“Nand’ Bren stopped them blowing up the human station with all those people on it. Now—”
“Now he has to persuade them not to blow up our space station with my son on it! One cannot think this is a great accomplishment!”
His mother could unnerve him, and make him forget everything he had to say, but right now, he was in the right, he knew he was, and the whole argument was going off into what was and was not the humans’ fault, instead of what he had come here to say.
So he said it, right in the middle of her argument. “I know why you had to send me away in the first place, honored Mother. I am sorry. I am sorry I feel man’chi toward great-grandmother, but I was on the ship while I was growing up and I cannot help that. When we got home I wanted to come back and find you. I want to find man’chi here, too. I know I have it for my father. And I think I really have it for you, too, if you would just be happy.”
“I have reason not to be happy about this, do you not think?”
“Honored Mother.” He thought he should just bow at this point, and leave, but his feet refused to move and he stood there staring back at her, hurt, as he had expected to be hurt when he had come in here, and not knowing what to say or do, except, finally, to set his feet and give her his real expression. “No. No, I do not think you have reason, honored Mother. I do not think I deserve it.”
“I have never directed my anger at you!”
“You do not approve what I say. You do not approve what I think. You do not approve my associations. And you say you are not angry at me?”
Seimiro began to cry.
“Hush!” Mother said. “You are frightening your sister.”
It was time to bow and leave. But it was not just leaving the room. It was leaving to go far, far away, into something really dangerous, and he did not deserve to be ignored. So he stood fast, angry, jaw set, while Seimiro cried, and stared at Mother staring at him.
“I am right,” he said. “I respect you, honored Mother. And I think I do have man’chi toward you. I think you have none toward me.”
“That is outrageous! I have done nothing but want you back!”
“Then why have you never taken me back? Why do you keep telling me to leave?”
Seimiro let out a yell, and Mother’s maid darted in to pick her up and quiet her. Still he just stood there, getting mad, and madder. And his mother was mad. Seimiro was mad, loudly so. He expected his mother to take Seimiro and leave the room with her. That was what she did any time Seimiro cried—his mother dropped everything and coddled Seimiro.
This time his mother stood there facing him with an expression like stone. And it was the maid who took Seimiro out of the room.
His mother gave him no expression, none, and he could all but feel mani thwacking his ear hard and saying “Face!” because he had let down control of his own, but his mother would not give him her face. That was how much his mother had won.
“You are right,” his mother said then, very controlled. Then suddenly there was expression on her face. Pain. “You are right.”
He did not want to be right. He just wanted his mother to be polite to him, and not make his leaving again difficult and hurtful. He wanted to escape. But that required bowing and then turning his back and having his mother say something to upset him further on his way to the door.
“Man’chi was broken,” his mother said quietly. “There was a point I let you die to me, son of mine. I told myself you were dead, so I could think about your father. And when you did come back, with her—I found no way to light that fire again. Nothing that could mend what had happened. I knew by then I would have another child. I turned my thoughts to that. It was not your fault.”
He felt cold, cold through. And felt his great-grandmother’s absent hand give him a little shove, a light little thwack on the ear. “Pay attention,” mani would say. “These are grown-up things, but understand that you are not the world. You will never be the world. Other people will do as they will do and you will have to determine what you will do about that. That is your business. The rest is theirs.”
“One does not believe it was your fault, either,” he said, and meant it. “I wish I could have helped.”
“I am still glad,” she said, “that you were not there that night at Taiben. We all could all have died.”
“That would not have helped anything,” he agreed, which was what mani would say about it.
“No,” Mother said, “that could not have helped anyone. Come.” She held out her hands. “Come to me.”
He did not trust the gesture. His instincts said bow, and leave, and shut the door between them, get away. She was not acting like the mother he knew.
But it might be the only chance he ever got. He came closer, and when she opened her hands, he reached. Her fingers closed on his, chill, and hard, and she looked at him—she still could look down at him; but not by much. He was growing. Every season he was growing. And he was a long way now from a baby.
“Nothing can mend what was,” she said. “I cannot get that time back. What I shall have is what I have right now. And I want you to come back safely, son of mine. You are so, so like your father. I very much want to see the man you will become.”
“Honored Mother.” It was hard to talk. He squeezed her fingers. “I shall do my very best up there.”
“You are far too big to hold again,” she said, and let go his hands. “Protect yourself, son of mine. Do that for your mother. Obey instructions. Be wise.”
“Yes,” he said. It was a dismissal. Mani had used to thwack his ear so it hurt for days, but that was because mani was taking care of him and wanted him to be safe amid the dangers of the ship. He was going away again. This time she sent him, herself, and things she had said hurt worse than a thwack on the ear. But her face had changed. She was trying her best to make peace. For the first time in memory, he believed it. “Thank you,” he said, and bowed, twice. “Thank you, honored Mother.”
She said nothing. She gave him a little nod, a courtesy. He left, and shut the door himself.
His aishid was waiting for him outside. They never asked questions about the situation between him and his mother. They just expected him to be upset and tried to ignore that situation. But this time they gave him a worried look, far from official. So he was not in control of his face.
“Things are better,” he said to them. He thought they really might be better. His mother wanted them to be and he wanted them to be, both at the same time.
That was a start, was it not? She had said he was like his father.
But now he could feel his great-grandmother staring at the back of his neck, saying, grim-faced and frowning: “Concentrate, boy. Concentrate. You have only one task now. Think on that.”
11
Supper. All the messages had long since gone. The courier Narani had sent out to meet with Toby was one of the chambermaids, who was both happy to have a few days at Najida and of course glad to carry an important message to nand’ Toby.
So that had gone by plane, hours ago—and Toby should have absorbed the message by now.
The other message, also by plane, would have gotten to Shawn. There was no way he and Shawn could discuss the problem securely. The Messengers collected data and they used it, and no aiji had ever been able to control that guild. And now the Messengers’ problem posed a serious, serious threat to the world.