Foreigner: (10th Anniversary Edition) (31 page)

“Death rays,” Tabini would say, and laugh, invite him to supper and a private drink of the vice humans and atevi held in common. Laugh, Tabini would say. Bren, there are fools on Mospheira and fools in the Bu-javid. Don’t take them seriously.

Steady hand, Bren-ji, like pointing the finger, there’s no difference.

Good shot,
good
shot, Bren.…

Rain … pelted the window. Washed evidence away. Buses rolled away down the road, the tourists laughed, amazed and amused by their encounter.

They hadn’t hated him. They’d wanted photographs to prove his existence to their neighbors …

“Nadi,” Djinana said, from the doorway. “Your bathwater’s ready.”

He gathered the fortitude to move, tucked his robe about him and went with Djinana through the bedroom, through the hall and the clammy accommodation, into the overheated air of the bath, where he could shed the blanket
and the rest of his clothes, to sink neck-deep into warm, steamy water.

Clouds rose around him. The water invaded the aches he wouldn’t admit to. He could lie and soak and stare stupidly at the ancient stonework around him—ask himself important questions such as why the tub didn’t fall through the floor, when the whole rest of the second floor was wood.

Or things like … why hadn’t the two staffs advised each other about the alarm last night, and why had Cenedi let them go out there?

They’d talked about cannon, and ancient wars.

Everything blurred. The stones, the precariousness, the age, the heat, the threat to his life. The storm noise didn’t get here. There was just the occasional shock of thunder through the stones, like ancient cannon shots.

And everyone saying, It’s all right, nand’ paidhi, it’s nothing for you to worry about, nand’ paidhi.

He heard footsteps somewhere outside. He heard voices that quickly died away.

Banichi coming back, maybe. Or Jago or Tano. Even Algini, if he was alive and well. Nothing in the house seemed to be an emergency. In the failure of higher technology, the methane burner worked.

The paidhi was used to having his welfare completely in others’ hands. There was nothing he could do. There was nowhere he could go.

He lay still in the water, wiggling his toes, which were cramped and sore from the boots, and ankles which were stiffening from the stress of staying on the mecheita’s back. He must have clenched his legs all the way. He sat there soaking away the aches until the water began to cool and finally climbed out and toweled himself dry—Djinana would gladly help him, but he had never had that habit with his own servants, let alone with strangers. Let alone here.

So he put on the dressing-robe Djinana had laid out, and went back to the study to sit in front of his own safe
fire, read his book and wait for information, or release, or hell to freeze over, whichever came first.

Maybe they’d caught the assassin alive. Maybe they were asking questions and getting answers. Maybe Banichi would even tell him if that was the case—

Or maybe not.

“When will we have power?” he asked Djinana, when Djinana came to ask if the paidhi wanted anything else. “Do they give any estimate?”

“Jago said something about ordering a new transformer,” Djinana said, “by train from Raigan. Something blew out in the power station between here and Maidingi. I don’t know what. The paidhi probably understands the systems far better than I do.”

He did. He hadn’t realized there was a secondary station. Nobody had said there was—only the news that a quarter of Maidingi was waiting on the same repair. It was logical a power station should attract lightning, but it wasn’t reasonable that no one within a hundred miles could bring power back to a major section of a township without parts freighted in.

“This isn’t a poor province. This has to happen from time to time. Does it happen every summer?”

“Oh, sometimes,” Djinana said. “Twice last.”

“Does it happen assassins get in? Does
that
happen?”

“Please be assured not, nand’ paidhi. And it’s all right now.”

“Is he dead? Do they know who he was?”

“I don’t know, nand’ paidhi. They haven’t told us. I’m sure they’re trying to find out. Don’t worry about such things.”

“I think it’s natural I worry about such things,” he muttered, looking at his book. And it wasn’t fair to take his frustration out on Djinana and Maigi, who only worked here, and who would take Malguri’s reputation very personally. “I would like tea, Djinana, thank you.”

“With sandwiches?”

“I think not, Djinana, thank you, no. I’ll sit here and read.

There were ghost ships on the lake. One was a passenger ship that still made port on midwinter nights, once at Maidingi port itself, right under the lights, and tried to take aboard the unwary and the deservedly damned, but only a judge-magistrate had gone aboard, a hundred years ago, and it had never made port again.

There was a fishing boat which sometimes appeared in storms—once, not twenty years ago, it had appeared to the crew of a stranded net-fisher that was taking on water and sinking. All but two had gone aboard, the captain and his son electing to stay with their crippled trawler. The fishing boat, which everyone had remarked to be old and dilapidated, had sailed away with the crew, never to be seen again.

Everything in the legends seemed to depend on misplaced trust, though atevi didn’t quite have the word for it: ghosts lost all power if the victims didn’t believe what they saw, or if they knew things were too good to be true, and refused to deceive themselves.

Banichi still hadn’t come back. Maigi and Djinana came asking what he wanted for dinner, and recommended a game course, a sort of elusive, cold-blooded creature he didn’t find appetizing, though he knew his servants thought it a delicacy. He asked for shellfish, instead, and Maigi thought that easy, though, Djinana said, the molluscs might not be the best this time of year: they would send down to town and they might have them, but it might be two or three hours or so before they could present them.

“Waiting won’t matter,” he said, and added, “they might lay in some more for lunch tomorrow.”

“There’s no ice,” Djinana said apologetically.

“Perhaps in town.”

“One could find out, nadi. But a great deal of the town
is without power, and most houses will buy it up for their own stock. We’ll inquire…”

“No, no, nadi, please.” He survived on shellfish, in seasons of desperation. “Others doubtless need the ice. And if they can’t preserve it—please, take no chances. If the household could possibly arrange to find me fruited toast and tea, that would do quite well. I’ve no real appetite this evening.”

“Nadi, you must have more than toast and tea. You missed lunch.”

“Djinana-nadi, I must confess, I find the season’s dish very strong … a difference in perceptions. We’re quite sensitive to alkaloids. There may be some somewhere in the preparations, and it’s absolutely essential I avoid them. If there were any
kabiu
choice of fruit or vegetables. … The dowager-aiji had very fine breakfast rolls, which I very much favor.”

“I’ll most certainly tell the cook. And—” Djinana had a most conspiratorial look. “I do think there’s last month’s smoked joint left. It’s certainly not un-
kabiu
, if it’s left over. And we always put by several.”

Preserved meat. Out of season. God save them.

“We never know how many guests,” Djinana said, quite straight-faced. “We’d hate to run short.”

“Djinana-nadi, you’ve saved my life.”

Djinana was highly amused, very pleased with their solution, and bowed twice before leaving.

Whereupon, for the rest of the afternoon, he went back to his ghost ships, and his headless captains of trawlers that plied Malguri shores during storms. A bell was said to ring in the advent of disasters.

Instead there was an opening of the door, a squishing of wet boots across the drawing room, and a very wet and very tired-looking Banichi, who walked into the study, and said, “I’ll join you for dinner, nadi.”

He snapped his book shut, and thought of saying that most people waited to be asked, that he hadn’t had any courtesy and that he was getting damned tired of being
walked past, ignored, talked down to and treated in general like a wayward child.

“Delighted to have company,” he said, and persuaded himself he really was glad to have someone to talk to. “Tell Djinana to set another place. —Is Jago coming?”

“Jago’s on her way to Shejidan.” Banichi’s voice floated back to him from the bedroom, as he headed for the servants’ quarters and the bath. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”

He didn’t even ask why. He didn’t ask why a plane bothered to take off in the middle of a thunderstorm, the second since noon, when it was presumably the aiji’s plane, and could observe any schedule it liked. Banichi disappeared into the back hall, and after a while he heard water running in the bath. The boiler must still be up. Banichi didn’t have to wait for
his
bath.

As for himself, he went back to his ghost bells and his headless victims, and the shiploads of sailors lost to the notorious luck of Maidingi, which always fed on the misfortune of others when an aiji was resident in Malguri.

That was what the book said; and atevi, who believed in no omnipotent gods, who saw the universe and its quasi god-forces as ruled by
baji
and
naji
, believed at least that
naji
could flow through one person to the next—or they had believed so, before they became modern and cynical and enlightened, and realized that superior firepower could redistribute luck to entirely undeserving people.

He had sat about in the dressing-robe all afternoon, developing sore spots in very private areas. He declined to move, much less to dress for dinner, deciding that if Banichi had invited himself, Banichi could certainly tolerate his informality.

Banichi himself showed up in the study merely in black shirt, boots, and trousers, somewhat more formal, but only just, without a coat, and with his braid dripping wet down his back. “Paidhi-ji,” Banichi said, bowing, and, “Have a drink,” Bren said, since he was indulging,
cautiously, in a before-dinner drink from his own stock, which he knew was safe. He did have a flask of Dimagi, which he couldn’t drink without a headache, and eventual more serious effects, very excellent Dimagi, he supposed, since Tabini had given it to him, and he poured a generous glass of that for Banichi.

“Nadi,” Banichi said, taking the glass with a sigh, and invited himself to sit by the fire in the chair angled opposite to his.

“So?” The liquor stung his cut lip. “A man’s dead. Was he the same one who invaded my bedroom?”

“We can’t be sure,” Banichi said.

“No strayed tourist.”

“No tourist at all. Professional. We know who he is.”

“And still no filing?”

“A very disturbing aspect of this business. This man was licensed. He had everything to lose by doing what he did. He’ll be stricken from the rolls, he’ll be denied benefits of the profession, his instructors will be disgraced. These are no small matters.”

“Then I feel sorry for his instructors,” Bren said.

“So do I, nadi. They were mine.”

Dead stop, on that point. Banichi—and this unknown man—had a link of some kind? Fellow students?

“You know him?”

“We met frequently, socially.”

“In Shejidan?”

“A son of distinguished family.” Banichi took a sip and stared into the fire. “Jago is escorting the remains and the report to the Guild.”

Not a good day, Bren decided, having lost all appetite for supper. Banichi regarded him with a flat, dark stare that he couldn’t read—not Banichi’s opinion, nor what obligation Banichi had relative to Tabini versus his Guild or this man, nor where the
man’chi
lay, now.

“I’m very sorry,” was all he could think to say.

“You have a right to retaliate.”

“I don’t want to retaliate. I never wanted this quarrel, Banichi.”

“They have one now.”

“With you?” He grew desperate. His stomach was upset. His teeth ached. Sitting was painful. “Banichi, I don’t want you or Jago hurt. I don’t want anybody killed.”

“But they do, nadi. That’s abundantly clear. A professional agreed with them enough to disregard Guild law—for
man’chi
, nadi. That’s what we have to trace—to whom was his
man’chi?
That’s all that could motivate him.”

“And if yours is to Tabini?”

Banichi hesitated in his answer. Then, somberly: “That makes them highly unwise.”

“Can’t we arrest them? They’ve broken the
law
, Banichi. Don’t we have some recourse to stop this through the courts?”

“That,” Banichi said, “would be very dangerous.”

Because it wouldn’t restrain them. He understood that. It couldn’t legally stop them until there
was
a judgment in his favor.

“All they need claim is affront,” Banichi said, “or business interests. And how can you defend anything? No one understands your associations. The court hardly has a means to find them out.”

“And my word is worth nothing? My
man’chi
is to Tabini, the same as yours. They have to know that.”

“But they don’t know that,” Banichi said. “Even
I
don’t know that absolutely, nadi. I know only what you tell me.”

He felt quite cold, quite isolated. And angry. “I’m not a liar. I am
not
a liar, Banichi. I didn’t contest with the best my people have for fifteen years to come here to lie to you.”

“For fifteen years.”

“To be sent to Shejidan. To have the place I have. To interpret to atevi. I don’t lie, Banichi!”

Banichi looked at him a long, silent moment. “Never? I thought that
was
the paidhi’s job.”

“Not in this.”

“How selective dare we be? When do you lie?”

“Just find out who hired him.”

“No contract could compel his action.”

“What could?”

Banichi didn’t answer that question. Banichi only stared into the fire.

“What
could
, Banichi?”

“We don’t know a dead man’s thoughts. I could only wish Cenedi weren’t so accurate.”