The lord of Dur stood up, in the tashrid seats. “Did the paidhi not just go to the aiji’s defense?” Dur shouted out, and Bren’s heart went thump and the warmth drained from his face.
Go to the aiji’s defense. Never mind the assassin had been aiming at him.
Go to the aiji’s defense—like the mecheiti after the herd leader, fences and barriers be damned. Go to the leader—like everything native to the world. He’d outright flattened the aiji of the aishidi’tat —he’d afflicted Tabini’s dignity and simultaneously made Tabini a target in the process. But Dur’s statement produced a racket of debate in the chamber that did not die away.
And what did he then say if the assembly took that move of his for proof of that deep atevi emotion? Use as fact the misapprehension paidhiin had spent generations denying, that there was, after all, an atevi sense of man’chi operating in a human? Claim that the two species felt things exactly the same, when what he’d felt most was a desperate sense of priorities, a visceral outrage that one shot could take out the one man who could knit everything together?
The War of the Landing had started on such a convenient misconception, allowed to bubble along in the subtext.
“Nand’ Bren came to rescue me!” Cajeiri shouted out at the assembly. “And nand’ Bren saved everybody in the foreign station!
And we met new foreigners who were angry at us, and we ended up talking to them on their own ship, because nand’ Bren rescued one of them, too! His name is Prakuyo an Tep and he is very respectful of my great-grandmother!”
There was the matter, inside out and hind end foremost, but the new item in the mix created two breaths of bewildered silence, in which first Tabini-aiji and then Damiri moved near their son. Then, with a crack and a measured tap of her cane, Ilisidi rose and came forward to stand by Cajeiri, a solid front, the entire leading family of the Ragi clan.
He bowed, clearly become an extraneous particle in this line, willing quietly to cede the floor to authority and postpone any explanation while atevi sorted out their own business.
Bang! went Ilisidi’s cane, silencing every murmur, and every head in the chamber turned toward the dais, in a moment of breathless silence. Bren respectfully froze in place.
“A fool would urge us to stay out of matters in the heavens and let humans dictate such things as they understand,” Ilisidi said. “A fool would argue we could build the necessary machines with no fleeting disturbance to our social schedules, not a ripple in our occupations and our attention to the numbers of this world. But we are not fools, and we know the one is not wise and the other is not possible. No, this generation is not a generation of fools! It has sacrificed! This generation has secured its command over this world, an authority which the ship-aijiin and even the Presidenta of Mospheira acknowledge. The ship-aijiin appointed a ship-paidhi to consult with Tabini-aiji on all matters, acknowledging that nothing of value comes from this world but that the aiji in Shejidan sends it.
Were you aware of that? But the rebel attacked and tried to kill her, as he attacked the aiji himself. Are you aware that the foreigners we have met in the farthest distance of the ether have acknowledged the authority of my grandson as governing, binding, and safeguarding our world? If Murini failed to tell you such things, why, it was surely not because he would wish to conceal the aiji’s success from you. It was because he, being only a shortsighted upstart and ignorant of every needful activity of educated governance, had appointed no observers aloft. He had constituted no authority in the heavens, he wielded no authority in affairs of dire import to the world, and he not only proved utterly ignorant of the numbers of the wider world, he even failed to govern the continent or satisfy the reasonable requests of its regions and associations, sowing only discord and jealousy, and attending to not even the proper benefits of his own region! Bad numbers, false numbers, nandiin, nadiin, inevitably lead to wider error. Baji-naji, the universe does not tamely bear a fool on its back! We, on the other hand, know the numbers that do exist, numbers as wide as the distance we have traveled. More, we have numbers reported by foreigners who have voyaged still farther, into territory as yet unexamined and unaccounted—numbers contained within the records of our voyage. We have reported all these numbers to the Astronomer, whose records his devoted students rescued from fools bent on destroying themc” A mild buzz, quickly suppressed by a crack of the cane. “Ask the paidhi-aiji why they would so urgently wish to destroy these numbers.”
God. Bren’s mind went blank, utterly blank, in that second.
Then snapped back into focus. He took a step forward, found breath enough to make himself heard over the murmur.
“Truth,” he said, “is in those numbers, nadiin, nandiin, and those numbers clearly favor the government which has led atevi through these delicate points of balance. Peace is possible, through the outcome of a mission planned by Tabini-aiji and supported by this body. Knowledge brings to this world the true numbers of the universe, and baji-naji, the universe still orders itself, caring nothing for fools. You have the greatest opportunity and the greatest danger. The ship-humans, through a series of mistakes, had made these foreigners their enemies. The dowager and the heir themselves gained the respect of these foreigners, who are encouraged to know that their kinsman is in charge of an association of such wide-reaching power, and they have ignored the offense of the ship-humans, concluding the error is now corrected.
They may well visit this world to pay respect to such an authority.
One has every confidence they will be met by a strong and impressive association which will assure the integrity of its own territory. Nadiin, nandiin, you have the report of the voyage.
Images are provided within the document.”
Now let the murmur loose. Now let legislators look at one another and flip through the pages of the document, but before they could get to the back, where those pictures werec Seize the moment, Bren said to himself, and aloud: “Tano.”
A breath later the chandeliers dimmed and two of Ilisidi’s men, as smoothly as one could wish, brought a screen up on the dais, set it beside the aiji and his household, and unfolded it.
Light flared, then, and an image flashed up which drew a collective gasp: Prakuyo an Tep, gray and huge—and emaciated, as one would not realize, who did not know the kyo. Difficult to apply scale to the first images, until the picture of an improbable afternoon tea, and that huge, gray face bent close to Cajeiri’s, in every intimation of benevolent exchange.
Murmuring in the chamber became a racket. Someone stood up, shouting: “What is this creature?” And someone else shouted: “Quiet!”
“That is nand’ Prakuyo,” Cajeiri’s high voice declared, its pitch rising over the thunderous murmur. “And he is now an associate of ours!”
One was ever so glad photos of Gene and Irene and Artur were not in the file, too, Bren thought distractedly, feeling the whole business suddenly spinning out of control. A human voice could not carry over that racket. His carefully prepared presentation went to the four winds. But Cajeiri’s light voice rose above the racket.
“Prakuyo was a prisoner of the wicked station-aiji, but nand’ Bren went in and got him out. Nand’ Bren figured out how to talk to him, and so did I! Nand’ Prakuyo is very respectful of my great-grandmother. All the kyo are!”
Bang! went the cane. “There is a tradition among the kyo,” Ilisidi interjected, a calm dose of orderly information, at which Bren’s racing heart somewhat caught its beat, “of entirely decent respect for elders. More to the point, nandiin, nadiin, the kyo confess to us they are not the only foreigners in the region. This is the primary reason they were so very ill at ease when humans came trespassing in their territory. They are themselves not adept in dealing with foreigners. They do not know how to conduct reasonable relations in such situations. Neither, in fact, do the ship-humans, who have never dealt with any authority but their own. Our expertise, and that of the Mospheirans, in the manner in which we share territory, was very useful in sorting out these previously mismanaged relations, and our skills may prove even more valuable in the future.” Another murmur from the assembly, and Ilisidi’s cane banged the hollow floor like thunder. “Like it or not, nadiin, the universe contains other people of independent will and means.