Precursor

by C. J. Cherryh

  The news of atevi presence and his presence on the station was about to break on the island if it hadn’t done so already, touching off every unstable element, from the mainland to Mospheira, in an ultimate paroxysm of paranoia. He was not persona grata with the Heritage Party, which made a fetish of armed preparation for invasion; his mother and Toby’s accidentally stepped in front of a damn bus. If that accident had stayed out of the news, it would be a wonder, and that report would taint anything he did, as if there was something sinister and personal in the action. Anything was substance for the rumor mills, anything might touch off the unstable elements who searched the news daily to substantiate their theories, and the theories were no longer funny. It might be announced on the island at any moment that atevi were going to run the space station; even if the majority of Mospheirans didn’t want to live under the Guild again, and didn’t want to run the station, they didn’t want to give it up, either.

  And Jill picked this moment to ditch her protection.

  He couldn’t write plain-spoken things like, The kids are in danger. The Mospheiran link wasn’t secure enough to be utterly frank; he didn’t know whether their mother was on a bus bound for the hospital, whether she’d called a taxi, or even ditched her security. He knew there was danger, knew there were elements that would unhesitatingly strike at the innocent to wound him, and he’d had his try at gathering his family onto the mainland behind Tabini’s much more extensive security. That hadn’t worked.

  He couldn’t protect them. Not any more than he could have prevented the accident.

  He bowed his head against his clenched hands, muscles tightened until joints popped. He wanted…

  But he couldn’t intervene with Toby, or Jill, or Barb, or his mother.

  He couldn’t beg off from his job or ask why in hell human beings couldn’t use good sense. He’d asked that until he knew there was no plain and simple answer.

  And he couldn’t blame his brother for being angry with it all. He was angry, too. He could move things in the heavens, shift Tabini’s Opinion and move the mechanisms of the aishidi’tat on personal privilege, but he couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent unintended consequences.

  Get to her, he wished his brother. Get to Jill. Get her and those kids back under protection. Don’t hesitate. Don’t quarrel. Just do it.

  And for God’s sake, write to me when you’re all safe.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  « ^ »

  Aiji-ma, we still wait for any confirmation of agreement from the other captains, notably Sabin, third-ranking, who has set a meeting with me for tomorrow station time, whether with her alone or with others of the captains I still have had no word. I have been unable to contact Jase, whom they continually say is in conference with the captains. Nor have I been able to contact Mercheson, nor has the delegation from the island. I find infelicity in the condition of the halls, and their lack of all numbers and designations. Numbers and colors were erased from such facilities in historical times when occupants wished to prevent intruders from knowing their way about. A local guides us whenever we leave, and he receives a map image, I am sure, through an eyepiece and instructions through a hearing device. Neither device is unknown to the island but their use under this circumstance is somewhat troubling, when a small number of painted signs would indicate the route through what is a very confusing set of hallways.

  I have received word directly from my brother. His wife is angry with him and has taken up residence with her household, taking the children with her. I have strong security concerns in this move, but will not allow these to override my good sense in the performance of my duties to you, aiji-ma.

  Bren re-read the message, searched for words that might cue any other reader as to subject, decided to send as it was, and set up his computer on the table next the wall console.

  He punched in. “Good morning, Cl.”

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Send and receive.”

  “Yes, sir”

  The squeal went out and came back.

  “Good day, Cl. Thank you.”

  “Out, sir.”

  Cl didn’t readily know about mornings. Bren had a notion to ask Cl what his name was… at least the one that was there of mornings, or this shift, as the ship and station reckoned time.

  And breakfast was waiting for him, but he wanted to see first what he had caught in his net this morning. He ached for a message from Toby, but Toby had his mind on other than sending to him, he was sure, and no news meant Toby had gone on his way and likely reached Jill’s mother’s house last night. If something went wrong, then he might hear from Toby.

  And there was no message from that quarter, none from the island, none from Mogari-nai.

  There was a message from Tabini, a simple one: We have been in contact with the Foreign Office regarding matters of your concern. My devoted wife has transmitted a message through your office to your lady mother by the State Department offering her concern and her wish for the lady’s early recovery.

  He was astonished. And grateful.

  And hoped to God his mother sent a civil reply.

  No, no, Shawn would mediate that. It would be decorous.

  He had to thank Lady Damiri. And he very much suspected it was a signal. Tabini was aware of everything, and meant to reassure him.

  He was moderately embarrassed to have had Tabini do that… though it was not an outrageous proceeding if it were some notable man of the province or of the court: a matter of courtesy, it was. He didn’t know how his brother might receive any word from Tabini. He didn’t trust his family to behave, was what it boiled down to, and he was vaguely ashamed to realize he held that opinion… justified as it might be.

  There were messages from various others, more business of the committee heads to whom he had sent messages, he was quite sure, a few outraged ones, who were put out that a human should be leading an atevi delegation and had no shyness in saying so. The traditionalists had their opinions, and in fact he somewhat agreed with them, but couldn’t speak against the aiji’s decision that had put him here. He left them to Ilisidi, and hoped for the best.

  There was a message from students of the Astronomer Emeritus, who were astounded and pleased at his voyage, and who asked what wonders of the stars he could see from his vantage.

  What celestial wonders? Human obstinacy and suspicion was not the answer the students wanted. The captains, damn them, had sent down images from other stars but had ungraciously declined to give their coordinates or to tell where they were in the human system of reckoning.

  He’d arranged the University to transmit its own stellar catalog and its own system of reference and nomenclature three years ago. And Jase had drawn them a map… a hand-drawn, crude thing, but referencing the charts; so the reticence of the Guild on that topic had passed quietly unnoticed, except in certain close circles.

  And the students wanted pictures?

  In the press of things strange and hostile up here, he’d utterly forgotten there was an outside, that there was a reality of stars and forces more universal than the captains’ will.

  He went off to breakfast, thinking the while what he was going to do about those images, putting them at the head of the mental queue, since there was so damned little he could do today about the rest; and then thinking: damn, of course, the archive. Images had gone down to the planet with that.

  Locating them in that universe of data meant having an appropriate key. And he had an idea where to find it, knew what the keys ought to be, in words like navigation and data and star and map, with which his staff might search the download. Simply comparing the two areas of the Mospheiran maps and the maps in the download… simply! There was a bad joke. But it could be done.

  “Thought?” Banichi asked him, and, distracted, he had to laugh and explain he was thinking of dictionaries and starcharts.

  “Usefully so?” Banichi asked. Banichi had learned that such things as the stellar nature of the sun had so
me relevance to his job, quite a basic relevance, as it had turned out, but hardly relevant to the performance of it.

  “We’re contained and without sight of the stars,” Bren said. “And the students of the Astronomer Emeritus ask me for pictures and data.”

  “Are there windows?” Jago asked.

  “I imagine that there are, but not necessarily of the sort you might imagine. Most that this station sees, it sees through electronic eyes, through cameras.”

  “Interesting,” Banichi said. One wondered why, and, with Banichi involved, came up with several alarming possibilities.

  “Of course,” Bren said, “on the other side of all walls and windows and out where the cameras are is hard vacuum.”

  “One does recall so,” Banichi said. “But a view of the exterior might be useful. One would like to know the relationship of pieces.”

  “That, I might provide. I can ask Cl. There might be a view available.”

  “Interesting,” Jago said, too.

  They finished breakfast. And after the accustomed compliments to cook and staff—in this case Bindanda—Bren went to the dining area wall panel and punched in Cl.

  “Cl,” he said when he had an acknowledgment. “We’ve been here this long and we haven’t seen the stars. Can you show us a view?”

  “Not much to see from the cameras,” Cl said. “But hull view’s active.”

  The screen came live on a glare-lit, ablated surface, and absolute shadow.

  “Where is that?” Bren asked, having an idea what Banichi was after, and now Tano and Algini had come in haste, Jago having apparently informed them what was toward.

  “That’s looking back over the hull from forward camera 2,” Cl said.

  “Is that the shuttle?” Bren said. There was a reflected glow on a smooth surface, the edge of a wing, perhaps.

  “Should be,” Cl said. “I can angle for a better view. This isn’t the deep dark, here. There’s planetshine, for one thing, not mentioning the star. You want stars, sir, you should be a little farther out.“

  It must be a slow morning in the control center, Bren thought, gratified. It was, in fact, the shuttle.

  “Got to close the show,” Cl said. “I’ll leave you attached to camera 2 on, say, C45.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Bren said. “Delighted, Cl. Thank you.”

  “Interesting,” Tano said, much as Banichi had said, as Cl punched out.

  “More cooperation than we’ve had, Nadiin,” Bren said. “That man is not cautious with us. Others are. Interesting, indeed.”

  His security returned questioning looks. “We had early cooperation,” Bren said, “very wide cooperation, and easy agreement with those who were already agreed. I don’t think it attributable to my powers of negotiation, rather to understandings generally made verbal. Now we have these long delays.”

  “Dissent,” Jago said.

  “And placatory gestures from the servants,” Banichi said.

  It did, however atevi the view might be, seem to describe the situation with Cl.

  “It’s not safe to press, however,” Bren said. “No more than in an atevi household. The man is a subordinate.”

  He settled to work after that small show, imagining that someone thinking more down a human track would have negotiated that camera view much earlier; that very probably Kroger’s team had asked; and that it was something Cl could grant on request, something to amuse the guests and, like the unmarked hallways, to tell them very little.

  They were due to meet with Kroger this evening, supposing that came off on schedule. Certainly Bindanda came to question him diffidently about his selections and his menu: “Excellent,” he said, “and one might have a sweet or two. That will please them.”

  “Nandi,” Bindanda said, and went off to their galley stores, with Narani in close supervision.

  The household ran without effort; it moved and buzzed about him, rarely disturbed him except to renew his supply of tea, while he sat at the small desk and composed letters and replies to various correspondents.

  To Toby:

  Write when you can. My love and my apologies to Jill and the kids.

  There was no letter today. He wasn’t that surprised in the silence.

  To his mother, with ulterior motives, both to hear from her and to hear whatever she might have heard about Toby… if she had heard a thing from Toby, which she might not have.

  Double reason for checking up on her.

  I’m doing fine. It’s an interesting place up here.

  He struck that beginning. She might take offense at his doing fine in an interesting place; it was somewhat self-centered on his part. He tried again.

  I’m just checking to be sure you’re all right. I hope Barb is improving. I want you to take care of yourself, and be assured I’m fine. I hope you’ll keep me posted on everything, and I want yon to be sure to get enough rest. I know how you tend to push yourself. I think I inherited it. Do stay to sensible places. You know how certain elements are dangerous when I’m in the news, and I think I am now. I imagine that I am. Know that I love you.

  He’d achieved a certain distance in his communication, after sending that other letter, that possibly hurtful letter. He worried about it, worried about it a great deal, and thought now that he’d been too harsh, too self-centered on his own part, to take every move his mother made as self-serving and self-centered. She was concerned for him, God knew. She was a mother. She had a son off on a hitherto unreachable space station telling her things were fine while armed security watched over her and everything she did. He’d been desperate; he’d shoved too hard to be free.

  What I wrote was honest at the time but one of those things that one starts thinking about; and both your sons love you a great deal. At something over thirty I’ve reached that stage of wanting to be free and to pursue my own course. Kind of late, but there we are. I haven’t taken Toby’s course, home and house and all. And I shoved far too hard when it came to it. Now that I’ve done that I find myself regretting it and wanting to know how you are and to tell you I care. Not to change my mind, but to tell you I care. Both are human, I think.

  The I think loomed out at him on rereading. In all honesty, it was an I think. He didn’t know for certain any longer, or hadn’t since his teens, when he’d gone into the University program and begun to separate from the culture he’d been born to.

  I don’t know what more I can say, except to take care of yourself in all senses. I wish I had been able to stay longer. We both needed that. But I’m doing a job here, the results of which I think you are able to see now, and which I hope will give those kids of Toby’s a future.

  He wrote to the heads of committees.

  We are making progress and hope for your patience. While there are agreements in principle, there are many details yet to work out of what I hope will be a good cooperation between our peoples.

  He wrote it until he began to see every flaw in the hope.

  And he settled down with Jago for a lengthy talk over the southern provinces of the aishidi’tat, their ethnic questions, their material resources and willingness to mobilize, those divisions of loyalty and wealth he knew, but which a human didn’t feel with the accuracy an ateva felt the divisions, and which a human couldn’t know with the breadth and depth of an ateva’s being immersed in them lifelong while being wired to feel the tides of provincial resentment.

  Was a little town building a railroad to a spaceport? Ask what various provinces might do once they saw prosperity within their reach. An ateva might make a pot to continue in the economy for a hundred years, and an ateva might utilize every scrap of a fruit, down to the peelings; but atevi also might have a color television in a house in which electric wiring was strung along the side of a stone floor, under exposed wooden rafters, some of which might have been replaced in the last century.

  Atevi made families and ties within man’chi, and passed these houses, and their debts and their projects, from one generation to another, an
d had both the most informal barter arrangements and the most rigidly traditional activities… give or take what humans sent them.

  Atevi when they came to the station might bring families, including aged aunts and grandfathers, which humans in their economy and focus might not understand.

  “Will it be like taking service in a household?” he asked Jago. “Or will husbands and wives come?”

  “Perhaps both,” Jago said. “As husbands and wives make unions in a household.”

  Atevi unions, like human ones, could be ephemeral. “Unions within a household last. They seem obliged to last.”

  “Or part amicably,” Jago said. “As one can. Or part for children, and come back again.”

  That was so. Lovers within a household might get their children elsewhere, by agreement, so as not to bring children into a household that was otherwise childless.

  “I would never forbid children,” he said, half wishing there were.

  “But the Bu-javid is a bad place for them,” Jago said truthfully.

  They were there to talk about the space station; but he looked at Jago, with whom he shared a bed on occasion, on opportunity, and wondered about children, which were not in the cards for them, certainly, biologically; and not for him, personally… he’d never wanted to leave a family of his own on the other side of the straits.

  “Up here there might be children. Or not, as people prefer.”

  “There were children,” Jago said, “who rode the petal sails.”

  Frightening as it was, certain pods had dropped onto the world with children aboard, all those years ago.

  “So there were,” he said. “And so there are on the ship itself.” Jase had told him so.

  “Like Jasi-ji,” Jago said.

  “And those with two parents,” Bren said. “Jase and I talked about it, how the crew knows who’s allied with whom; but outsiders wouldn’t. And they haven’t confined their children outside the Bu-javid, so to speak. And politics of personal relationship does exist.”

  Jago raised a brow. “One sees where there is no choice.”