Invader (38 page)

After which the lights were down, some covering was on his shoulders, and something heavy was weighing down the mattress edge. Which was Jago, sitting on the floor asleep against the edge of the bed.

"Nadi," he said, and worked about to reach out a hand, but she waked at the mere movement, and lifted her face and made a grimace, rubbing a doubtless stiff neck. "You should have gone to bed," he said.

"One worried, nadi."

He reached out to pat her shoulder, and bumped her cheek with the back of his hand, instead, being not quite on his aim, which Jago didn't mind, which led to a more intimate gesture than he'd intended, and a more intimate return on her part, her hand on his.

"Jago-ji," he said, attempting humor, "you shouldn't. I'd hate to offend Banichi."

"In what?"

Translation interface. He tried to wake, wary of wrong words, and the situation. And while he was being apprehensive, and trying, muzzily, to compose a request to go to sleep that wouldn't sound like a rebuff, Jago's fingers laced with his, and in his inaction, wound around his wrist, and wandered up his arm to his back.

After which Jago got up, and sat down on the edge of the bed, took off the towel that was covering his skin, and began to work another dose of salve into his back and down the injured arm, which was enough to make a weary human's bones melt, and his recently wary brain all but disengage.

All but — disengage. After the nagging pain subsided, it waked up enough to remind that Jago's reactions of recent days hadn't been impersonal. And he remembered, while Jago's hands were sliding very comfortingly along his backbone, that Banichi had joked about Jago's curiosity from the very start.

The fact that the personal relationship between Banichi and Jago never had been clear to him, and that he was alone, and that the temptation more than intellectually dawning in the forebrain — was already settled and willing in the hind-brain, and beginning to interfere with his capacity to think at all.

"Jago-ji. Please stop." He feared offending her, and he rolled over and propped himself on his good elbow to give an impression, a lie, of a man well awake and sensible, but he was facing a looming shadow against the night-light, that gave human eyes nothing of her expression — such as she might show in a moment of rebuff. He tried to touch Jago's arm, but the arm he wasn't leaning on wouldn't lift all the way, and fell, quite painfully. "Jago, nadi, Banichi might come after me."

"No," Jago said, one of those enigmatic little yes-no's that maddened human instincts. But it was very clear Jago knew what she was doing.

"I just — Jago —" He was awake. He didn't know what reality he'd landed in, but he was aware and awake.

"One need say nothing, Bren-ji. No is sufficient."

"No. It's not. It's
not
, Jago."

"It seems simple. Yes. No."

"Jago — if it's curiosity, then go ahead, I've no objection. But —" Breath came with difficulty. Sore ribs. A fog coming over the brain, that said, Why not? "But," the negotiator got to the fore, "but if it's more than that, Jago, then — give me room. Let me understand what you're asking. And what's right."

Jago had sat back on her heels at the bedside, elbow on the mattress. A frown was on her face — not, it seemed, an angry frown, but a puzzled one, a thoughtful one.

"Unfair," Jago declared finally.

"Unfair?"

"Words, words, words!"

"I've offended you."

"No. You ask me damned questions." Jago gained her feet in one fluid motion, a shadow in the night-light as she turned, stiff and proper, and walked to the door, her braid the usual ruler-line down her back.

But she stopped there and looked back at him. "Nand' paidhi."

"Nadi?" He was struck with anxiety at the formality.

"One asks — is there danger from Mospheira?"

"Why do you ask that?"

No immediate answer. Jago was a darkness. A near-silhouette against the hall light as she opened the door to leave.

"Jago? Why? That paper? It advised me only of how to contact my office. Of persons not to trust."

He had only her profile now. Which became full face, a second glance back.

"Is Hanks-paidhi a danger?" Jago asked.

"Always a danger," he said, but added, in fear for Hanks' life: "but not the sort that would require your action, Jago-ji. The abstract sort of danger. Political rivalry."

"That, too," Jago said, "I can remedy, nand' paidhi."

"No." She frightened him. He'd thought Jago had lost her ability to do that. But coupled with Banichi's absence, the suddenly skewed relationship, and the atevi difficulty in interpreting human wishes —"No, Jago."

Silence. But Jago didn't move from the doorway.

Then: "You look very tired lately, Bren-ji. Very tired.

When you read the letter from Barb-daja, your face showed extreme distress."

He thought of denying it. But it was, from Jago, a probing after honesty. A not-quite professional inquiry.

"We have a proverb," he said. "Burning your bridges behind you. I've done some of that — on Mospheira."

"Cutting one's own rope."

Count on it — mayhem and disaster translated amazingly well.

"Did this woman know you'd do what you've done?"

"Who? Hanks?" Rhetorical question.

"Barb-daja."

Blindsided. Jago'd been upset about Barb, he told himself, now, because Jago didn't understand human relationships, human reactions — didn't above all else understand how a loyalty could fracture. Hers couldn't. Hers came inbuilt. Hardwired. Or almost so.

"Barb's still —" There wasn't a word. "Still an associate of mine. The man she's marrying is an associate. They're good people."

Jago remained unconvinced. He saw it in the stiffness of her back. The lack of body language. And he decided it was good that Barb was on the island, and not here.

She looked back at him, a shadow next to the door. He thought — again — Why not? He was half moved to say so.

But common sense ruled the other half. "Jago. I regard you very highly. Don't be angry at me."

"One isn't angry, Bren-paidhi. Good night."

"Jago. Still — maybe."

A second hesitation, this one with a glance back that caught the night-light, and Jago's eyes reflected gold, one of those little differences that sometimes raised the hairs on a human neck. That and the momentary silence — so much more effective than Barb's. "One hears, Bren-ji."

She was out the door, then, and the door shut.

Damn, he thought. Damn, not knowing what he'd done, or whether he'd upset Jago, or, God, what Banichi might already know — or what a foolish human might have missed, or lost — the brain was sending contrary signals, yes and no, and caution, and the shoulder
hurt
, dammit, he'd be sorry if he had — as he was sorry he hadn't.

He rolled over on his face and tucked the freed arm up close, in possession of both arms at least.

Say that for the situation.

«
^
»

T
abini had ordered
his private plane, for security's sake, and Tano and Algini were the escort, easier, Jago had said, than seeing to his security in the Bu-javid.

That, he found an odd thing to have to say —

But he was more trying to pick up signals from Jago, whether she was upset or angry, and Jago was all business, seeming perfectly fine.

He worried. Which he couldn't afford. He was still worrying as the plane made its takeoff run. Which he doubly couldn't afford, thinking about Banichi, and trying to puzzle out the situation between the two of them, which he still hadn't done — no more than humans in general understood atevi relationships. The machimi, source of hints about politics and loyalties, steered clear of romantic motivations. Or loyalties lacked such motivations. There was a reticence in the machimi, in the other literature, a silence from tasteful and reputable atevi, except that Tabini maintained a liaison with Damiri years before Damiri acknowledged it in public, and marriage as such seemed to wait years and sometimes after the birth of children. Or never happened. He could think of instances. But you
didn't
ask about something atevi looked past and didn't routinely acknowledge as going on — and his talks with Tabini had been more on the moods of established lovers, not on the proprieties of who could be slipping into one's room at night.

He almost was prompted to ask Tano, who would, he thought, talk; but stopped himself short when he realized it wouldn't take Tano two seconds to conclude he wasn't asking an academic question, that it wasn't Deana Hanks, and that the field of serious choice was relatively narrow, not mentioning the household servants who were acceptable liaisons
if
one was willing to take them into one's permanent household, which he wasn't, didn't have, and couldn't — Tano and, he suspected, Algini weren't slow to perceive things. But he didn't want to put Tano or Algini in a situation.

And he wasn't sure Banichi was the politic person to ask. He decided — decided, as the plane leveled out at altitude — that the sane person to ask might be Tabini.

But that could get Jago in trouble, if things weren't on the up and up.

Which left Jago herself, who wouldn't lie to him in a thing like that. It might be an opening, at least, for a reasonable discussion.

It was certainly against Departmental regulations. It was certainly foolish. It was compromising of the paidhi's impartiality. It was —

— just damned stupid. The paidhi was supposed to be free of biases, influences and emotional decisions. And if Deana Hanks got wind of what had happened last night —

So what
had
happened last night, beyond the fact the paidhi and a good atevi friend —

Friend. Which Jago wasn't. Was a lot of atevi things, but she wasn't a friend. If he got into a relationship with her — he wasn't going to be in human territory at all, with all it meant. A damned emotional minefield that was a lot safer if he wasn't attached to the ateva in question in ways that created an interface he couldn't decipher.

Damn the timing.
Damn
the timing.

Jago at least would give him time. Which she'd agreed to do.

Which didn't give him peace of mind when the paidhi needed it, and dammit, he'd thought he had her on the choice he'd offered: now, with no complications; or later, and then — God help him, he'd ended up saying, Maybe.

The paidhi — whose whole damn
career
was knowing when to keep his mouth shut. And he was upset about Barb. But he was more upset about Jago — he had more regard for Jago, though not in that way.

Which might change the second his feet hit Mospheiran soil — a change he'd begun to find happening to him insidiously for years and critically in the last few weeks, this compartmentalization of his life, his feelings, his thinking. God knew what kind of advice he was qualified to give anyone, and what change it would work in him once the capsule chute spread and he had a regular human presence — Hanks didn't count, he said to himself — to deal with on the mainland.

He didn't think it was going to make a difference. And the moment he said that to himself he knew the situation with Graham wasn't predictable. And he didn't know. From moment to moment any change threatened him, and changes were about to become monumental.

He flipped open his computer and began to compose his specific questions, pull up his specific vocabulary, trying to be as sure of what he was going to imply to scholarly people as he could possibly be.

Universe —
basheigi
— was right at the top of the list. Was there a better word for it? One hoped the venerable astronomer had explanations. One hoped the profession had come up with words that could at least be trimmed down in the minds of nonexpert hearers to stand for certain difficult concepts.

He pulled up a hundred fifty-eight words and spent the next forty-eight minutes being sure of his contextual and finely shaded meanings, before the plane entered final approach and seemed to be aiming itself at a very impressive wall of rock.

"One hopes the airport is coming soon," he said, and Tano, in all seriousness, offered to ask the crew, but he told Tano and Algini to sit down — the plane was suffering the buffeting a mountain range tended to make, and in a moment they indeed made the requisite turn, slipping down toward a wooded, remote area that argued public lands.

It was a fair-sized airport, and there was a hunting village, such as one found in the public lands, all inhabitants employed by the Association, all engaged, the paidhi was informed, in the maintenance and care of the Caruija Forest Reserve.

And one didn't expect there to be too much in the way of public transport, but a narrow-gauge railroad waited for them at the airport, a quaint little thing that had to date back almost to the war.

Cheaper, in the mountains, for small communities. One didn't have to blast out a large roadbed, and the little diesel engine didn't have to haul much in either direction — in this case, one wooden-seated car with glass windows and a green roof with red eaves. A spur led from the airport to the village; another spur led somewhere he had no idea; a third led up to the mountain: Saigiadi Observatory, a small sign informed them, as, with a small stop for a railway manager to throw a switch, they were off on their rattling way.

His hand worked. He could bend the elbow. He was still entranced with that freedom. He exercised the wrist and elbow as he got the chance — hadn't put the salve on it this morning because the salve had a medicinal smell. He sat, suffering just a little discomfort, enjoying the noisy ride up the mountain, enjoying the smell of wilderness and trees and open air that got past the diesel that powered the engine: the Ministry of Transportation was trying to replace diesel in all trains, for air quality… but electrics wouldn't make
this
grade; he could report that to the minister, with no doubt at all. The train lurched and a vista of empty space hung outside the window.

Then a beige-furred, white-tailed game herd sprinted along the side of the train, keeping pace until it reached a turn. He turned in his seat to watch them left behind.