Foreigner: (10th Anniversary Edition)

by C. J. Cherryh

  He daren’t go to a licensed doctor, for one thing. There had been blood on the terrace. Bren personally hoped he’d made life uncomfortable for the assassin, who clearly hadn’t expected the reception he’d met. Most of all he hoped, considering Banichi’s taking on the case, that life would become uncomfortable for the assassin’s employer, if any, enough for the employer to withdraw the contract.

  The doors opened. The guards and marshals let the crowd in, and the secretary accepted from the Day Marshal the towering stack of ribboned, sealed petitions and affidavits and filings.

  There were some odd interfaces in the dealings of atevi and humans. One couldn’t blame the atevi for clinging to traditional procedures, clumsy as the stacks were, and there was a computer record. The secretaries in the foyer created it.

  But ask the atevi to use citizen numbers or case numbers? Convince them first that their computer-assigned personal numbers were auspicious in concert with their other numerologies. Convince them that changing those numbers caused chaos and lost records—because if things started going wrong, an ateva faulted his number and wanted it changed, immediately.

  Create codes for the provinces, simply to facilitate computer sorting? Were those numbers auspicious, or was it some malevolent attempt of the aiji’s court in Shejidan to diminish their importance and their power?

  Then, of course, there was the dire rumor that typing the names in still produced numbers in the computers, numbers of devious and doubtless malevolent intent on the part of the aiji, conspiring, of course, with the humans who had brought the insidious device to earth.

  Not all that humans brought to earth was anathema, of course. Television was an addiction. Flight was an increasingly essential convenience, practiced as see-and-avoid by frighteningly determined provincials, although the aiji had laid down the law within his domains, requiring flight plans, after the famous Weinathi Bridge crash.

  Thank the atevi gods Tabini-aiji was a completely irreligious man.

  The matters before the aiji had one turn of the glass apiece—a summation, by the petitioner. Most were rural matters, some involved trade, a few regarded public works projects—highways and dams and bridges, harbors and hunting and fishing rights which involved the rights of the Associations united under the aiji’s influence. Originating projects and specific details of allocation and budget involved the two houses of the legislature, the hasdrawad and the tashrid—such bills were not the aiji’s to initiate, only to approve or disapprove. But so much, so incredibly much, still needed the aiji’s personal seal and personal hearing.

  For chief example, there were the feuds to register, two in number, one a wife against an ex-husband, over illegal conversion of her property.

  “It’s better to go to court,” Tabini said plainly. “You could get the money back, in installments, from his income.”

  “I’d rather kill him,” the wife said, and Tabini said, “Record it,” waved his hand and went on to the next case.

  That was why humans preferred their enclave on Mospheira. Mospheira was an island, it was under human administration, computers had undisputed numbers, and laws didn’t have bloodfeud as an alternative.

  It did, however, mean that for all the sixty so-called provinces and conservatively three hundred million people under the aiji’s hand, there was a single jail, which generally held less than fifty individuals awaiting trial or hearing, who could not be released on their own recognizance. There were a number of mental hospitals for those who needed them. There were four labor-prisons, for the incorrigibly antisocial—the sort, for instance, who took the assassins’ function into their own hands, after refusal by a guild who did truly refuse unwarranted solicitation.

  Sane, law-abiding atevi simply avoided argumentative people. One tried to have polite divorces. One tried not to antagonize or embarrass one’s natural opponents. Thank God atevi generally did prefer negotiation or, as a last reasonable resort before filing feud, a physical, unarmed confrontation—equally to be avoided. Tall, strong humans still stood more than a head shorter and massed a third less than the average atevi, male or female—the other reason humans preferred their own jurisdiction.

  He’d clearly annoyed somebody who hadn’t followed the rules. His mind kept going back to that. No one had filed a feud. They had to notify him, that was one of the stringent requirements of the filing, but no one had even indicated casual irritation with him—and now Tabini was putting lethal defenses into his quarters.

  The shock of the incident last night was still reverberating through his thinking, readjusting everything, until he had suddenly to realize he really wasn’t entirely safe walking the halls out there. Professional assassins avoided publicity and preferred their faces not to become famous—but there were instances of the knife appearing out of the faceless crowd, the push on the stairs.

  And in no few of the lords’ staffs there were licensed assassins he daily rubbed shoulders with and never thought about it—until now.

  An elderly gentleman brought the forty-sixth case, which regarded, in sum, a request for the aiji’s attendance at a regional conference on urban development. That went onto the stack, for archive.

  One day, he’d told the aiji himself, and he knew his predecessors had said it, one day the archives would collapse under the weight of seals, ribbons, and paper, all ten stories of the block-long building going down in a billow of dust. But this had to be the last petition for the session. The secretary called no more names. The reception table looked empty.

  But, no, not the last one. Tabini called the secretary, who brought an uncommonly elaborate paper, burdened with the red and black ribbons of high nobility.

  “A filing of Intent,” Tabini said, rising, and startling the aides and assembled witnesses, and the secretary held up the document and read: “Tabini-aiji against persons unknown, who, without filing Intent, invaded the peace of my house and brought a threat of harm against the person of the paidhi-aiji, Bren Cameron. If harm results henceforth to any guest or person of my household by this agency or by any other agency intending harm to the paidhi-aiji, I personally declare Intent to file feud, because of the offense to the safety of my roof, with Banichi of Dajoshu township of Talidi province as my registered and licensed agent. I publish it and cause it to be published, and place it in public records with its seals and its signatures and sigils.”

  Bren was thoroughly shocked. He felt altogether conspicuous in the turning heads and the murmur of comment and question that followed as Tabini-aiji left the dais and walked past him, with:

  “Be prudent, nadi Bren.”

  “Aiji-ma,” he murmured, and bowed a profound bow, to cover his confusion. The audience was over. Jago was quick to fall in with Tabini, along with a detachment of the household and personal guard, as Tabini cut a swath through the crowd on his way to the side doors and the inner halls.

  Bren started away on his own, dreading the course through the halls, wondering if the attempted assassin or his employer was in the room and whether the police escort would still be waiting out there.

  But Banichi turned up in his path, and fell in with him, escorting him through the Whispering Port and into the public halls.

  “Tabini declared Intent,” he said to Banichi, wondering if Banichi had known in advance what Tabini had drafted.

  “I’m not surprised,” Banichi said.

  “I ought to take the next plane to Mospheira.”

  “Highly foolish.”

  “We have different laws. And on Mospheira an ateva stands out. Find me the assassin in this crowd.”

  “You don’t even know it was one of us.”

  “Then it was the broadest damn human I ever saw. —Forgive me.” One didn’t swear, if one was the paidhi-aiji, not, at least, in the public hall. “It wasn’t a human. I know that.”

  “You know who came to your room. You don’t know, however, who might have hired him. There is some smuggling on Mospheira, as the paidhi is aware. Connections we don’t know
exist are a very dangerous possibility.”

  The language had common pronouns that didn’t specify gender. Him or her, that meant. And politicians and the aiji’s staff used that pronoun habitually.

  “I know where I’m safer.”

  “Tabini needs you here.”

  “For what?” That the aiji was undertaking anything but routine business was news to him. He hadn’t heard. Banichi was telling him something no one else had.

  And a handful of weeks ago Tabini had found unprecedented whimsy in arming him and giving him two hours of personal instruction at his personal retreat. They had joked, and shot melons on poles, and had supper together, and Tabini had had all the time he could possibly want to warn him if something was coming up besides the routine councils and committee meetings that involved the paidhi.

  They turned the corner. Banichi, he did not fail to note, hadn’t noticed his question. They walked out onto the colonnade, with the walls of the ancient Bu-javid pale and regular beyond them, the traffic flow on the steps reversed, now, downward bound. Atevi who had filed for hearing had their numbers, and the aiji would receive them in their established order.

  But when they walked into the untrafficked hall that led toward the garden apartments, Banichi gave him two keys. “These are the only valid ones,” Banichi said. “Kindly don’t mix them up with your old ones. The old ones work. They just don’t turn off the wires.”

  He gave Banichi a disturbed stare—which, also, Banichi didn’t seem to notice. “Can’t you just shock the bastard? Scare him? He’s not a professional. There’s been no notice. …”

  “I’m within my license,” Banichi said. “The Intent is filed. Didn’t you say so? The intruder would be very foolish to try again.”

  A queasy feeling was in his stomach. “Banichi, damn it. …”

  “I’ve advised the servants. Honest and wise servants, capable of serving in this house, will request admission henceforth. Your apartment is no different than mine, now. Or Jago’s. I change my own sheets.”

  As well as he knew Jago and Banichi, he had had no idea of such hazards in their quarters. It made sense in their case or in Tabini’s. It didn’t, in his.

  “I trust,” Banichi said, “you’ve no duplicate keys circulating. No ladies. No—hem—other connections. You’ve not been gambling, have you?”

  “No!” Banichi knew him, too, knew he had female connections on Mospheira, one and two not averse to what Banichi would call a one-candle night. The paidhi-aiji hadn’t time for a social life, otherwise. Or for long romantic maneuverings or hurt feelings, lingering hellos or good-byes—most of all, not for the peddling of influence or attempts to push this or that point on him. His friends didn’t ask questions. Or want more than a bouquet of flowers, a phone call, and a night at the theater.

  “Just mind, if you’ve given any keys away.”

  “I’m not such a fool.”

  “Fools of that kind abound in the Bu-javid. I’ve spoken severely to the aiji.”

  Give atevi a piece of tech and sometimes they put it together in ways humans hadn’t, in their own history—inventors, out of their own social framework, connected ideas in ways you didn’t expect, and never intended, either in social consequence, or in technical ramifications. The wire was one. Figure that atevi had a propensity for inventions regarding personal protection, figure that atevi law didn’t forbid lethal devices, and ask how far they’d taken other items and to what uses they didn’t advertise.

  The paidhi tried to keep ahead of it. The paidhi tried to keep abreast of every technology and every piece of vocabulary in the known universe, but bits and tags perpetually got away and it was accelerating—the escape of knowledge, the recombination of items into things utterly out of human control.

  Most of all, atevi weren’t incapable of making technological discoveries completely on their own … and had no trouble keeping them prudently under wraps. They were not a communicative people.

  They reached the door. He used the key Banichi had given him. The door opened. Neither the mat nor the wire was in evidence.

  “Ankle high and black,” Banichi said. “But it’s down and disarmed. You did use the right key.”

  “Your key.” He didn’t favor Banichi’s jokes. “I don’t see the mat.”

  “Under the carpet. Don’t walk on it barefoot. You’d bleed. The wire is an easy step in. You can walk on it while it’s off. Just don’t do that barefoot, either.”

  He could scarcely see it. He walked across the mat. Banichi stayed the other side of it.

  “It cuts its own way through insulation,” Banichi said. “And through boot leather, paidhi-ji, if it’s live. Don’t touch it, even when it’s dead. Lock the door and don’t wander the halls.”

  “I have an energy council meeting this afternoon.”

  “You’ll want to change coats, nadi. Wait here for Jago. She’ll escort you.”

  “What is this? I’m to have an escort everywhere I go? I’m to be leapt upon by the minister of Works? Assaulted by the head of Water Management?”

  “Prudence, prudence, nadi Bren. Jago’s witty company. She’s fascinated by your brown hair.”

  He was outraged. “You’re enjoying this. It’s not funny, Banichi.”

  “Forgive me.” Banichi was unfailingly solemn. “But humor her. Escort is so damned boring.”

  II

  It was the old argument, highway transport versus rail, bringing intense lobbying pressure from the highway transport operators, who wanted road expansion into the hill towns, versus the rail industry, who wanted the high-speed research money and the eventual extensions into the highlands. Versus commercial air freight, and versus the general taxpayers who didn’t want their taxes raised. The provincial governor wanted a highway instead of a rail spur, and advanced arguments, putting considerable influence to bear on the minister of Works.

  Computer at his elbow, the screen long since gone to rest, Bren listened through the argument he’d heard in various guises—this was a repainted, replastered version—and on a notepad on the table in front of him, sketched interlocked circles that might be psychologically significant.

  Far more interesting a pastime than listening to the minister’s delivery. Jago was outside, probably enjoying a soft drink, while the paidhi-aiji was running out of ice water.

  The Minister of Works had a numbing, sing-song rhythm in his voice. But the paidhi-aiji was obliged to listen, in case of action on the proposal. The paidhi-aiji had no vote, of course, if the highway came to a vote today at all, which didn’t look likely. He had no right even to speak uninvited, unless he decided to impose his one real power, his outright veto over a council recommendation to the upper house, the tashrid—a veto which was good until the tashrid met to consider it. He had used his veto twice in the research and development council, never with this minister of Works, although his predecessor had done it a record eighteen times on the never-completed Transmontane Highway, which was now, since the rail link, a moot point.

  One hoped.

  There was the whole of human history in the library on Mospheira, all the records of their predecessors, or all that they could still access—records which suggested, with the wisdom of hindsight, that consuming the planet’s petrochemicals in a vast orgy of private transport wasn’t the best long-range choice for the environment or the quality of life. The paidhi’s advice might go counter to local ambitions. In the case of the highway system, the advice had gone counter, indeed it had. But atevi had made enormous advances, and the air above the Bergid range still sparkled. The paidhi took a certain pride in that—in the name of nearly two hundred years of paidhiin before him.

  The atevi hadn’t quite mastered steam when humans had arrived on their planet uninvited and unwilling.

  Atevi had seen the tech, atevi had been, like humans, eager for profit and progress—but unlike humans, they tended to see profit much more in terms of power accruing to their interlocked relationships. It was something about their ha
rdwiring, human theorists said; since the inclination seemed to transcend cultural lines; a scholarly speculation useful for the theorists sitting safe on Mospheira, not for the paidhi-aiji, who had to make practical sense to the aiji of the Ragi atevi in the city of Shejidan, in Mospheira’s nearest neighboring Association and long-term ally—

  Without which, there might be a second ugly test of human technology versus atevi haroniin, a concept for which there was no human word or even complete translation. Say that atevi patience had its limits, that assassination was essential to the way atevi kept their social balance, and haroniin meant something like ‘accumulated stresses on the system, justifying adjustment.’ Like all the other approximations: aiji wasn’t quite ‘duke,’ it certainly wasn’t ‘king,’ and the atevi concept of countries, borders and boundaries of authority had things in common with their concept of flight plans.

  No, it wasn’t a good idea to develop highways and independent transport, decentralizing what was an effective tax-supported system of public works, which supported the various aijiin throughout the continent in their offices, which in turn supported Tabini-aiji and the system at Shejidan.

  No, it wasn’t a good idea to encourage systems in which entrepreneurs might start making a lot of money, spreading other entrepreneurial settlement along roadways and forming human-style corporations.

  Not in a system where assassination was an ordinary and legal social adjustment.

  Damn, it was disturbing, that attempt on his apartment, more so the more time distanced him from the physical fear. In the convolutions of thinking one necessarily was drawn into, being the paidhi—studying and competing for years to be the paidhi, and becoming, in sum, fluent in a language in which human words and human thought didn’t neatly translate … bits and pieces of connections had started bobbing to the surface of the very dark waters of atevi mentality as he understood it. Bits and pieces had been doing that since last night, just random bits of worrisome thought drifting up out of that interface between atevi ideas and human ones.