"Nadi?" He was struck with anxiety at the formality.
"One asks — is there danger from Mospheira?"
"Why do you ask that?"
No immediate answer. Jago was a darkness. A near-silhouette against the hall light as she opened the door to leave.
"Jago? Why? That paper? It advised me only of how to contact my office. Of persons not to trust."
He had only her profile now. Which became full face, a second glance back.
"Is Hanks-paidhi a danger?" Jago asked.
"Always a danger," he said, but added, in fear for Hanks' life: "but not the sort that would require your action, Jago-ji. The abstract sort of danger. Political rivalry."
"That, too," Jago said, "I can remedy, nand' paidhi."
"No." She frightened him. He'd thought Jago had lost her ability to do that. But coupled with Banichi's absence, the suddenly skewed relationship, and the atevi difficulty in interpreting human wishes —"No, Jago."
Silence. But Jago didn't move from the doorway.
Then: "You look very tired lately, Bren-ji. Very tired. When you read the letter from Barb-daja, your face showed extreme distress."
He thought of denying it. But it was, from Jago, a probing after honesty. A not-quite professional inquiry.
"We have a proverb," he said. "Burning your bridges behind you. I've done some of that — on Mospheira."
"Cutting one's own rope."
Count on it — mayhem and disaster translated amazingly well.
"Did this woman know you'd do what you've done?"
"Who? Hanks?" Rhetorical question.
"Barb-daja."
Blindsided. Jago'd been upset about Barb, he told himself, now, because Jago didn't understand human relationships, human reactions — didn't above all else understand how a loyalty could fracture. Hers couldn't. Hers came inbuilt. Hardwired. Or almost so.
"Barb's still —" There wasn't a word. "Still an associate of mine. The man she's marrying is an associate. They're good people."
Jago remained unconvinced. He saw it in the stiffness of her back. The lack of body language. And he decided it was good that Barb was on the island, and not here.
She looked back at him, a shadow next to the door. He thought — again — Why not? He was half moved to say so.
But common sense ruled the other half. "Jago. I regard you very highly. Don't be angry at me."
"One isn't angry, Bren-paidhi. Good night."
"Jago. Still — maybe."
A second hesitation, this one with a glance back that caught the night-light, and Jago's eyes reflected gold, one of those little differences that sometimes raised the hairs on a human neck. That and the momentary silence — so much more effective than Barb's. "One hears, Bren-ji."
She was out the door, then, and the door shut.
Damn, he thought. Damn, not knowing what he'd done, or whether he'd upset Jago, or, God, what Banichi might already know — or what a foolish human might have missed, or lost — the brain was sending contrary signals, yes and no, and caution, and the shoulder hurt, dammit, he'd be sorry if he had — as he was sorry he hadn't.
He rolled over on his face and tucked the freed arm up close, in possession of both arms at least.
Say that for the situation.
CHAPTER 15
Tabini had ordered his private plane, for security's sake, and Tano and Algini were the escort, easier, Jago had said, than seeing to his security in the Bu-javid.
That, he found an odd thing to have to say —
But he was more trying to pick up signals from Jago, whether she was upset or angry, and Jago was all business, seeming perfectly fine.
He worried. Which he couldn't afford. He was still worrying as the plane made its takeoff run. Which he doubly couldn't afford, thinking about Banichi, and trying to puzzle out the situation between the two of them, which he still hadn't done — no more than humans in general understood atevi relationships. The machimi, source of hints about politics and loyalties, steered clear of romantic motivations. Or loyalties lacked such motivations. There was a reticence in the machimi, in the other literature, a silence from tasteful and reputable atevi, except that Tabini maintained a liaison with Damiri years before Damiri acknowledged it in public, and marriage as such seemed to wait years and sometimes after the birth of children. Or never happened. He could think of instances. But you didn'task about something atevi looked past and didn't routinely acknowledge as going on — and his talks with Tabini had been more on the moods of established lovers, not on the proprieties of who could be slipping into one's room at night.
He almost was prompted to ask Tano, who would, he thought, talk; but stopped himself short when he realized it wouldn't take Tano two seconds to conclude he wasn't asking an academic question, that it wasn't Deana Hanks, and that the field of serious choice was relatively narrow, not mentioning the household servants who were acceptable liaisons ifone was willing to take them into one's permanent household, which he wasn't, didn't have, and couldn't — Tano and, he suspected, Algini weren't slow to perceive things. But he didn't want to put Tano or Algini in a situation.
And he wasn't sure Banichi was the politic person to ask. He decided — decided, as the plane leveled out at altitude — that the sane person to ask might be Tabini.
But that could get Jago in trouble, if things weren't on the up and up.
Which left Jago herself, who wouldn't lie to him in a thing like that. It might be an opening, at least, for a reasonable discussion.
It was certainly against Departmental regulations. It was certainly foolish. It was compromising of the paidhi's impartiality. It was —
— just damned stupid. The paidhi was supposed to be free of biases, influences and emotional decisions. And if Deana Hanks got wind of what had happened last night —
So what hadhappened last night, beyond the fact the paidhi and a good atevi friend —
Friend. Which Jago wasn't. Was a lot of atevi things, but she wasn't a friend. If he got into a relationship with her — he wasn't going to be in human territory at all, with all it meant. A damned emotional minefield that was a lot safer if he wasn't attached to the ateva in question in ways that created an interface he couldn't decipher.
Damn the timing. Damnthe timing.
Jago at least would give him time. Which she'd agreed to do.
Which didn't give him peace of mind when the paidhi needed it, and dammit, he'd thought he had her on the choice he'd offered: now, with no complications; or later, and then — God help him, he'd ended up saying, Maybe.
The paidhi — whose whole damn careerwas knowing when to keep his mouth shut. And he was upset about Barb. But he was more upset about Jago — he had more regard for Jago, though not in that way.
Which might change the second his feet hit Mospheiran soil — a change he'd begun to find happening to him insidiously for years and critically in the last few weeks, this compartmentalization of his life, his feelings, his thinking. God knew what kind of advice he was qualified to give anyone, and what change it would work in him once the capsule chute spread and he had a regular human presence — Hanks didn't count, he said to himself — to deal with on the mainland.
He didn't think it was going to make a difference. And the moment he said that to himself he knew the situation with Graham wasn't predictable. And he didn't know. From moment to moment any change threatened him, and changes were about to become monumental.