Now they had to find associations compatible with their interests.
And, a complication in those dealings—there remained the issues raised by the railroad to the south, God help them, which paid off Machigi of the Taisigin Marid, which was how they had connected the Marid to the East and gotten the young southern warlord Machigi and the staunchly conservative Lord Tatiseigi and the very liberal Lord of Dur all to back passage of the tribal peoples bill.
Tatiseigi could shamelessly raise regional and conservative interests as a negotiating position, but the man was better than that, cleverer than that—more of a statesman than that.
He wrote, to Tatiseigi: I have very lately reached certain understandings with Lord Topari in the railroad issue, understandings about which he seems very enthusiastic, and I believe we can get the building of this line underway, except for one serious difficulty. I am unexpectedly called out of the capital. If you would take the matter under your management—
No, that wouldn’t do. There was no way to explain the kyo situation adequately on paper—and he dared not scant formalities with the old man, who was a stickler for proper form. He had to steer Tatiseigi, among other things, toward a social contact with the younger lord of Dur.
Young Reijiri, the rebel pilot whose yellow plane had once thrown the skies above Shejidan into chaos—had never been a close associate of the Conservatives, even in his more mature years. That partnership needed careful introduction, on a matter of common interest.
He wadded up that paper and took another.
It joined the first.
He pulled down another sheet and simply wrote: Nandi, I must speak to you at the earliest on a matter of great importance. May one call on you this afternoon?
It was going to take time. Everything with Lord Tatiseigi took an extraordinary amount of time, and usually a face to face meeting.
There might be arrivals in the heavens at any moment the kyo decided to apply some speed.
But on Earth, proper form was absolutely mandatory.
· · ·
Antaro and Jegari slipped quietly into Cajeiri’s sitting room, and Cajeiri looked up from his lessons. He was waiting for an answer from nand’ Bren. But it was nothing of the kind.
“Your father wishes to see you, Jeri-ji,” Antaro said—they were formal in private only when something was absolutely dire, so it was likely nothing much, probably something about some important old person coming to dinner. He could not recall anything he had really done wrong in the last several days. So it was probably that.
He knew his father and mother had been in conference for a long time. And it could be about him. He gave a sigh and got up. “Where are Veijico and Lucasi?”
“Waiting at your father’s office,” Jegari said.
Well, that was not unusual either. He went out and down the hall, where Veijico and Lucasi waited; and he did not get the warning signal that meant your mother is present.
So he let his unified aishid take up their largely decorative positions at his father’s door—they did not habitually go into the office with him—and walked in, far from sure what the problem was.
His father was alone, sitting at his writing desk. His father finished a sentence, laid the pen in its holder, capped the inkwell, and turned his chair toward him, a degree of attention he did not always get.
“Honored Father,” Cajeiri said, with a little bow.
“Son of mine. Sit down.”
Sitting was unusual, too. It was apparently not about a dinner or anything ordinary. That was not necessarily good. He pulled one of the chairs closer, and sat down.
“Bren-paidhi,” Father said, “has had a message from Jase-aiji today. There is a strange ship in the heavens. They think it is a kyo ship.”
He forgot to breathe for a second. Things unrolled fast and far. He very vividly remembered Prakuyo an Tep, massive, wrinkled, gray, in a white room, sitting across a bare white table enjoying teacakes.
He remembered the inside of the kyo ship, dim, dark, with draperies and screens, so one could not tell how the room or even the corridors were shaped.
He remembered great-grandmother, and nand’ Bren, and their bodyguards and the kyo in that place, and the voices, that rumbled like distant thunder.
The smell of the place had been different than anywhere else: it was age, and damp, and smoke and spices and something else.
“You are requested to go up to the space station with nand’ Bren and your great-grandmother,” his father said, “to deal with this visit.”
He was requested. He was just barely fortunate nine years old.
But he understood instantly why he was one of the ones to go. Nand’ Bren and mani herself had warned him someday the kyo might come and he might have to deal with them, and he had taken it seriously, as something to be proud of.
He had talked with Prakuyo an Tep. He had helped nand’ Bren learn to talk to him in the first place.
And he had taken it as a very serious responsibility to keep all his own notes on the kyo and to remember what he had learned. He had even taught his aishid. They used kyo words when they wanted to say something truly secret.
Prakuyo an Tep had promised them they would come visit.
So now he had.
It was definitely scary. The kyo themselves were scary. But they—he and mani and nand’ Bren—had shared water and fruit with more than one of them.
Nand’ Bren and Prakuyo an Tep had worked hard to make a dictionary in the few days they had stayed after that. Nand’ Bren had not only let him see the dictionary, he had given him a copy of his own, and he had added words he knew, and copied into his own study notebook all the words that were new to him.
Words—a few of which he knew were bigger ideas than just one word in Ragi. The kyo language was like that.
“Are you afraid?” his father asked him.
“No,” he said, which was at least halfway true. He decided the whole truth was due. “One is a little afraid, honored Father. But still may I go? Nand’ Bren needs me.”
His father looked a little taken aback, then seemed to approve. “Yes,” his father said. “You will be going.”
“Are we taking the ship?” He thought they might go out among the planets to meet the kyo. He saw, in his head, the ship tunnels, where he had met Gene and the rest.
And he remembered the upstairs of the ship, the middle levels, and, very vividly, Prakuyo an Tep.
He remembered Jase-aiji and Sabin-aiji and a dinner party.
And where he and mani had lived, and the wonderful corridor where he and Banichi had made toy cars race. That was the best place. That area of the ship had been home. Mani’s apartment, modern, but very much mani’s; and nand’ Bren’s apartment, with all the curtain of plants that he had had. The plants had grown enormously, whenever the ship had traveled through space. That condition favored them, nand’ Bren had said, even if one felt strange and disconnected and not really quite well—
All of that came back to him, more real than where he was at the moment, the way it sometimes did in dreams.
Gene’s face, and Irene’s, and Artur’s, and Bjorn’s, too—in the dark and cold of the tunnels. Those would forever be a safe, secret place for him.
“To my knowledge,” his father said, “you are going only as far as the station and these visitors will come there. Mind, you are not up there to spend time in another visit with your young associates. One hardly knows whether you will get to see them. Nor are you to ask nand’ Bren to seek them out. Do you understand, son of mine? All this is too important for personal concerns. There may be political problems. Understand that.”