We have met two others. If we had not put our noses out there, the kyo still would have found us, sooner or later, and what then would they have found? Persons adept and capable in the wider universe, or not? Would they, in their inept management of foreign matters, have fallen on us with weapons instead of the humans’ petal sails?
We have suffered one ill-planned incursion and dealt with it in long experience. We have become much wiser, since. Let us deal with the next encounter at the safe distance of our station, where we and our human residents can establish our authority, take sensible charge of negotiations, and keep human fools and atevi fools—and we each have them in numbers!—from dealing with these new foreigners, who doubtless have fools of their own. They will not land, as humans did. We have that assurance. The kyo will not seek residence even on our station. They may indeed visit us to express their sentiments of respect, and it is imperative that they and territories beyond them be met with the unshakeable and reasonable authority they expect, or they will call us liars. Their arrival may come within the year, or not for several years. But come it will!”
“Indeed,” Tabini said, himself somewhat taken aback by the vehement direction of Ilisidi’s address, a tone that had utterly shocked the chamber to silence. On the screen, where images had stopped cycling, was the image of Prakuyo and two of his kind, two very well-fed kyo in their robes, entities who could not possibly be mistaken for atevi or human.
“We have said,” Ilisidi declared. “So has our great-grandson.”
Thus stifling any more commentary from Cajeiri, who, with Ilisidi’s hand on his shoulder, was obliged to keep silent.
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said after a breath, completely off his balance, “I have by no means finished the detail of my report, but the dowager seems to have covered the essence of it very well.”
“The paidhi may usefully confirm it,” Tabini said. “Take the floor, nand’ paidhi.”
Bren bowed—shaken, and with a flood of other, more dangerous knowledge racing through his brain, knowledge that Ilisidi had only brushed by, in that remark about fools in abundance. He had no wish to complicate Ilisidi’s good effect by telling the assembly that there was trouble out in deep space, but he had no wish to compromise the future by letting the assembly assume a peace that was not true, either.
“Nadiin, nandiin,” he said, standing on the speaker’s spot, and bowing. “It is a wide and complex universe, the numbers of which we have begun to know with far greater accuracy. It was a wise decision that sent the aiji’s son out to see and understand these things—it was a very wise decision, because the aiji’s heir now is favorably regarded by these individuals. We have made a fair beginning of dealing. There is word of other foreigners, unknown to us—” A small murmur that quickly faded as he continued, “—but there will always be foreigners. The universe is very large. The more we know, as a world, the more authority we have.”
Ruling the solar system posed a decided problem to a governing body at this very hour struggling to rule its south coast, a governing body with only earth-to-orbit transport at its disposal, and with part of its citizenry still debating the wisdom of being in space at all. He knew what he was dealing with. He saw the shocked looks, heard the stubborn murmur of discontent that wished to take all the unhappy surprises the universe had handed them and lay them at the paidhi’s door.
“The only conveniently habitable world in the solar system is yours,” he said. “Human authority in the neighborhood will leap up to speak for itself if you do not claim your own sovereignty over any further visitation, and one humbly urges the aishidi’tat to assert overriding authority in the very near future and see the shuttles flying again. One has no doubt that Mospheirans and ship-humans alike will respect an atevi assertation of rule, since each has found atevi authority reasonable and sure in their representations. When other foreigners pass through the heavens, as they will, as the aiji-dowager has so clearly put it, meet a sensible, strong authority on the atevi station; they will deal with the aishidi’tat up above, and not intrude onto this world.” For one dizzy moment a weary brain simply whited out, all order gone from his thoughts as he lost his place. The dowager had taken over his speech and done it very well, covering the point that should come next. He could only complicate matters by going on. He needed simply to end it and sit down before he undid everything. “Wherein the paidhi’s haste to bring atevi into space has caused distress to districts and individuals, the paidhi accepts all blame. The aiji will be your source of justice. As for my report, you have it in your hands.”
It seemed enough to say, if lame. He bowed, backed off the speaker’s circle, and for a moment was so disoriented in the dark and glare of the projector and the screen he had doubts where his chair was. He blinked, found a hazy navigation point, and backed a few steps toward it, casting a human shadow on the image of the heir and Prakuyo an Tep at tea.
Tabini took the speaker’s circle.
“This assembly will stand adjourned until the morning,” Tabini said. “We will all read the paidhi’s report.”
Thus preserving the aiji’s impartiality and a deniable distance: so Jago had said. Bren located his chair, but only in time to stand in front of it as others rose. The assembly in the shadows rose, bowed, and the murmur this time was subdued and dim in his ears.
He had not done at all what he hoped. From the attempted assassination to the dowager’s taking over the core of the information, things had not followed the script, and he had lost all his threads, absolutely lost them. But maybe it had gone well enough, except his ill-conceived dive at Tabini.
The dowager went for a few words with her grandson. Cajeiri went to talk with his mother. The chamber lights went up. Bren hesitated, then decided to collect his security about him and get back to the dowager’s apartment as quietly and quickly as he could.
“Paidhi.” Tabini spotted him, and crossed the small distance in a couple of strides, to which he could only bow and try to explain his actions.
“Aiji-ma.”
Tabini seized his arm in an atevi-strength grip. “We will remember,” Tabini said, which was what one said in accepting a personal debt; and then it dawned on him Tabini meant his presumptuous dive for the floor, that atevi instinct could only construe as great devotion, the most charitable construction Tabini could put on matters—knowing the paidhi had been the target. But it was still a human reason: Tabini of all people should know that; and he couldn’t have Tabini starting to think otherwise, not even in the most secret and illogical depth of his heart.
“Aiji-ma,” was all he dared say, and bowed desperately, and found himself let go and excused. He wanted only to get back to the dowager’s apartment where he could sit and reassemble the pieces of the last hour. He was losing the coherent memory of what he had said to the assembly. He hadn’t yet examined his sense of atevi logic to figure how the blowup within Tabini’s guard could be construed by the aiji’s enemies. He only knew it was going to create controversy, particularly as the paidhi’s guard had taken over, along with the dowager’s.