The door opened. The servants received them. Junior security, having used the same lift on its return trip, overtook them before the doors shut and rearmed. He wasn’t acutely aware of his surroundings.
That Banichi told him what he did was indicative at least that he was being told truth on a high level. Atevi no longer kept the paidhi, who was acting in their interests, more ignorant than other humans, who were working against those interests.
That was useful. It was one step deeper into the situation he was already in.
It didn’t, however, stop Deana Hanks, whose agenda he didn’t believe he entirely guessed—and he couldn’t act upon his suspicions until he could hear exactly what she was saying and what she hoped to provoke.
And there’d been no atevi offer yet to provide him that information.
Damn, again.
11
The matter we were discussing,” Bren said to Banichi as they entered the apartment, as servants converged and he began to undo the buttons of his coat. “Can you prepare me a more extensive report on the problem, Banichi-ji? Andreport to the aiji regarding the reason for my question, regarding the interview? I want the text of what she’s been saying.”
“Yes,” Banichi said in that abrupt Ragi style, which was an enthusiastic yes, and went immediately to the security station, where, Bren said to himself, there was about to be a very intense, very serious session that might well extend feelers next door, and might end in a reporter finding himself in serious dialogue with the aiji’s security. Reporters on Mospheira questioned government agencies with a great deal of freedom and were lied to routinely. But on the atevi mainland, the concept of instant news was under current consideration by the government, the way the inclusion or non-inclusion of a highway system had gone under consideration by the government—and been rejected as socially destructive. Similar airy assumptions that what had worked for humans was good and right for atevi had started the War and killed tens of thousands of people.
In that consideration Bren didn’t like what had happened down in that interview. He saw interests at work that didn’t lead in productive directions for atevi—atevi interests that wanted Tabini dead and someone else installed as aiji.
But the implications of a person like Deana Hanks, a person trained to deal with atevi, working by radio purposely to destabilize the atevi government—that was against every law, every principle of the office. He was on shaky moral ground with the State Department because of the decisions he’d taken, but dammit, he was trying to keepthe stability of Tabini’s regime. His way was sanctioned by the people that had sent him here; and sent him backhere by means so desperate Shawn had secreted the new computer codes under the cast on his arm and hadn’t even told himhe was doing it.
He wanted a Mospheiran newspaper, dammit.
He wanted to know what was happening on the island in details on which the government couldn’tlie.
But in an atmosphere where people were afraid for their lives, as some clearly were on Mospheira, including his mother and his brother and his former fiancee, he wasn’t sure of getting the truth even if he got such a newspaper, or the unrestricted datafeed. So much for Mospheira’s supposedly free press.
The situation scared him, deep down scared him—for his family, for atevi, for everyone on the planet.
And he himself had argued with Tabini-aiji notto detain Deana Hanks on the mainland: to ship her home, safe and sound, mad, and dangerous. If things had gone that wrong, he had fault to bear. He could muster excuses when atevi politics were at fault. In this one, he could by no means blame the atevi government.
He smiled for the benefit of the servants who put away his coat, and he accepted their polite questions soberly: he didn’t lie to his staff, who had to handle touchy situations, and who had to fend away importunate and unauthorized persons of sometimes ill intent. “There was a difficulty at the interview, nadi,” he replied to the question of how it had gone. “A subject which should not have been brought up: nand’ Jase. We know the staff here didn’t release the information, but it is out.”
“One will inform nand’ Saidin, paidhi-ji. One is distressed to hear so.”
“Thank you, Sasi-ji.—How ishe doing?”
“He’s speaking to his mother now, nand’ paidhi.”
“ Thankyou, Sasi-ji.” He went aside immediately to the security station, into the usually open doorway and straight into the monitoring station which lay just inside.
Tano was there with an ear-set, as were Banichi, Jago, and a junior security operator, all listening.
Tano didn’t say a thing, just surrendered his earpiece to him, and Bren tucked the device in his ear.
“—don’t know what else I can do,” he heard, Jase’s voice, speaking the language of the ship, and a long pause followed, where a reply should be.
“ I know,” a woman’s voice said finally, sad-sounding. “ I have no way to help you. I can’t. And you can’t. Except to get back as soon as you can.”
“They say it’s making progress. That’s all I can say.”
“ Can you call again?”
“I just don’t know. I’ll try. I will try.”
“ I love you.”
A long pause, while that human expression hung thin and potent in the air. Then: “I love you, too, mama. I’m fine. Don’t worryabout me.”
Another pause. “ I’d better shut down now.”
“Yeah.—It’s good to hear your voice.”
“ Good to hear yours, Jase. Take care. Please take care.”
“I will, mama.”
There was silence, then. Bren looked at the occupants of the room, tall, black, a collection of alien faces one of whom was a woman he’d almost gone to bed with, all looking to him for reaction.
Some of whom understood enough of what had been said and some of whom trusted him enough to have expression on their faces.
Banichi did. And Jago.
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary in the exchange,” he said. “A son talking to his mother in—” There was no word for affection. There was just no concept. There was no possibility in the faces that stared at him with such good will and acceptance—and worry. “In terms ordinary for that relationship. Jase is concerned for his mother. He fears she is concerned about his mental well-being. She asked whether he could call again. He replied that he wasn’t certain, but he’d try.—He willhave access, will he not, nadiin-ji?”
“There’s no reason to the contrary,” Banichi said.
“The death of his father is attributed to accident,” Jago said. “We do not follow the precise cause.”
It was an offering of good faith in itself, that the most security-conscious atevi he knew let him know how much they understood. The faces came back into ordinary perspective for him. His heart was beating hard in sheer terror and he thought it was because he’d beensomewhere else for a moment, he’d been in human territory, and seeing two people he loved very much—
—not through a distortion, but as the atevi they were, incapable of returning that emotion. Seeing them as incapable of saying, as Jase’s mother said, I loveyou.