“On what account, nand’ paidhi, if you would elucidate.”
“I am encouraged by the people, nadi. I have seen the actual elements of what will become the first spacecraft to be launched from this planet. They now exist. I have met atevi workers dedicated to their work, whose care will safeguard the economic prosperity of generations of atevi.”
“What do you say, nand’ paidhi,” this came from a southern service, “to the objections regarding the cost?”
Lord Saigimi’s platform. Notan innocent question. Provocative. It identified the source of trouble. He hoped not to have another question from that quarter, and could not gracefully look to the staff officer controlling who stood up to ask, not without exposing that glance on live national television.
“The rail system on which all commerce now moves was vastly expensive to build,” he said calmly. “Look at the jobs, nadiin, look at the industry. Were we to back away from this chance to lift the people of this planet into authority over their own future, someone else would exercise that authority. By the Treaty, I look out for the peace. And I seeno peace if such an imbalance develops in the relationship that now exists between atevi and humans. That would be more than expensive, nadiin, it would be unthinkable. The program mustgive atevi the power to direct their own lives.”
“Is this within the man’chi of the paidhiin?”
“Indisputably. Indisputably. By the Treaty, it is.” The question had come from the same source. The man did not sit down. And from all his worries about changes in atevi life, he was reminded now of Saigimi’s otherqualities. The same whose associates built shoddy office buildings and who personally tried to ruin lord Geigi in order to own his vote in some very critical measures.
“Did the paidhi feel at all that his safety was threatened in the peninsula?”
That was nota permitted question, by the ground rules that governed all news conferences. He knew that Tabini was going to hit the rafters over that one, and other reporters were disturbed, but he lifted a hand in token that he would answer the direct provocation.
“The paidhi,” he said calmly, and in meticulous Ragi, “has the greatest confidence in the good will expressed to him by honest people.” The news service this reporter represented, whether by one of Deana’s little legacies or a new inspiration of Tabini’s enemies, was attempting to politicize itself—implying (because a retaliatory strike by Guild members would have to follow a line of direct involvement) that the paidhi or lord Geigi had a connection to the assassination. He had no compunction whatsoever about derailing the effort in a rambling, time-using account. Two could play the games of a live, limited-time broadcast.
“Let me recount to you the scene as I left the plant, nadiin, as the goodheartedness of the workers brought a crowd out the doors, brought them carrying flowers toward the cars. When my plane dipped its wing and came about toward Shejidan I saw, beside the cars of my local escort, flowers of the springtime of the peninsula pass beneath us. So, so much generosity of the people, so much care of the vastly important task under their hands and so generous an expression of their belief in their task. Their hope for the future is visible now. Tangible.” They’d edit when bits of this replayed, and after what had been asked, he was careful to give them only positive, felicitously numbered statements. The paidhi did notintervene in atevi internal affairs. That was what they were trying to get him to do, so he played the uninvolved innocent. “I was greatly impressed, nadiin. I tell you, I was impressed so much that I believe as they believe, in the felicity of this project, in the felicity of this nation, in the felicity of the aiji who has been foresighted in making this reach toward space at a moment when all these fortunate things coincide.”
A second reporter rose. “Have you authorized, nand’ paidhi, the direct exchange of messages between the island and the ship-paidhi, in your absence?”
What in hell wasthis? A second out-of-line question?
“I have not forbidden it, nadi.”
“Can you, nand’ paidhi, confirm a death in the ship-paidhi’s house?”
There was a leak. There was a serious leak. It smelled of Deana. If he could figure how—and methods including radio did occur to him.
Damn it, he thought. He’d meant to report it, because with servants aware of something, informational accidents could happen, and he didn’t want speculation getting ahead of all the facts he had. But he’d meant to report it afterJase had talked to his mother. The death on the ship implied infelicity.
And he could either shut down the interview right now on these two rude and unauthorized questions on the very plain point that they violated protocol—he could signal his security to create a diversion; or he could handle the problem they’d posed and then loose security on the matter of who’d put them up to it.
“I can,” he said, “confirm, nadiin, that there is such a sad report; as best I am informed, an accident of some nature. I will try to obtain that information for you. But that is not officially announced, and the release of that information could cause great pain to Jase-paidhi, who has borne the effort and worked honestly to bring good fortune to atevi as well as humans. I’m certain that isn’t your intent.”
Sometimes his own callous response to situations appalled him. Atevi would wish to know. Number-counters would wish to know. All sorts of people would wish to know for good and sensible reasons, for superstitious reasons, and just because they were justifiably curious about human behavior.
The next two questions, which he took from the major news services, were routine and without devious intent. How was the space program meeting the engineers’ expectations and was the design translation without apparent error?
“We are developing a set of equivalences between the two languages which render translation of diagrams much easier. We’re dealing with a scale of measurements which has a scale of directly comparable numbers”—Atevi ears always pricked up at that word—“which renders the operation of translation much faster. Atevi engineers are actually able to read human documents where the matter involves written numbers, and to perform calculations which render these numbers into atevi numbers with all the ordinary checks that these skilled persons perform.”
Not of significance for a human audience, but for an atevi audience a real bombshell of religious and philosophical significance. If the universe was rational and numerical, numbers were a direct reflection of its mathematical dependability; numbers could predict, safeguard, direct, and govern. No project would succeed without good numbers; the ship on which the design was based hadflown, the human numbers were therefore good numbers, felicitous numbers, more to the point—since numbers could be felicitous or infelicitous, leading to success or disaster—and to have the news that atevi engineers could make clear sense of human engineering diagrams was the sort of thing that would actually fight with the peninsular assassination and the death on the ship for space on the news, at least briefly. He’d meant to drop that later, but it was capable of knocking Jase’s tragedy right out of the headlines, and that was, coldbloodedly, what he intended.
He answered four or five questions at the limits of his own mathematical ability, and took his leave of the reporters, with the (he said to himself) not unreasonable notion of the leisure to go back to his apartment and work through the translations he had to have ready before—the next duty he had on his agenda—he briefed the aiji’s aides, who had to go to the various departments to present the paidhi’s arguments before—step after that—the paidhi had to go before the off-session legislative aides to answer questions so that when, step three, the legislatures reconvened, they did it with good information before them.