Invader

by C. J. Cherryh

  “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.

  15

  Tabini 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.

  Pachiikiin, fat and sleek with the summer. He was in a vastly better mood and didn’t care if the shoulder ached.

  He’d scared Tano and Algini with his sudden reaction to the animals. They tried to settle unobtrusively, but he knew he’d alarmed them—and they’d looked for some agency that might have spooked them, that was the way their minds worked.

  “I miss Malguri,” he said to them, by way of explanation. He didn’t think they justly should miss the place, Algini in particular, with his bandages—and he had to ask himself what Algini could do, slow-moving as he still was, if there was a security problem.

  Safer than the Bu-javid, Jago had said. Which was probably true.

  And a thirty-minute ride, during which he saw no few examples of mountain wildlife, brought them within sight of the Saigiadi Observatory dome. A handful of minutes more brought them to a debarkation at the small depot that verged—inelegantly but efficiently—on a storeroom.

  Students met them, bowing and offering to carry anything that wanted carrying—excited students, thrilled, as the student leader said, that the paidhi came to dignify their school, and offering a—God help him—small presentation copy of the observatory’s work, which he was relieved to see consisted not of a recitation but a written report, a history of the place, with photographs, put together in that scrapbook way that very small businesses used to promote their craft, their wares, their trade.

  “Please keep it, nand’ paidhi,” they wished him, and he was quite touched by the trouble they’d gone to, and vowed to look through it and see—he was moved to such extravagance—if the observatory could not be recipient of some of the first data that they derived from the ship’s presence—

  Which he was very willing to do if only he could get through the ceremony to talk to the venerable astronomer emeritus, who was, the students assured him, quite brilliant, and very willing to talk to him, but who—it developed after a quarter-hour of close questioning—was asleep at the present moment, and the students didn’t want to waken the venerable, who waked when he wanted to wake and who, it developed in still more questioning, this time of the senior astronomer who put herself forward to explain the astronomer emeritus, became irritable and difficult if waked out of a thinking sleep.

  “The paidhi has come all the way from Shejidan,” Tano objected, which was the thought going through the paidhi’s mind, too. But on Banichi’s warning that the man was elderly and noncommunicative … the paidhi thought it better to be politic.

  “When does he usually wake?”

  There was embarrassed silence, on the part of the senior astronomer, her staff, and the students.

  “We pleaded with him, nand’ paidhi. He said he’d thinking to do, he took to his room, and we—can try to wake him, if the paidhi wishes.”

  “Against your advice.”

  “Against our experience, nand’ paidhi. Assuring the paidhi that the emeritus by no means intends a slight.”

  “He does it in classes,” a student said, “nand’ paidhi.”

  One began to get the idea.

  “Perhaps,” he said moderately, “the faculty and staff could work on my answers.”

  “We have,” the senior said, bowing again.

  “For two days,” the second senior said.

  “You have my questions, then,” he asked, and, oh, yes, the senior said, on receipt of them—no regard to any secrecy of the aiji’s seal, oh, no—they’d posed them to the whole class and they had every reference looked up with all propitious calculations—so far as they had data.

  “But the shape of the universe,” the senior said, “that persistently eludes speculation, as the paidhi may know, since the imprecision of measurements taken from the earth, together with its deviations—which are negligible in the scale of the earth, and considerable in such precise measurement as one makes of the stars—”

  “Together with atmospheric flutter and distortion,” the second senior said, and dug among his papers while the senior diverted herself to maintain she had taken that into account in her sample figures—

  The paidhi was getting a headache, and the head of astronomical philosophy, nand’ Lagonaidi, was handing him sheets and sheets of arguments on cosmological theory—while Algini and Tano sat quietly by the door and perhaps understood one word in ten.

  “Actually,” the head of Philosophy broke in to say, “the Determinists have taken the imprecisions of earthly measurement as a challenge. But all scientists in astronomical measurement are automatically suspect.”

  “Because of changing measurement.”

  “Because, among other things, of eccentricities of position. —Which can be explained, by modern astronomy….”

  “Mostly,” the senior astronomer interjected.

  “But,” Philosophy reprised, “where does one possibly find smooth transition from the finite to the infinite when the numbers only grow more and more vague? I confess I find it disturbing—but I have moral confidence that such a system will evolve. And necessarily along the way toward such perfection, atevi will quarrel over the branchings of the path only to discover that some paths have woven back together in harmony. There will be gaps in our understanding, not in the order of the universe.”

  “They have to be perfect numbers,” the senior astronomer said. “Numbers to make more than delusory and misleading sense need to be perfect numbers.”

  “I assure you they’re perfect numbers,” Bren said, feeling out of his depth, but fearing to let the conversation stray further toward the abstract. “Since stars are definitely there, at a distance and a continual progress of positions relative to our own which is quite specific if one knew it.”

  “But the wobble in the earth itself—” Philosophy said, which launched another argument on divine creation versus numerical existentialism that left the paidhi simply listening and despairing he could gain anything.

  Lunch … was a formal affair involving the head of the village in the valley, the local justice, the chairman of the Caruija Hunt Association, the Caruija Ridge Wildlife Management and Research Organization, the regional head of the Caruija Ridge Rail Association, as well as spouses, cousins, and the legislative representative’s husband, the wife being in the hasdrawad, currently in session.

  Not to mention the junior poetry champion, who read an original composition praising the region, followed by a local group
of children who, with drums, sang a slightly out of unison popular ballad.

  The paidhi kept shielding his arm from chance encounters and hoping simply to get through the day. His notes were very little more than he’d arrived knowing, held words the exact meaning of which he was still trying to pin down, and he’d escaped to the academic meeting room where he was due for his next session, with Tano and Algini to hold the door against early arrival.

  He had aspirin with him. He dared take nothing stronger. He asked Tano for a cup of water from the nearest source, and sat trying to make his elbow and his shoulder work—his intellectual occupation for the moment.

  “I think they’re quite mad,” Algini confided in him. “I think the faculty has been out in the mountains too long.”

  “They’re a small village,” Tano said, bringing him the requested cup of water. “And a truly important visitor and the aiji’s personal interest is an event.”

  “We can only hope,” Bren said, “for a felicitous outcome. I do begin to ask myself—”

  But the staff was arriving in the room, and the session resumed, with a brief address by the senior astronomer and another by the head of Philosophy, the latter of which was at least contributive of a history of the impact of philosophy on astronomical interpretation, and the formation of major schools of thought. A small and respectful contingent of students sat in on the speech at the back of the room, furiously taking notes; the paidhi took his own, writing, and not recording without formal consultation—he wanted, he made a note to himself, to obtain a copy of the speech. Which he thought might please the elderly gentleman.

  “Lately,” the gentleman said, “the funding for research into astronomy has sadly declined from the magnificent days of the Foreign Star, in which the science of telescopy was funded by every aiji across the continent, particularly among the Ragi. The estimation that humans have far more exact and secret data, nand’ paidhi, has made aijiin and the legislatures certain that such will be handed them on some appropriate day and that funding atevi astronomers is superfluous. Which I do not believe, nand’ paidhi. We have dedicated ourselves to the proposition that it is not superfluous to study the heavens in our own way. We hope for the paidhi’s consideration of our proposal, for the quick release of human observations of the heavens, and human—”