Nand’ Bren’s aishid had relayed the question, too, how many seats he needed for his party, and he had thought hard and fast, then answered definitely that he was coming only with his aishid.
He very much wished he could take Eisi and Liedi. They should learn about space. And if he had them he could possibly be more on his own, and not depending on mani’s staff—but he also knew—he had heard from his associates—how very crowded people were, and how scarce things were, and he thought maybe an emergency was not the time to try to be independent of mani. His aishid knew nothing at all about living up there. And he did know.
But the station was different than the ship—so he had things to learn, too: he was sure of it.
He wished most of all that he could tell his associates he was coming—and most of all tell them that everything would be all right despite the kyo coming—
But they would not even know about the kyo yet.
And he could not promise them anything about grown-ups and politics. That, he could not control.
So he reviewed his little dictionary and remembered words.
And he so hoped Lord Geigi would have taken his associates into his section and protected them. Grown-ups sometimes forgot things like that when emergencies happened.
He had to trust that, this time, grown-ups were paying full attention.
12
“We trust all is well here,” was the dowager’s opening statement during breakfast service, on the windy balcony.
And, toward the end of table-talk, one single question that verged on business: “Have you taken Lord Tatiseigi into full confidence, nandi?”
Bren swallowed a bite of spicy toast. “We have talked, aiji-ma, but little about the nature of the emergency.”
“He will join us after breakfast,” Ilisidi said. She laid down her napkin, a signal that they could come in from the cold.
In fact, there was a to-do at the outer door just as the two of them were taking chairs in the warm sitting room, and in short order Lord Tatiseigi did enter the room, which entailed rising and bowing—not on the dowager’s part—and a new pot of tea.
It came down—past polite inquiries after business in the East, and the dowager’s inquiries on the legislation—to dismissing the servants for more serious talk. Cenedi and Nawari, the dowager’s two senior bodyguards, held the door. Banichi and Jago were with them, and now Tatiseigi’s guard, Easterners from Ilisidi’s own Malguri, were in the hall to conduct their own briefing on affairs in the north.
Lord Tatiseigi had to take over the legislative effort in their absence, and also had to stand ready to deal with any situation that spilled over from orbit, or any detail Tabini-aiji needed attended in the meanwhile.
But regarding the kyo themselves, Tatiseigi was informed with only the broadest details.
“Have these strangers spoken yet?” was Tatiseigi’s first question.
“Nand’ paidhi?” Ilisidi deferred the question to Bren.
“No, nandi,” Bren said, “they have not as yet, and we are not absolutely certain they know we have seen them. One thing we do know, nand’ Tatiseigi: we have experience of meeting strangers, and these visitors do not. In understanding strangers at close range—the kyo have only their brief experience of us. So what they will do and why they will do it we cannot predict.”
“Are these the people you dealt with?”
“We are not entirely certain. Another set of foreigners seems to live on the other side of their territory, remote from them, and seem currently to be at war with them, for what cause we have no information. If these other people are warlike and hostile, the kyo are, on the one hand, valuable as allies; but on the other—if the kyo have provoked a peaceful people, the kyo pose a problem. I cannot guess at this point which is the case, nandi. We are so very different from the kyo we do not know why they declared they would visit us. Likeliest in my own opinion, they have come to see whether we have told them the truth.”
“Perhaps they have come to see our defenses,” Tatiseigi said.
“Indeed I would not deny it, nandi. They would surely be interested to see how advanced we are, how strong we are—”
“And did we invite these people?” Tatiseigi asked disapprovingly, as if these were unbidden visitors at a dinner party.
“Precise exchange of intentions or purposes is likewise difficult, nandi,” Bren said.
“They had,” Ilisidi remarked dryly, “blown up part of Reunion Station.”
“Well, and now they come to ours?”
One hesitated to argue motivations with Lord Tatiseigi. It was rarely productive. But Ilisidi answered quietly, “As the paidhi-aiji notes, it is difficult to know their thoughts, their fears, or their customs. It is quite certain also they do not know ours, and if they are wise, they will be as cautious as we shall be. They stated, in the limited way we can understand their speech, that they would come one day. And now they have appeared.”
“One does propose,” Bren said, “that we withdraw Phoenix somewhat from the station. It might be provocative to do it just as they arrive. One thing we should by no means tell them, aiji-ma: that Phoenix is the only ship we have. The ship under construction indicates our ability to build. A hundred more ships could be out and about the heavens, for all they know. Ships do apparently leave a trail, and I do not know how long it persists, but surely there could be other ships or stations in our control, and we shall not tell them otherwise.”
“Which is to say,” Ilisidi remarked, “that we are in fact quite defenseless, but that we must behave as if we are not—since what they do not see cannot be demonstrated not to exist. So we shall let them deceive themselves, if they need to be deceived. The humans, Tati-ji, feared their library would fall into enemy hands, betraying our location and situation. Unfortunately, as one understands, the arrival of our ship to recover it blazoned our origin and our path through the heavens quite, quite adequately, which was the chief piece of information we wished to keep secret in the first place. Kyo territory is not, one understands, a deep mystery to the ship-folk or the Reunioners. Humans intruded where they ought not, apparently provoking and alarming the kyo, which may have occasioned their appearance at Reunion Station. The kyo, having received our assurances we shall respect their territory, are here now, surely, to look and see for themselves what we are—or perhaps simply to balance the human intrusion into their territory with an intrusion into ours. We do not know.”
“So how shall we deal with these people?” Tatiseigi asked. “What shall we expect?”
“We are not close neighbors,” Bren said. “We scarcely threaten one another in terms of territory. There is no pressing need for conflict, which could prove expensive in every sense. Atevi understand that numbers rule the universe and readily accept that people may belong to many associations at once. The kyo seem to believe—and this is murky—that associations once made must be permanent.”
“Permanent,” Tatiseigi echoed, frowning.
“We do not understand what kyo mean by associations, or if the word is correct at all. This is one of many things we have yet to understand. The dictionary, such as we have developed it, has fewer than three hundred words.”
“Which is certainly better than we began,” the dowager said, “and a great deal to the credit of the paidhi and my great-grandson, who gathered words and wrote them down.”