“I’ll miss you.”
“We also regret this,” Banichi said.
A silence fell. And grew deeper and more desperate.
“I’ve got to get back” Bren said. ”I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’ll come late tonight, if I can. Maybe spend a little more time.“ The launch was in the early hours. “As much as I can.”
“I’d be glad if you could.”
So there was nothing to do but finish the tea, get up from the chairs, and face one another. Bren offered an embrace. It was the Mospheiran thing to do. Jason met it awkwardly, hugged him fiercely; ship-folk were isolate, not prone to touch one another. Bren gathered a grip on the worn jacket and clapped Jase on the shoulder, feeling a burning tightness in his throat.
“Take care,” Jason said. “Take care, Bren.”
“I’ll do my best.” Bren let him go, turned in the futile attempt to find something to do with his hands, and walked away.
Banichi and Jago went with him, saying not a word as they followed him out of the residency and down the outside, gray hall.
He’d known for three years that, once the shuttle truly flew, he’d be alone again. He’d planned to be alone in his life.
And what was this… alone?He had Banichi and Jago, whom he loved… a human could say love, and they could be devoted in atevi fashion.
He had Tabini-arji’s high regard, he lived in splendid quarters, held an extravagant seaside estate where his mother and his brother and his brother’s family arrived for family visits… visits no other paidhi had ever been granted—
Not to mention the hundreds of staff and servants and acquaintances… and the relationship, of sorts, he had with Jago, for good or for ill. He was not, whatever else, alone.
Yet losing Jason left him feeling used up, bruised to the soul.
In that light he knew he ought to open his mouth and talk, talk about something, anything, in the absence of a word from his companions. It wasn’t their job to guess that the human in their midst wanted— needed—to be talked to. He was the translator, the cultural interpreter. He should initiate a word, something to give them a cue how to deal with him in this situation they’d never met.
But he didn’t find one.
They escorted him in silence down to the security zone, into that area of grim gray concrete where the van had let them out. The next link would not be by van, but by rail, up to the Bu-javid, the palace on the hill, the center of Shejidan. He walked with them past the spot where the van no longer stood, in the echoing hollow of the place. They entered through a black security door, and saw, not unexpectedly, their associates Algini and Tano, holding place near the rail-access to this closely guarded facility.
“Paidhi-ji,” Algini said, seeing him, and that was the first word he’d heard since he’d left Jason above.
“A good trip?” Tano asked him, as if that should be some consolation for what he was sure Tano knew.
“Very fine,” he said politely. Tano was a good man, a very good man. In the paraphrase of Lund’s question, Tano cared.
But this wasn’t fine, his trip hadn’t been fine, Jase wasn’t fine… and on the island his family wasn’t fine. He hadn’t thought that, in this suddenly harried trip, but it hadn’t been fine at all. His mother had wanted him to stay. Toby’s youngsters were going through growing pains and grandmotherly spoiling, and were wretched company, grating on his nerves for the single day he’d been with them… he wasn’t used to human children.
Where had he lost that sense of connection?
And what had he traded it for?
What was he losing, back there with Jase? The one human being on whom he’d focused all his remnant of humanity, in a desperate attempt to put together official policy for the aiji, trying to understand the ship-humans’ mind-set?
He boarded the train, rode in absentminded silence, recalling a dozen and one trips over the years, the first launch… spiraling back in time, the first trip to Malguri, the return… going out to Taiben, once and twice, all jumbled together, Jase and before-Jase. Down to Geigi’s estate, for one reason and another… those were the good times. Fishing.
What in hellwas Tabini thinking?
“Do you know anything about this?” he asked his bodyguard, when they were alone, rocking along the rails.
Tabini’s rail car—he’d used it more often than Tabini had, this specially secured compartment, armored against all eventualities.
“No, nadi-ji,” Banichi said. “We, like you, wonder.”
He leaned back on the comfortable velvet bench seat, red velvet, red carpet, a fresh bouquet in the vase on the counter, blooms of the season, the first in the lowlands. They shed a thick, sweet perfume.
A wake might have been more cheerful.
“I need to meet with the aiji,” Bren said quietly.
“One will forward that request,” Jago said.
“The dowager is in residence,” Banichi added.
A new alarm began to go off, deep in his gut.
“Did she come to see Jason?” Bren asked. “What in hell’s going on?”
“She invited him to tea” Jago said, “and they discussed the weather.”
Well, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable; she did come to Shejidan for visits. It was probably coincidence; she’d arrived, and heard he was leaving.
“He’ll have no weather where he’s going,” Bren said, trying to settle himself to the possibility. “He’ll have to get as used to being without it as he did being with it.”
“He will,” Jago agreed.
“So it was one of those conversations?” The aiji-dowager, whom he’d thought safely and remotely at Malguri, was staunchly, provocatively conservative, a promoter of causes, a keen wit.
A good heart.
And a talk on the weather with Ilisidi, Tabini’s grandmother. Lords of the Western Association would give a great deal for a social conversation with her.
But did she do anything… anything… by chance?
“Did she know he was leaving?” he asked his security. It was a three-hour flight from Malguri, for an arthritic woman who didn’t like long sitting. He was prepared to be touched by that effort, if she’d heard and made the trip only for Jason.
“One has no idea,” Jago said, “nandi.”
My lord?Nandi? So formal? What signal was that?
Jason had said not a word about his visit with the dowager. But she was, though silently, a head of a potentially restive association, within the information flow. Tabini would have sent the dowager word of a favored associate’s departure… or else. If Ilisidicouldn’t press Tabini to resist this sudden request from the station, his own chances dimmed.
Jase hadn’t mentioned the meeting… but what could he say? He and Jason hadn’t talked much about the court, had talked instead about the first things they’d done, the things out in the countryside, then sounding each other out a last time, getting their positions on issues fine-tuned, for those who might ask.
It was their job to do that.
But that Ilisidi came to bid Jason farewell meant far, far more than a social discussion… nothing Ilisidi did could go without notice. By meeting with Jason alone, she had declared not only her past association with Jason-paidhi, but a current, live, and potent one.
She had just announced that, in a meeting sure to make the news.
She’d just announced it to her grandson, the aiji. She had an interest in Jason, in his people, in the space program and in the business the ship-humans had with atevi… she, the ecological conservative, the arbiter of taste and society.