Foreigner: (10th Anniversary Edition) (44 page)

Usually it was the servants that betrayed you, the likes of Djinana and Maigi, Tano and Algini. But in the flutter of banners, the clashing of weapons, the smoke of shattered buildings, the rules of all existence changed. Hell broke loose. Or maybe it was television. Machimi and shadows.

Blood on the terrace, Jago had said, coming back out of the rain, and Banichi’s face had turned up in the mirror.

The beast walked Malguri’s halls after midnight, when
everyone was asleep … looking for its head, and damned upset about it.

It’s my gun, Banichi had said, and it was. He’d been used, Banichi had been used, Jago had been used—everyone had been used, in every way. It was all machimi, and ordinary atevi didn’t know the game either—ordinary atevi had never understood the feud between the humans who’d had to stay on the station and those who’d taken the ship and gone, for two hundred cursed, earthbound years. …

They’d fallen through a hole in space and found not a single star they knew, in the spectra of a thousand suns that fluttered on atevi banners, banners declaring war, declaring ownership of the world that seemed, for stranded strangers, the surest chance to live in freedom.

He lay still in the chair, listening to the snap of the fire, letting the tides of headache come and go—exhausted emotionally and physically—aching in a dozen places, now that he was warm, but hurting less than he did when he moved.

Build the station for a base and go and search for resources at the next likely star, that was what the Pilots’ Guild had decided they would do. The hell with the non-crew technicians and construction workers. Every kid on Mospheira knew the story. Every kid knew how
Phoenix
had betrayed them, and why
Phoenix
wasn’t a factor in their lives any longer. Time ran long between the stars and age didn’t pass the way it ought to—like in the stories, the man that slept a hundred years and never knew.

An atevi story or human, he wasn’t personally sure.

Goseniin and eggs. They daren’t kill the paidhi. Otherwise, how could they find out anything they needed to know?

“Bren-ji.”

He flashed on the cellar, and the shadows around him, and the cold metal against his head. No. A less definite touch than that, brushing his cheek.

“Bren-ji.”

A second touch. He blinked at a black, yellow-eyed face, a warm and worried face.

“Jago!”

“Bren-ji, Bren-ji, you have to leave this province. Some people have come into Maidingi, following rumors—the same who’ve acted against you. We need to get you out of here, now—for your protection, and theirs. Far too many innocents, Bren-ji. We’ve received advisement from the aiji-dowager, from her people inside the rebel movement … certain of them will take her orders. Certain of that group she knows will not. The aijiin of two provinces are in rebellion—they’ve sent forces to come up the road and take you from Malguri.” The back of her fingers brushed his cheek a third time, her yellow eyes held him paralyzed. “We’ll hold them by what tactics we can use. Rely on Ilisidi. We’ll join you if we can.”

“Jago?”

“I’ve got to go.
Got
to go, Bren-ji.”

He tried to delay her to ask where Banichi was or what they meant by
hold them
—but her fingers slipped through his, and Jago was away and out the door, her black braid swinging.

Alarm brought him to his feet—sore joints, headache, and lapful of blankets and all—with half that Jago had said ringing and rattling around a dazed and exhausted brain.

Hold them?
Hold a mob off from Malguri? How in hell, Jago?

And for what? One damned more
illusion
, Jago? Is
this
one real?

Innocents, Jago said.

People who wanted to kill him? Innocents?

People who were just scared, because the word had begun to spread of what had arrived in their skies. Malguri was still candle-lit and fire-lit. The countryside around about had had no lights. People in cities didn’t spend their time on rooftops looking at a station you couldn’t see in city haze without a telescope, no, but a quarter of Maidingi
township had been in blackout, and ordinary atevi could have had pointed out to them what astronomers and amateurs would have seen in their telescopes days ago.

Now the panic began, the fear of landings, the rumor of attack on their planet from an enemy above their reach.

What were they to think of this apparition, absent a communication from the paidhi’s office, but a resumption of the War, another invasion, another, harsher imposition of human ways on the world? They’d had their experience of humans seeking a foothold in their territory.

He stood lost in the middle of a nightmare—realized Ilisidi’s guards were watching him anxiously, and didn’t know what to do, except that the paidhi was the only voice, the
only
voice that could represent atevi interests to Mospheira’s authorities—and to that ship up there.

No contact, the Guild had argued; but that principle had fallen in the first stiff challenge. To get the deal they wanted out of the station … to go on getting the means to search for Earth, they’d given in and allowed the initial personnel and equipment drops.

And two hundred years now from the War of the Landing, what did any human on earth know … but this world, and a way of life they’d gotten used to, and neighbors they’d reached at least a hope of understanding at distance?

Damn, he thought, angry,
outraged
at the intrusion over their heads, and he didn’t imagine that there was overmuch joy in Mospheira’s conversations with the ship, either.

Charges and counter-charges. Charges his office could answer with some authority—but when
Phoenix
asked, Where
is
this interpreter, where
is
the paidhi-aiji, what opinion does
he
hold and why can’t we find him?… what could Mospheira say? Sorry—we don’t know?

Sorry, we’ve never lost track of him before?

And couldn’t the Commission office, knowing what they knew, realize that, with that ship appearing in the skies, they’d better
call
his office in Shejidan? Or realize,
if their call didn’t go through, that he was in trouble, that atevi knew what was going on, and that he might be undergoing interrogation somewhere?

Damned right, Hanks knew. Deana Nuke-the-Opposition
Hanks
was making decisions in his name on Mospheira, because he was out of touch.

He needed a phone, a radio, anything. “I have to talk to my own security,” he said, “about that ship up there. Please, nadiin, can you send someone to bring Jago back, or Banichi …
any
one of my staff? I’ll talk to Cenedi. Or the dowager.”

“I fear not, nand’ paidhi. Things are moving very quickly now. Someone’s gone for your coat and for heavier clothes. If you’d care for breakfast …”

“My coat. Where are we going, nadiin?
When
are we going? I need to get to a phone or a radio. I need to reach my office. It’s extremely important they know that I’m all right. Someone could take very stupid, very dangerous actions, nadiin!”

“We can present your request to Cenedi,” Giri said. “In the meantime, the water’s already hot, nand’ paidhi. Tea can be ready in a very small moment. Breakfast is waiting. We would very much advise you to have breakfast now. Please, nand’ paidhi. I’ll personally take your request to Cenedi.”

He couldn’t get more than that. The chill was back, a sudden attack of cold and weakness that told him Giri was giving him good advice. He’d gone to see Cenedi last night before supper. His stomach was hollow to the backbone.

And if they’d kept breakfast waiting and water hot since his meeting with Ilisidi, it wasn’t that they meant to take the usual gracious forever about bringing it.

“All right,” he said. “Breakfast. But tell the dowager!”

Giri disappeared. The other guard stood where he’d been standing, and Bren strayed back to the fireside, with his hair inching loose again, falling about his shoulders. His clothes were smudged with dust from the cellars. His
shirt was torn about the front, somewhere in the exchange—most likely in his escape attempt, he thought. It wasn’t humanity’s finest hour. Atevi around him, no matter the sleep they’d missed, too, looked impervious to dirt and exhaustion, impeccably braided, absolutely ramrod straight in their bearing. He lifted sore arms, both of them, this time, wincing with the effort, and separating his tangled hair, braided three or four turns to keep it out of his face—God knew what had happened to the clip. He’d probably lost it on the stairs outside. If they went out that way he might find it.

A servant carried in a heavy tray with a breakfast of fish, cheese, and stone-ground bread, along with a demipot of strong black tea, and set it on a small side table for him. He sat down to it with better appetite than he’d thought he could possibly find, in the savory smell and the recollection of Giri’s warning that meals might not be on schedule again … which, with the business about getting his coat, meant they were going to take action to get him out, maybe
through
the opposition down in Maidingi … on Ilisidi’s authority, it might be.

But breaking through a determined mob was a scary prospect. Trust an atevi lord to know how far he or she could push … atevi had that down to an art form.

Still, a mob under agitation might not respect the aiji-dowager. He gathered that Ilisidi had been with them and changed her mind last night; and if she tried to lie or threaten her way through a mob who might be perfectly content with assassinating the paidhi, there could well be shooting. A large enough mob could stop the van.

In which case the last night could turn out to be only a taste of what humanity’s radical opposition might do to him if it got its hands on him. If things got out of hand, and they couldn’t get to a plane—he could end up shot dead before today ended, himself, Ilisidi, God knew who else … and that could be a lot better than the alternative.

He ate his breakfast, drank his tea, and argued with himself that Cenedi knew what he was doing, at least. A
man in Cenedi’s business didn’t get that many gray hairs or command the security of someone of Ilisidi’s rank without a certain finesse, and without a good sense of what he could get away with—legally and otherwise.

But he wanted Banichi and Jago, dammit, and if some political decision or Cenedi’s position with Ilisidi had meant Banichi and Jago had drawn the nasty end of the plan—

If he lost them …

“Nand’ paidhi.”

He turned about in the chair, surprised and heartened by a familiar voice. Djinana had come with his coat and what looked like a change of clothes, his personal kit
and
, thank God, his computer—whether Djinana had thought of it, whether Banichi or Jago had told him, or whoever had thought of it, it wasn’t going to lie there with everything it held for atevi to find and interpret out of context, and he wasn’t going to have to ask for it and plead for it back from Cenedi’s possession.

“Djinana-ji,” he said, with the appalled realization that if he was leaving and getting to safety this morning, Malguri’s staff wouldn’t have that option, not the servants whose
man’chi
belonged to Malguri itself. “They’re saying people down in Maidingi are coming up here looking for me. That two aijiin are supporting an attack on Malguri. You surely won’t try to deal with this yourselves, nadi. Capable as you may be—”

Djinana laid his load on the table. “The staff has no intention of surrendering Malguri to any ill-advised rabble.” Djinana whisked out a comb and brush from his kit, and came to his chair. “Forgive me, nand’ paidhi, please continue your breakfast—but they’re in some little hurry, and I can fix this.”

“You’re worth more than stones, Djinana!”

“Please.” Djinana pushed him about in the chair, pushed his head forward and brushed with a vengeance, then braided a neat, quick braid, while he ate a piece of
bread gone too dry in his mouth and washed it down with bitter tea.

“Nadi-ji, did you know why they brought me here? Did you know about the ship?
Do
you understand, it’s not an attack, it’s not aimed at you.”

“I knew. I knew they suspected that you had the answer to it. —And I knew very soon that you would never be our enemy, paidhi-ji.” Djinana had a clip from somewhere—the man was never at a loss. Djinana finished the braid, brushed off his shoulders, and went and took up his coat. “There’s no time to change clothes, I fear, and best you wait until you’re on the plane. I’ve packed warm clothing for a change this evening.”

He got up from the chair, turned his back to Djinana, and toward the window. “Are they sending a van up?”

“No, paidhi-ji. A number of people are on their way up here now, I hear, on buses. I truly don’t think they’re the ones to fear. But you’re in very good hands. Do as they say.” Djinana shoved him about by the shoulder, helped him on with the coat, and straightened his braid over the collar. “There. You look the gentleman, nadi. Perhaps you’ll come back to Malguri. Tell the aiji the staff demands it.”

“Djinana, —” One couldn’t even say
I like
. “I’ll certainly tell him that. Please, thank everyone in my name.” He went so far as to touch Djinana’s arm. “Please see that you’re here when I come visiting, or I’ll be greatly distressed.”

That seemed to please Djinana, who nodded and quietly took his leave past a disturbance in the next room—Ilisidi’s voice, insisting, “They won’t lay a hand on me!”

And Cenedi’s, likewise determined:

“‘Sidi-ji, we’re getting
out
, damned if they won’t come inside! Shut up and get your coat!”

“Cenedi, it’s quite enough to remove him out of range. …”

“Giri, get ‘Sidi’s coat!
Now!
”

The guards’ eyes had shifted in that direction. Nothing
of their stance had altered. He gathered up his change of clothes and wrapped it about his computer, waiting with that in his arms and his kit in his hand, listening as Cenedi gave orders for the locking of doors and the extinguishing of fires.

But Djinana’s voice, distantly, said that the staff would see to those matters, that they should go, quickly, please, and take the paidhi to safety.