Convergence

by C. J. Cherryh

  A barrage of questions followed from the reporters. He said nothing. Shawn simply held up the document case, potent visual that it was, and said, “We shall be studying the document and hearing the paidhi’s report. We will report to the people the precise provisions of the agreement in due course, but in our understanding, it asks nothing that it does not grant. It’s a fair request from them for privacy in their territory and a fair understanding of our rights to the same. It accounts of Mospheira as a political entity along with the aishidi’tat, and honors us as a nation. We have peace, fellow citizens. We have peace on Earth and now a lasting peace in the heavens!”

  Clever Shawn. Peace got a cheer. Count on it. So did respect for Mospheira.

  And with that, Shawn signaled a farther walk, away from the cameras, and off to the waiting vehicles.

  “Good show,” Shawn said, his senior, his old boss in State, his ally in the Presidency.

  “Good news in that document case, too, for which we’re sincerely thankful.”

  “No surprises in it. Promise me.”

  There was the sticky part. Tell the truth or not.

  Not, he thought. Not at this point. Enough people knew, so that if something happened to him—critical people knew enough, to pass the word along to another generation.

  “No surprises,” he said. And that was his decision.

  • • •

  “Take care,” Mother said. She had brought Seimei to the foyer, holding her, to see her brother off. Father was there. Father’s Guild senior was. And the major domo and a collection of servants that went back and back. Mother had not brought Seimei to see him off when he was leaving the planet. And the news services had not been advised then, either. Now they were. It was all to be public, his first solo venture as his father’s heir . . . on an official visit to his great-uncle’s estate, a holiday as a reward for his bravery in the heavens: that was what they had told the news. There would be news people at the train station, under Guild watch, to show official pictures of him boarding the Red Train, and going off to visit Uncle.

  The news people would be down there right now, there getting pictures of Boji, and Eisi and Liedi, while everybody was trying to load baggage . . . and that was embarrassing. Ordinary people did not load on a cage as big as a wardrobe case, with Boji’s screeches raising echoes in the station. All through his life, for the rest of time, he thought, whenever the world thought of him, the news would call up their pictures of Boji and the train station.

  His new aishid was supposed to meet him down there. That was why they were getting such a late start in the trip—his aishid had had business to finish, whatever it was, and that had taken longer than anybody expected, so with one delay and the other, they were not going to get there for supper. It was all inconvenient. But it also worked out that they would certainly make the evening news, and on this trip, cameras and the most noise possible were precisely what they were after. That was what Father had said. And Father had given him a speech to make: he was horrid at memorization, but he knew, at least, what he had to say.

  “Honored Mother, honored Father.” He gave a proper bow, and Seimei, disturbed, made a face at him.

  “Do not take chances,” Mother said.

  “Listen to your aishid,” Father said.

  “Yes,” he said to both, bowed again, and headed out into the hall with Antaro and Jegari, with Veijico and Lucasi, and with four of his father’s Taibeni bodyguard to be sure he had no difficulty at the train station and linking up with his new bodyguards. That meant a great number of black uniforms about him. He traveled in a red traveling coat with black trim—the brighter side of the Ragi colors, with brown trousers and comfortable riding boots—he had last worn them at Tirnamardi, and they felt good on his feet, the way the light coat felt good on his shoulders. He was out on his own, dressed for the country, headed for days of riding and being free of court dress—and he would have been happy, except for the news, the speech.

  And four strangers. Four adult strangers about to move into his life.

  He had his aishid. They were his very closest associates. That relationship was under question today. He had sent Boji ahead, thinking somewhat sadly all the while that this might be the last trip with him, and four complete strangers were waiting for him down at the station, in the lights and cameras, so that any frown on his face was going to be shared with the whole aishidi’tat.

  Father’s guard had the lift waiting for them, and they all got into it, eleven persons in all, in a drop down all the floors of the Bujavid, below ground and far, far below.

  Calm, he told himself, and put on a pleasant expression, his very best, at the last moment, as the car came to a stop in the hollow heart of the hill. The doors opened on an echoing concrete hall, next to the noisier concrete dome that was the train station, a huge space with multiple tracks, and lights mounted on girders.

  And a knot of brighter lights, as they came out onto the concrete platform, lights clustered at the nearest of the massive girders. That was the permitted camera position. He had faced it before with his father. With mani. It ordinarily was his job just to walk straight through, and not to talk to them—one rarely did, at this station.

  But this was not the ordinary day, or the ordinary time. He stopped and the news people looked hopeful. He gave a little nod in their direction, and they moved in respectfully, with microphones—quietly, as news folk were required to do, who were chosen to be here.

  “Nadiin,” he said, and immediately the specific words his father had told him to say flew out of his head and left him in a moment of panic. But he had experienced that desertion before. He simply pulled up the gist of it and went ahead.

  “One is very glad to be home. There were scary moments up at the station. We met with representatives of the kyo people, and it all turned out very well. My father will have a great deal to say about the treaty—” He remembered that much that he was supposed to say. But the rest went skittering off again. “It was the kyo we met before who was aiji, he brought his son, and we were able to talk to each other and really understand. They just want to be sure we are good neighbors, and we are both happy. I am home now, and I have a few days to go visit my great-uncle and go riding. I have hardly ever gotten a chance to go riding.”

  “Will more of the kyo come back, young aiji?”

  It was an unpermitted question, and his father would have taken it only if it was exactly what he wanted to say—and it was.

  “Not soon,” he said. And immediately turned and went on his way toward the train, with, he hoped, the finality mani or Father could manage. He probably should have remembered his speech. He probably should not have answered the question. But now he was away, with Guild like a wall all about him, who would not let the news people follow him.

  The Red Train was waiting in its ordinary position—freight trains might come up one way and back all the way down the turns, but the Red Train repositioned itself after every run, a little train, with only two cars today. He paused at the steps up to the car, he thanked the senior of Father’s security, who had delivered them safely and helped them manage the news people.

  He hoped the man did not think him a fool. He hoped he had not answered badly. He wished he had remembered the way his father had said it.

  “Tell my father I forgot,” he said. He heard Boji scream out from the baggage car, and was mortified. “Tell him—tell him I think it was all right.”

  This, while Antaro and Jegari climbed up the steps to the Red Car, being sure that all was well inside. He followed, feeling Veijico and Lucasi behind him, and saw that they were not alone inside—that Antaro and Jegari had stopped, facing four older Guild, gray-haired, two of them, and the other two graying.

  He stopped, frozen. Veijico and Lucasi stopped. It was the new unit: it must be. Antaro and Jegari would have given an alarm, else. That was the first startled thought. The four,
indeed, gave a little nod to his arrival, what passed for a bow with Guild, who could not afford to take their eyes off situations. He repaid it with the same courtesy.

  “Young aiji,” one of the four said.

  “Nadiin,” he said.

  “They are Guild instructors,” Veijico said, a hushed voice at his back. “They are senior Guild instructors.”

  “Rieni,” the foremost said, introducing himself. “My partner, Haniri. The second team, Janachi, Onami. We have the honor to be assigned to your household, at least for this venture.”

  Guild instructors. Gray-haired Guild instructors. His father had said Banichi and Cenedi approved them. His aishid knew them. And sounded utterly appalled.

  “One is pleased,” he said, as the door slid shut, sealing them in. Himself, his aishid. And this unit. “Welcome.” It was uncomfortable. He was not prepared for Guild that senior. What, he wondered, could old people do if they came under attack?

  Though they did not at all have a frail look.

  “Will you sit?” he asked. “We should have the galley stocked. I have servants, but—” My servants are in the baggage car attending a badly spoiled parid’ja—was not what he wanted to say to these people. “They will be in the other car, but we can manage.”

  “Certainly. Shall we call the engineer, nandi?”

  Someone had to call the engineer and tell him they were ready to move.

  Or they could have sat there for the rest of the day.

  There were a lot of details he and his aishid were not used to handling for themselves.

  “Yes,” he said, feeling his face warm, and quietly Rieni sent Haniri to make that call. “Shall we take the rear bench, then?”

  “Nandi,” Rieni said, and made room for them to pass, back to the bench seat, near the little counter-height galley.

  They sat down, he and his aishid, while the seniors investigated the galley. “Are we all right?” he whispered to his own upside-down aishid.

  There were nods, but with sideward glances, as if they had let something dangerous inside the car.

  “Do we have a problem?” he whispered.

  “No,” Jegari whispered back, still with a wary look, distracted as Haniri rejoined his unit.

  Rieni turned and asked, “Shall we have tea, nandi?” as the train began, inexorably, to roll.

  “We should serve it,” Lucasi said urgently, and got up to do that. So did his aishid, all of them, as Rieni and the other three seniors quietly sat down.

  The train proceeded. He sat gazing at four strangers who scared his aishid. His aishidi was not afraid of anything, that he had ever seen. Instructors, they said.

  What had his father handed him?

  Another aishid. Four men, not youngsters—who expected him to be serious, and not to embarrass them, or to give stupid orders.

  And he had been out on the steps apologizing for forgetting every single word his father had told him to say, because he was stupid, and he probably had said something he should not have said to the reporters. He had only remembered to add he was going to Uncle’s estate. And riding. They were two separate things. And he did not remember how he had even connected them.

  It was going to be, he thought desperately, a long train ride.

  • • •

  Francis House was a place Bren had never seen the inside of—tourists did, in the two thirds of the year the President wasn’t in residence, but his own family—himself, his mother, and Toby—had tended to go to quieter places, the heart of the island. In University days, he’d just been too busy.

  So here he was, in what had been a private house, before a catastrophic attempt a hundred years ago to colonize Crescent Island had come to shipwreck and financial ruin. The previous owner’s taste had been, well, a little floral—a choice which persisted because of a bequest that the house should belong “to the Mospheiran state as a museum to the career of Oliver Q. Francis and the Crescent Island Company.” The choice to make it the summer residence of the President was the choice of the Port Jackson city officials, who, presented with the honor, had opted to use Francis House, which spared them building a dedicated residency and likewise upped the tourist appeal of the place, during its months as a museum.

  It had one useful grace, high ceilings and tall doorways, which for atevi guests was a good thing. The beds were not oversized. But staff had certainly made heroic efforts since Toby’s call, and the Presidential guest suite, an infelicitous four rooms unless one counted the bath, had a stately bedroom and a dining room, with two additional bedrooms. Floral bedspreads, floral curtains—thank God, the wallpaper was only striped.

  He saw his aishid look about at furnishings more alien to their eyes than the kyo ship had been. His own just saw it as—a style that had been in vogue before he was born. The current one was a little on the sterile side. “Historic,” he said. They had provided plenty of pillows and fans in all the bedrooms. And in the way of things, since Jago would be very happy to share his bedroom, they had rooms enough for Narani and Jeladi to themselves. So it was overall very comfortable, well air-conditioned, given seaside Port Jackson was cooler than the inland cities, and the evening breeze would make it very pleasant.

  “Security is not great,” Banichi said, looking up at the transom windows of the main room.

  “The Presidenta has similar accommodations, one is sure, but do not place wires within the premises: one has nothing so secret as to be worth maiming someone. Threat is far more likely to come on an excursion, or aimed at Toby. And the Navy will prevent that. One is more concerned about these frail historic chairs.”

  “We shall, with apology, move a few of the larger ones in from the balcony,” Banichi said. There was indeed a balcony, which overhung pleasant grounds, behind an iron fence. “It will disturb the arrangement, which we trust will not greatly disturb the staff.”

  “There are no kabiuteri on the premises,” Bren said. “Do it by all means. I should hate to test the joints of that stripewood secretary set even with my weight.”

  It was going to be an issue, in no few instances, chairs, tables—there was a tea service of some antiquity, which his staff would surely treat with respect, but the teapot was quite undersized, and there was no samovar, which posed the problem that every call to the kitchens or house staff that Narani might ordinarily make, he had to make, and the matter of an electric kettle, the normal arrangement on Mospheira, was his affair.

  Well, he thought, there was a phone, and the lines were labeled. He called, asking a flustered first floor housemaid for a teakettle—no, he did not have the number for house services, he was the atevi ambassador, his staff did not speak Mosphei’, and would she kindly call services and secure them a fairly large electric kettle?

  The kettle arrived, in the hands of a maid who managed to look about, wide-eyed, while delivering it.

  Narani and Jeladi, too, remaining with the luggage, had been out of contact with them temporarily, and now did reach them by Guild communications, saying that Toby was away safely, and they were coming up in an elevator, and would be there momentarily.

  All that was well, and very soon they were in receipt of the massive cases, which did manage to go through the fairly generous sitting room doors, but not further.

  “We shall simply use them as a closet,” Bren said, “and consolidate them in the corner: we may move the floor lamp and the chair.”

  Narani, out of breath, simply gazed at the disarrangement, which, with the help of Jeladi and his aishid, involved a potted plant, a floor lamp, a writing desk and its chair, a much more massive chair, a side table, and a leather hassock—but they managed the cases so that, as designed, they could function in that fashion.

  The displaced furniture combined inelegantly in a lump in an opposite corner, taking out of service an extensive bookcase and display cabinet.

  But they were officia
lly arrived, and in, and they sat down to have a well-earned cup of tea, he, his aishid, and his wind-blown staff.

  “We have two showers,” Tano reported. “Two accommodations of the predicted sort.”

  “We shall use whatever is available,” Bren said, “sharing everything.” It felt less like the arrival in an affair of state than a camping trip—improvisation seemed the order of the day. Shawn would probably view it all in some embarrassment and do all he could to accommodate them, but there was no need: they were in, they were secure, and the last thing he planned to do was entertain in the premises.

  They sat, with tea which they had brought—in case: they found chairs substantial enough for all of them, and hot water, and a chance to take their collective breath.

  There was a television. Bren turned it on, muted, so that they could watch for coverage and commentary, just to take the temperature of the populace—and find out who was saying what.