Invader: Book Two of Foreigner

by C. J. Cherryh

  Meaning atevi had to be willing to shut down trade and go to unified bargaining with Mospheira or with the ship, depending on which party proved reasonable.

  “That doesn’t allow Hanks-paidhi to deal with lord Geigi for oil,” Tabini instantly pointed out. “Does it?”

  “The antithesis, I assure you, of what we want, aiji-ma. No province should make independent deals for anything. Everything in this emergency should go through Shejidan, just as Shejidan approves roads, rail, bridges and dams—trade should go through Shejidan, for the good of all the individual provinces so there isn’t, for one thing, undercutting of prices and selling of goods for less than their fair value. Pool all trade, all shipping: establish market value, pay the suppliers, the workers, the shippers on that standard, no exceptions, no profit for the central government, but no getting past it, either. The provincials have to understand they can lose money; and they have to understand the hazard of speaking with more than one voice when they deal with humans, exactly as I said in my speech, aiji-ma. Humans may quarrel among themselves: atevi can’t afford to. This is where atevi make up the technological disadvantage: atevi know what they want, they’ve already voted their consensus, and they can vote, hold fast as a bloc, and be ready to deal while the President of Mospheira is still consulting with committees. Be fast enough and the ship folk may well choose to deal with you rather than Mospheira. At least you can scare Mospheira enough to get a better deal than they’d have given otherwise—and they’re still your more natural ally, having dealt with you for two hundred years.”

  “Interesting,” Tabini said. Tabini clearly liked that notion. The provincial lords wouldn’t like it half as well, count on it. The lords of the provinces—and call a province a convenience of the map that only marginally described the real complexity of the arrangement—were always pulling in various directions for their own profit and for their own power if they could manage it.

  “The provincial lords,” Bren said, “have to find specific advantage for themselves.”

  “Believe me that I can find such advantages, in ways they will understand.”

  Meaning—the paidhi hoped—that the aiji would use bribes, fair, historically negotiated division of revenue, and not bullets.

  The paidhi was about to pursue that point—when lady Damiri happened in, sat down at the table, set her chin in her hand, and declared that she couldn’t help but overhear.

  “Daja-ma,” Bren said in confusion.

  “Perhaps you’ll persuade just this provincial, nand’ paidhi, of the means with which the Atigeini should deal with Mospheira.”

  “I—can only urge my host that the Atigeini are in the same position as every powerful house in the Association—that if atevi don’t deal as a unit, atevi will be at the mercy of the weakest and most desperate lords who will deal with humans when the aiji would urge—”

  “When the aiji would urge,” Tabini said, “that the provincial lords not sell to the humans, except at a price we agree, and under conditions we agree—with conditions which above all guarantee us access to the space station.”

  “What will we do with it?” Damiri asked—not the feckless question it might seem. “How do we come and go to this possession without this marketplace haggling over transport?”

  “Atevi are ready,” Bren said, and broke a chain of departmental rules, “for a major leap forward. Atevi are capable of safeguarding their own environment, their own government, and their own future. Atevi will secure access to materials and processes that go far beyond the designs we’ve already released. Atevi will have state-of-the-art earth-to-orbit craft, right along with Mospheira, and the paidhi hopes that atevi do better with advanced power systems than drop bombs on each others’ heads, nadiin-nai.”

  “Does your President say so?”

  “Aiji-ma, I say so. You have the Mospheiran President hanging on a frayed rope: there’s no way for Mospheira to get critical materials without dealing with atevi. The ship could mine the moon, if it had workers to get the materials to build the robots to get the materials, but that’s not practical. It needs supply and it needs workers. There’s no way that Mospheirans can come and go at will on their own craft and the paidhi allow atevi to remain only passengers. But—a big but, nadiin—we must rely on computers. We must file flight plans. There must be air traffic control up there. Or whatever one calls it. There will be changes, in short, in atevi thinking, in atevi concepts. The paidhi can’t prevent that.”

  Tabini was amused. The experienced eye saw it in the minute lift of a brow. An actual smile chased it.

  “Weinathi Bridge in the heavens?”

  A notorious air crash—which had persuaded even most provincial lords that precedence in the air couldn’t rely on rank and that filing flight plans and standing by them no matter what was a very good idea. Especially in urban areas around major airports.

  “We have only one station,” Bren said. “Humans and atevi must live there. Beyond trade cities—the station is very close living, very close cooperation.”

  “This place that killed so many humans. That humans couldn’t continue to occupy. Should atevi die for it?”

  “The station itself is suitable for living. And can be made far safer than it is. This is a possible place, daja-ma. This is a place where atevi and humans can find things in common, and work in peace.”

  “A place with no air. No earth under one’s feet.”

  “Just like in an airplane, daja-ma, one seals the doors and pumps air in.”

  “From where?”

  “In this case—I suppose we bring it in tanks from the planet. Or plants can create it. Engineers know these things. The paidhi is an interpreter. If you wish to see plans, daja-ma, I can say they’ll no longer be restricted.”

  “And the working of this ship?”

  Not a simple curiosity, he thought, and was on guard. “Not the actual numbers and dimensions and techniques, daja-ma. I know liquid and solid-fuel rockets very well. But what powers this ship, what kind of technology we may have to create down here to bring us up to date with that ship—I don’t know.”

  “Can you find out such things?” Tabini asked. “Can you get them from the ship?”

  “I can tell you that I’ll try. That eventually—yes, we’ll find a way.”

  “Find a way,” Damiri said.

  “Daja-ma, in all my lifetime I’ve always been able to look around me on Mospheira and see the next technological step. For the first time—Mospheirans and atevi will be making whatever next step there is together, into a future we both don’t know. I can’t promise. I don’t know. But atevi will have their chance. That’s what I can work toward.”

  “There is no word,” Tabini said, a question, “what this ship wants—beyond maintenance for the station.”

  “On a mere guess,” Bren said, “the ship’s crew is far more interested in the ship and in space than it is in any planet. What they do out there, where they go, what their lives are like—I suppose is very reasonable to them. I suppose it’s enough—to them—to have the ship working.”

  Damiri asked, “Can the ship up there take what it wants?”

  “I think,” Bren said, “daja-ma, that it might possibly, as far as having the power; but what it wants just isn’t so simple as to rob all banks on the planet and go its way. I can’t foresee all that it might want, but I can’t imagine it taking raw materials and manufacturing things itself. It never did, that I know.”

  “So what will it want, nadi?”

  His hostess never accorded him the courtesy of his title. There was always the imperious edge to the voice; and he glanced at Tabini, ever so briefly, receiving nothing but a straightforward, interested attention.

  “Bren-ji,” Tabini said, with a casual wave of his fingers. Tabini wasn’t unaware. Be patient, that seemed to mean, and he answered the question.

  “I think it wants the station to fuel it and repair it if it needs repair.”

  “Why?”

  “So
, perhaps, it can leave us for another two hundred years. In the meanwhile—we have the access to the station.”

  “This is quite mad,” Damiri said.

  “Bren-ji,” Tabini reproved his unadorned answer.

  “Daja-ma, the ship puzzles all humans. I can say it would be very much simpler for it to have Mospheirans work for it and not have to deal with atevi. But that would allow Mospheira power that would unbalance everything the Treaty balanced. I completely oppose any such solution. Even if atevi had rather not deal with them—I don’t think it wise to take that decision.”

  “The paidhi is human.”

  “Yes, daja-ma. But most Mospheirans don’t want to have their affairs run from space. I can’t speak for every official in office, but among ordinary people, and many in office as well, atevi have natural allies. Mospheirans stand to lose their authority over their own lives if certain other Mospheirans, very much like rebel provinces, have their way. To answer your very excellent question, naima—I don’t think the ship intends violence. By every evidence, they need the station. They want it the cheapest way possible. We have to prevent some humans from providing it too cheaply, without atevi participation. That’s the situation as plainly as I can put it. And we have the leverage to prevent it.”

  “Bren-ji characterizes the Mospheiran government as indecisive. Incapable of strong decision.”

  “Is this so?” Damiri turned her golden eyes to Tabini, and back to him. “Then why are they fit allies?”

  “Daja-ma,” Bren said, “Mospheirans have a long history of opposition to the ship. Second, there’s no strong dissent on Mospheira. There never has been, in any numbers that could cause trouble. The government isn’t used to dealing with the tactics of opposition—which I feel this time there will be. Shejidan, on the other hand, is used to dissent and rapidly moving situations. The President of Mospheira can’t conceive of what to do next, many but not all of his advisors are selfishly motivated, and he urgently needs a proposal on the table to give him a tenable position he can consider—results that he can hold up in public view. Publicity. Television, aiji-ma, that demon box, can draw his opposition into defending against the proposal you make rather than pushing their own program.”

  Tabini rested his chin on his hand. The two of them were mirror-images, Tabini and the prospective partner in his necessary and several years postponed heir-getting. One had to think of Tabini’s lamented father, and the dowager, and breakfast.

  And all that atevi talent for intrigue.

  “Such a reprehensible, furtive tactic,” Tabini said. “Can we not just assassinate the rascals?”

  One suspected the aiji was joking. One never dared assume too far. “I think the President believes his alternatives are all human. I think he would welcome a well-worded and enlightening message from Shejidan, particularly one suggesting workable solutions.”

  “Interesting,” Tabini said. And didn’t say he had to consult. One had the feeling Tabini’s brain was already working on the exact text.

  In the next moment, indeed, the forefinger went up, commanding attention: “Say this, Bren-ji. Say to your President, Tabini-aiji has raw materials indispensable to your effort. Say, Tabini-aiji will sell you these materials only if humans and atevi are to share the station. Say that to him … in whatever form one speaks to presidenti. Make up words he will understand and will not refuse.” The fingers waved. “I leave such details of translation to you.”

  Tabini said, further, “We’ll call the ship this evening, Bren-ji. Be ready.”

  He almost missed that. And didn’t know what to say, but, “Yes, aiji-ma.”

  9

  Tabini had made up his mind. Tabini was going to move, which notoriously meant a string of moves so rapid he kept his opponents’ situation in moment-to-moment flux. It kept his aides in the same condition, unfortunately for the aides, and dealing with Tabini in that steel-trap, no-pretenses mode, trying to think what that chain of actions was logically going to be, always upset his stomach. He wrote out the best wording he could think of for Tabini’s message to the island, atevi-style, reasonably simple. Lawyers had a practice, but never dominated the making of agreements—it might be the fact of assassination.

  Being ready for whatever came, however, meant not only delivering the message but querying the Foreign Office one more time to catch up to whatever events were proceeding on Mospheira—assuming that the Foreign Office might know by now that the ship had made an offer to Mospheira.

  One assumed something consequently might be going on in the halls of government and that Shawn might find a clever way to say so.

  But whatever the Foreign Office might know, the Foreign Office wasn’t admitting to anything. Shawn … didn’t want to come on mike, but Bren kept after it, and asked bluntly.

  “Shawn, do you know anything about an offer from the ship?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Are you sure? I’m dealing with some specific information.”

  “We don’t have any advisements,” was the limp and helpless sum of what Shawn could say, and no, to his subsequent query, the Secretary of State wasn’t available and, no, the undersecretary and his secretary’s secretary weren’t available.

  That didn’t inspire him to trust what the Foreign Office or the paidhi’s office under him was currently being told by the executive; and along with that, anything he was being told by the Foreign Secretary—who wouldn’t necessarily lie to him, but he had the feeling Shawn was signaling hard that he wasn’t getting information.

  He didn’t have backup. Now he didn’t have advice.

  He said, “Shawn, you’d better record this. The ship’s been talking, Tabini knows what’s going on, and Tabini has a message to deliver to the President to the effect that if trade’s going to continue, he has conditions which must include assurances. I’m telling you now in paraphrase in case communications mysteriously go down. Tabini-aiji has a message for the President personally, and if anything happens to the phones can you kindly get somebody on the next flight over here to pick up the aiji’s message in writing? I’m going to transmit at the end of this message, and I want you to get somebody to courier it over to the President, in person. This is official. There are people on Mospheira who may not want this message to reach the President. Do you read me?”

  “I’ll carry it myself.”

  He sent. It said, Mr. President, a message from Tabini-aiji. The offer from the ship makes no mention of atevi Treaty rights on the station. Tabini-aiji suggests that to accept this offer would negate the Treaty and stop trade of materials needful to carry out any accelerated building program.

  On the other hand, Tabini-aiji suggests that the inhabitants of this world, both atevi and Mospheiran human, enter into agreement to withhold our consent and cooperation until our needs are met. Clearly the ship wants workers, and has made an offer which may not be to either your advantage or the advantage of the Association.

  Recognizing this political reality, Mr. President, Tabini-aiji is willing to accelerate the pace of atevi technological development in order to promote atevi presence on the station and atevi natural interests in these affairs in the space around our planet and our sun. In short, Mr. President, we suggest a partnership between Mospheira and atevi which may secure the economy, the civil rights, and the political stability of both Mospheira and the Association as a whole. You will have your heavy-launch manned vehicle, and we will bear a half share of the station operation and maintenance.

  We have many cultural and biological differences, but we share a concern for a stable economy and the rights of our citizens to live in peace on this planet. If that now means cooperation in orbit above this planet, we trust that atevi and humans can reach a just and rapid accommodation.

  The aiji, speaking with the consensus of the hasdrawad and the tashrid, awaits your reply.

  He received an acknowledgment from Shawn. But he’d bet—he’d just about bet—the phones between Mospheira and the mainland would go dow
n within half an hour.

  He’d stretched the point. A lot. He’d used words nobody could say in an atevi language. He’d played on the concerns he was sure the President felt over shifts in internal politics which could throw him and the majority of politicians on Mospheira out of office.

  He had a headache. His stomach was upset from lunch. Or from the thought of what he’d implied in that message.

  Or from the knowledge he had to go real-time tonight and talk to the ship himself.

  Meanwhile he had a handful of troublesome official letters Tano had pulled from the pile of atevi correspondence, one of which was from the restricted-universe Absolutists, a sect of the Determinists, mostly from Geigi’s province, though there were—he consulted his computer file—others from small, traditional schools. They attached moral significance and their interpretation of human and atevi origins to a hierarchy of numbers that didn’t admit FTL physics—God save him: if he couldn’t find a numerical explanation of FTL, thanks to Hanks, the Determinists were going to rise up and call him a liar and insulting to their intelligence for claiming the ship wasn’t a case of humans lurking on the station for two hundred years in secret and preparing to swoop down with death rays.

  Banichi was missing. Jago had gone somewhere. That scared him to death. He had no idea, but he assumed the two absences were connected: Cenedi had hinted at serious trouble in the Assassins’ Guild, which could, as far as he knew, threaten Banichi’s and Jago’s lives as well as his. He hadn’t been able to ask Tabini, especially since Damiri had shown up and sat down—assuming admission to any meeting, any affair going on in the apartment.

  He’d had a question in the back of his mind when Damiri had intruded, and in his general haste to get the matter restated for this most influential—and clearly pricklish—of Tabini’s private advisors, he’d not found the opportunity to ask Damiri her meanings, her secrets, or her implications; and, damn, he didn’t know what it meant, or what rights Tabini had granted her—who wasn’t Tabini’s social equal, and who had constantly pushed not only at the paidhi’s dignity but at Tabini’s authority in that interview. Was there some cue he should have taken? Was there something he’d done in the apartment that had set Damiri off?