Braddock, on the other side, wouldn’t want his constituency divided and removed to earthly cities, either.
Those two were likely allies for completely opposite reasons.
Granted his own thinking wasn’t purely, abstractly altruistic, either. A planet changed things. Changed people. Changed politics. Not always for the good. But changed them. But five thousand people? Mospheira could swallow that with barely a blip in the polls. No question.
Communication, first and foremost. He and Jase had to have a long talk once he got up there—something they’d started that last night, and he wished they’d had the time and privacy to do earlier, without the kids who had a way of turning up unexpectedly.
Definitely, when he got up there, he would find that time. And not just with Jase. He needed to build trust—with Sabin, among others. With Ogun—if he could.
He needed to find out how serious the division among the Captains was. Ogun’s new appointment to a captaincy—Riggins—would be a fourth, inauspicious and paralyzing fourth, vote in the divided Captain’s Council. Atevi would never have set up a system that could go to stalemate in a crisis. Humans did it regularly to achieve balance.
Balance wasn’t quite working up there, was it? And in his preference, and by Jase’s recommendation, Tillington did not get to break the stalemate.
Did he believe in Jase’s motives?
Absolutely. Trust him?
With his life.
It didn’t mean, however, that the paidhi-aiji was through gathering information, either—just in case there was more to be learned. He had a side in this, too, and it wasn’t, at the moment, Mospheiran.
He sent an encrypted message up to Geigi.
Bren, paidhi-aiji, Lord of Najida
To Geigi, Station-aiji, Lord of Kajiminda.
One urges you ask Jase-aiji to your table, if you have not yet done so. He will bring you the seasonal reports from Kajiminda among other matters.
One regrets that I was not able to visit your estate during my recent visit to Najida, but the estate reports are encouraging of a good harvest this fall, and I have made it urgently his concern to convey those to you.
He will also, if he has not designated it to go to you already, send you baggage which the young gentleman’s guests cannot contain within their quarters. As a favor deserving the young gentleman’s gratitude, please store those things against a future visit.
I have included siai tea in the shipment which is for your use only. Please use it in good health.
The tea was a code word, which between them meant: read between the lines and act.
Geigi quietly detested that tea.
Please care for your health, and please enjoy your visit with Jase.
Could he say it any plainer?
Likewise assure him that I accept his very good advice.
I shall be coming up to the station on business soon, and look forward to the pleasure of your society.
As regards Jase-aiji, please tell him—
Now came a deliberate security test. The news could break now—or later—and if it leaked immediately, at any level—they would find that out through Jase, if no other way.
I shall be escorting elements of a regional Assassins’ Guild office to be set up within the atevi section, to operate under your authority. Its central function will be liaison and information-gathering for the Guild.
It is my task to interpret this new presence to the humans on the station, who may have questions about the nature of the office, and who, while they will not deal with that office directly under any ordinary circumstances, will need to understand and accept its function. It will be useful to have another atevi presence in direct communication with Shejidan, and the Guild will benefit from their skilled observation of situations. One hopes they may resort to you for guidance and assistance.
This should be a benign and beneficial presence, reflecting beneficial changes in Guild organization in the aishidi’tat. Its man’chi is now strongly toward Tabini-aiji.
I shall escort them to the station and explain to the ship-aijiin. Jase-aiji will be a useful contact preceding this process. And as always, I rely on your good will and your wisdom.
One understands there is some stress regarding the human situation. Please be aware, but let me deal with Tillington-aiji on my arrival.
Which was to say, talk to Jase, fast. We’ve got the Guild asking questions, launching a fact-finding mission, and there are things you desperately need to know before they get there.
Leave Tillington to me.
· · ·
Very good to talk to you, the message came back from Shawn early that afternoon, not a response to his couriered letter, which had left on the plane that delivered Shawn’s letter, but Shawn’s own state of the state message, in a letter crossing his.
And then the part that mattered.
The visit of the Reunioner children to the mainland has stirred controversy here. It was generally assumed that they—and a significant number of Reunioners in general—would not be able to live on Earth even a few days without difficulties. The extension of their visit and reports of their inclusion in official events have raised questions.
Stationmaster Tillington reports that the children were given a drug to enable this, and unfortunately this report has become public this week, elaborated into unrealistic reports that this new drug enables the Reunioners to land en masse. This frightens some people.
Good God. How do they land, in the shuttles we have?
Five thousand ordinary citizens, including old people and kids, a threat to a planet?
The petal sails all over again?
I am assuming your letter crossing this one may involve the Reunioner issue, and whether or not this is the case, an exchange of information will be useful.
Sanity. He drew an easier breath.
Tillington has reported that the Reunioners themselves have followed this visit with some speculation that the children will be taken from their parents and that all children will be taken away before the Maudit expedition.
God.
Tillington reports he has made statements strongly denying this, and he urges the legislature make a decision in favor of the Maudit venture, as the integration of Reunioners into the station population poses significant security risks. We have received Tillington’s very detailed proposal to send a small exploratory team to Maudit, to establish an orbiting station—for which Lord Geigi may be solicited for materials support. The proposal, in effect, establishes the Reunion colony at a remote distance.
I am not fully in support of this idea, and it is meeting opposition, again on grounds of security.
The pro argument is that the need for supplies to move to such a new orbiting station by Mospheiran supply ships will foster a necessary cooperation between the populations.
The counter-argument is that atevi will likely demand the treaty be extended to mandate equal atevi presence on that station and this is argued to lead to a separate arrangement between Reunioners and atevi if Mospheira does not send more personnel to balance them, and this would make an impractically large station at Maudit, far larger than the one now orbiting Earth. If atevi would count both stations together for the purpose of parity that might be workable. But even so, it poses difficulties.