I’ll suggest to our staff they feed you some tea that’ll have you throwing up your guts for three days and ship you back to the apartment before you say something to kill several million people! Do I make myself clear?”
“No guts yourself?”
“No brains, Mr. Graham? If I hit you, and I’m tempted, God! I’m tempted; they’ll see the bruises—which I’d rather not, for your reputation and future—”
Jase swung. Bren didn’t even think about doing it—he hit Jase hard. Jase grabbed his coat, Bren blocked a punch with one arm, hit Jase in the gut, and had to block another punch.
They hit the table together, holding on to each other. The candle fell, they both overbalanced and went down, and Bren writhed his way to his knees, blind, angry, and being hit by an idiot he wanted to kill. Before he got a grip on Jase, Jase got a grip on him, and they knelt there on the floor like two total fools, each with a deathgrip on the other’s coat, sleeve, arm, shoulder, whatever.
“Get up,” he said. “We’ve put the damn candle out. Are you trying to burn the building down?”
“Damn you.”
He shook at Jase. Jase was braced. They were that way for several more breaths.
“Are they going to walk in and find us like this?” he asked Jase. “Get up!”
“Let go.”
“No way in hell.”
“Truce. Let go.”
He didn’t let go. He started to get up, Jase started to get up, and they got up leaning on each other, still holding on to each other, managing a slow, mistrustful disengagement.
Fool, he said to himself. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t happy, either, as he trusted Jase’s common sense enough to pick up the candles, the extinguished one in the holder and the entire basket of them that had been overset.
He took a match, relit the candle. They’d delivered body blows, at least of those that had landed; and hadn’t done each other visible damage, give or take dust on their clothes. The candle and the wan light from the window showed him Jase with hair flying loose, collar rumpled, a sullen look. He figured it had as well be a mirror of himself at the moment.
“We have to go to dinner tonight.”
“In this wreckage?”
“ Thisis a Historic Monument, Jasi-ji, and I suggest if she declares it’s a palace on the moon you bow and agree that it’s very fine and you’re delighted to be here.”
There was a long silence from the other side.
“Yes, sir,” Jase said.
“I’m not sir.”
“Oh, but I thought you’d taken that back. You are siror you aren’tin this business, so make up your mind!”
“Damn that talk. This is not your ship. You’re supposed to be doing a job, you’re not doing it, you damn near created a rift in the government and I brought you here to patch the holes, the gapingholes, in your knowledge of these people, theircustoms, theirlanguage, and yoursensitivity to a vast, unmapped world of experience to which you’re blind, Mr. Graham. I suggest you say thank you, put yourself back to rights, and don’t expect atevito do the job you volunteered for. They weren’t born to understand you, they’re on theirplanet, enjoying theirlives quite nicely without your input, and I suggest if you approach atevi officials who owe theirprecious scant time to their own people, you do so politely, appreciate their efforts to understand you, they choose to make such efforts, or I’ll see you out of here.”
“Thank you,” Jase said coldly.
“Thank you for waiting to blow up.”
“Don’t push me. Don’tpush me. You need my good will.”
“Do I? You could have an accident. They’d send me another.”
There was a small, shocked silence. Then: “You’re an atevi official. Is that the way you think of yourself?”
“You don’t question me, mister. When it comes to relations withthe atevi, I amsir, to you, and you do as you’re told. You and your rules-following. This is the time for it, this is the time in your whole life you’d betterfollow the damn rules, and nowyou want to do things your own way! What do I need to diagram for you? Where did you get the notion youknow what in hell’s going on? Or did I miss a revelation from God?”
A long, long silence, this time. Jase didn’t look him in the eye. He stared at the floor, or at dust on his clothing, which he brushed off, at the light from the window, at anything in the world but him.
“I think we should go back to Shejidan,” Jase said to the window. “This isn’t going to help.”
“Well, it’s not quite convenient at the moment to go back. You asked for this, and you’ve got it. So be grateful.”
“The hell! You’ve lied to me.”
“In what particular?”
A silence. A silence that went on and on while Jase stared off into nowhere and fought for composure.
There was a small rap at the door.
“Nadi?” Bren asked, wishing the interruption had had better timing, to prevent the incident in the first place. He shouldn’t have hit Jase. It hadn’t helped. The man had lost his father. He was on a hair-trigger as it was. He’d chosen this particular time to bear down on the language, probably becauseof his father’s death; and now he didn’t know where he was: he was temporarily outside rational expression.