Convergence

by C. J. Cherryh

  “It is not irony, Mr. Chairman, simply an offer of assistance regarding context, which may be helpful. The materials are designed to be a key to the language, and I did consider the Departmental approach. I’m well aware the Department would rather rely on its internal experts and I take no offense at it. But I suggest that a consultation with the individual who actually took the notes is a valuable crosscheck. There will be gaps in the record, partly because some of the visual materials involve persons who should not be portrayed in Mospheiran materials, namely the aiji-dowager and the heir. But the kyo were quite willing to provide keys to their language—in fact, I would characterize their chief negotiator as someone with a paidhi’s skills and professionalism. I have a key to the written language, and to one of the very interesting aspects of their language, written indicators of emotion, which pepper their communication in sound, tone, pace, and volume, and which answer somewhat to facial expression, which they mostly lack. These moderate the meanings of the spoken or written word, much as our expressions moderate our language. You will hear it in recordings and see it in wave form analysis, and it can change the meanings of the spoken words. I have no desire to go deeper into detail here, but the material I have is in Ragi, which is the language the kyo find easiest.”

  “The language of your choice.”

  “Actually the language of the kyo’s choice, but they were willing to learn both.” An image welled up unasked, unwanted, and he didn’t let himself go to that place. “The young children the aiji wishes to entrust to your care also met the kyo, as did their parents. It was a beneficial contact, indicative of peace, and it set a good tone for the moment. The children themselves speak a little kyo, which they learned from the aiji’s son, who learned it in his face-to-face dealings with the kyo emissary. What I would like to put in your hands—is a fragile, easily misled contingent of young people, who do not deserve to be accused of the political sins of their remote ancestors, about whom they know nothing. These children love what they have seen of the planet, they have been exceedingly polite and respectful of things they don’t understand, and they are above all eager and willing to learn. They are an asset to any educational endeavor, and they are already under the protection of the aiji in Shejidan as paidhiin in their own right. They and their parents will live here under the protection of the aiji, and may become the target of politics at its worst, so I hope you will look out for their welfare. You are educators, before anything else. I have every confidence your own conscience will guide you appropriately in their case. You will have students who want very much to learn. And if they are not Mospheiran youngsters, and if they have been through experiences no Mospheiran has had to face, they are good young people, very bright, very respectful, and they will be excellent and rewarding students. I hope you will take them as a responsibility and a trust, and not tangle this all in politics.”

  There was a little clearing of throats.

  “Yet we have no say in their appointment,” Wilson said.

  “You have a major voice in their education, Mr. Wilson. Can there be any greater power? You are a voice for caution. Certainly they should hear that.”

  Oh, Wilson did not like him. The resentment of years burned in that look. Wilson didn’t trust him, Wilson didn’t respect him, Wilson took his dismissal as a lifelong mark against his service, hated the dowager with an abiding passion, and viewed Tabini-aiji as the devil who would bring Mospheira under atevi domination.

  “You have no interest in teaching caution,” Wilson said. “It’s nowhere in your plans—assuming you have overarching plans of your own, Mr. Cameron, and maybe you do. You’ve perfectly well acknowledged what you represent, which is not Mospheira.”

  “Correction, Mr. Wilson. I represent both parties in a dispute. That is the nature of paidhiin as the office is defined by the people who created it. If you have mistaken the nature of the office, I am sorry. I am quite clear on it.”

  Several members of the committee found it convenient to shuffle papers or otherwise look at the table in front of them.

  “Your presence with these armed assassins is an affront to a democracy.”

  “Strangely, the democracy asked me to include Mospheira in my negotiations with the kyo. I negotiated for both the aishidi’tat and Mospheira, which understands, officially, that the Reunion refugees are also Mospheiran citizens.”

  “That is yet to determine!”

  “Not according to the President, Mr. Wilson, from whom I received instruction. I regret the necessity to disagree with you, but that issue was not left to my interpretation, by either government. The aishidi’tat has given official notice it considers the human population of the station to be out of balance, and while, by treaty, the aiji might move five thousand atevi citizens onto the space station, he has been quite satisfied by the President’s declaration that the Reunion citizens, who have not passed screening for station residency, will be transferred to Earth in a reasonably expeditious process, in which the aiji has offered assistance. In short, sir, there is no way to regard the Reunion refugees as anything but human, and it is extremely convenient for both governments to see them settled on Earth in as rapid and efficient a fashion as possible. In that light, Mr. Chairman, I have proposed an expansion of the Linguistics Department to deal not only with the kyo language as of vital national interest, but also with the variant dialects of both Reunioners and the ship—as another matter of national interest, to help these people both contribute and assimilate, and to preserve that knowledge. The expansion I propose would be in personnel, in funding, and in physical structures. It can be done otherwise, but my first thought was to utilize the considerable expertise of the Department.”

  Funding. That magical word.

  “Where does the finance come from?” Koman asked.

  “Where it comes to the safety and residence of the first-down, the aiji will provide that, likewise assisting with the landing and transfer of cargo, which will be parachuted, thus freeing the shuttles for passengers on the Earthbound trip. This process will begin within a matter of weeks.”

  “Weeks!” That was Ogilvie.

  “Weeks, sir. The physical conditions aboard the station have reached such a point that something has to be done, or risk adverse health conditions, and security issues. Moving that population now will begin to solve it. And it will be needful for Linguistics to move on the situation very rapidly, or the State Department will take it entirely under its own management. It would be very much to the advantage of all concerned to have Linguistics fully involved in a cultural study, and involved in interviewing these new residents, collecting their experience for study, and in arranging programs to see them safely integrated into various communities. They are as diverse a population as, say, Port Jackson itself, with individuals ranging from scientists to workmen to, perhaps, a small number who may bear closer scrutiny. As I indicated—these people were born there. They have been through hell. And they have survived by whatever means. The History Department will also find them an interesting resource—while I’m sure National Defense and the Judiciary will have questions for those in a position to observe what happened. What will not happen is to rush these people through a checkpoint, hand them a suitcase and put them on a bus to random locations. There has to be a process that records, analyses, preserves information, and makes humane and proper judgments on individual problems. Can Linguistics handle it alone? No. Should Linguistics be a major resource? Yes. In my opinion, yes.”

  There was another silence, but not a hostile one, give or take the glare from Wilson.

  “If that will be all, I think I should leave you to settle the specific questions and advise the State Department exactly what you think you should do. I have received word that Heyden will be dedicated to the very first down, the three children and their parents. I would invite you to contact Dr. Katherine Shugart, who will be operational head of the Heyden center, or Dr. Tom Lund and Dr. B
en Feldman, who will be in constant touch with the University President and the Foreign Service.”

  A pause. A direct, though intermittent stare from Koman. “I think we have sufficient. We may be back to you with questions.”

  “I shall be happy to answer them. Thank you.” He gave a little bow, absolute reflex, turned and left, in atevi order. Banichi and Jago shut the doors as they left, and Tano and Algini formed up with them.

  “It went fairly well,” he said in Ragi, as they headed for the lift.

  “Wilson has aged,” Banichi said, “and not well.”

  Of course. Banichi had seen the man, some years ago.

  “Not well,” he said. It occurred to him that, had he wanted open warfare, he might simply have addressed Wilson in Ragi—inviting a response. But he had not done it, and he was glad he had not. He was glad to have held out several civilized offers to the man. And he was not at all sure that Wilson could, even yet, reply in the language. It would surely be a matter of principle with the man not to do it.

  He had launched one barb. He really wished he had not done that. But the Committee needed to know what Wilson did not seem to have accepted even yet, that it flatly didn’t matter which side appointed a paidhi to go negotiate with the other. The paidhi’s job, always and forever, was to represent both sides fairly, at whatever risk to his person.

  Wilson never had understood that. And possibly the Committee never had, either.

  Were the children already paidhiin? Not quite. Someone had to commission them, and that had not happened. There was a great deal they had to learn before they could serve. But were they qualified to serve? Once they knew how to serve both sides, yes, they would be qualified.

  But Tabini was right. To do that, they had to know Mospheira as well as they knew atevi.

  And he hoped he had put them in good hands. No matter what the Committee did or didn’t do.

  And if the Committee did monstrously badly—he had provided people with the initiative and resources to get the kids and their parents safely onto a boat headed for the mainland.

  18

  It was possible to see the stables from the upstairs window. That was as close as Cajeiri was able to get to where he wanted to be. He could see Jeichido. He watched her politick with the lesser members of the herd.

  He thought about what Uncle had said about a separate herd, a separate stable—his stable. He was still not sure what he thought about that—but watching Jeichido nip and fuss at the seniors in the herd, he could see why Uncle thought it might be a good idea. If mecheiti were running wild—there were almost no places left in the world where they could do that—Jeichido would separate herself, and raid other herds for individuals she could manage. That was the way they were. Diegi was far enough she would not have the temptation to confront Uncle’s herd; and if she came here now and again under saddle, with her own group, she would be far easier to handle. Compatible herds were a great advantage to an area. He could see that. Arranging to bring in a Taibeni presence was a good thing, too. It meant neighbors could cooperate, or just ride for pleasure. Or bring in new blood.

  He thought, however, he should ask Father for an allowance, and a fairly large one, if he was going to have the stable, and a head groom, and maybe others. Uncle should not pay it. He insisted not to have pieces of his household under this management, and that management. He should give the orders. He should have the man’chi, with no one in doubt. It was the way his father ran his household. He knew of other people who were a little more tangled—Mother, for one—but he never wanted to wonder things Mother had had to wonder. He wanted to know.

  He gazed out the window—the sill of which could do with a little dusting: he noted that little lapse in Uncle’s ordinarily immaculate house—and thought of his little office, and his state of no mail, ever, and he was not happy to contemplate having to keep accounts and write letters to more staff. Some things about growing up were to look forward to. Letter-writing was not.

  But it would gain favor from Father, he thought, if he did undertake to manage his own small stable, at least in the beginning. Mani said if one turned things over to staff without knowing how to do them, then one was surrendering authority, and giving it to somebody else. And he had little enough authority in the world, and maybe it was a good thing to run a stable and a house in Diegi before trying to run anything more ambitious.

  His own household was expanding. He might need somebody on his own staff to deal with the seniors, their laundry and their off-schedule meals and such, and just to help them with whatever they needed . . .

  Granted the senior Guild were going to stay with him. Which was also theirs to decide. Maybe they had rather not be burdened with a boy and a very young and very upside down junior aishid. They could say no and have, probably, any house in the aishidi’tat wanting them and willing to offer them all sorts of benefits if they would come.

  He rather hoped they would stay. They did take a certain amount of his young aishid’s focus away from him and onto themselves, but it all came back to him. It was just larger, was all. It was a good idea. It was useful now, when they had a threat at hand, and a situation that needed contact with Guild Headquarters. He did not now have any objection when his aishid asked for information. No one told the seniors something was classified.

  He dusted the window sill himself, so some servant would not get the blame for his fingerprints showing it up. He wiped his fingers, thinking that this little window, this inconvenient nook, probably was the boundary between the upstairs servants and the downstairs servants, and found itself neglected. Boundaries—were always chancy places.

  The order from market had gotten through this morning. Eggs had come in, along with vegetables. The grocer in Diegi had taken it on himself to make the estate delivery, and had come in besides with all the mail that had accumulated, a whole basket of it, which the staff had been sorting, which was why Uncle was in his office now, dictating answers to the ones that absolutely had to be answered. The rejection of his nomination had generated a flood of it, so this morning was full of unpleasant questions.

  So they did have eggs for Boji. They had not had any to spare for treats, but they did have now.

  And since they now had adequate bribes, if they got Boji into his harness, the only sort he had not yet escaped, they could go down to the storerooms and let him get a little exercise among sacks and crates he could not damage.

  But even to do that, he would first have to ask Uncle when Uncle had finished with his correspondence, and then he had to ask his own senior Guild, who outranked all the Guild in the house.

  His aishid was waiting for him in the hall just below this odd little window, waiting for him because there was nothing in the house to do but wait. He could ask for this. He could ask for that. But everything required permission from someone. He could ask permission to go down and talk to Nomari again. One part of him wanted desperately to do that. But he felt bruised, himself, from the last session, with questions asked in the open that led to other questions—and then no answers, because Nomari himself might not know.

  Did his mother know these answers? It had disturbed him most to know that the things they most wanted to know from Nomari—involved a time when his mother had been there, involved a time when assassinations had taken out key people in Ajuri. Lords, one after the other, had feared for their lives.

  He did not want to ask more questions. He did not want to dig up things maybe his mother tried not to talk about, that was one thing. He would go back and ask, when he had sorted things out himself. But now the Guild was asking questions—and now Uncle was thinking about having Nomari to dinner tonight. Uncle had asked him how he would feel about it, and he had frozen on that answer, for fear of how that would go.

  Well enough, for the dinner: Uncle was proper. But brandy afterward frightened him.

  It would just be—hard—sitting at table with someon
e he felt moved toward—and knowing the questions this person brought with him might touch on Mother’s relationship with Uncle, on Mother’s past, and the things Uncle and Mother never talked about.

  Was Uncle after something in particular? He had no idea. And he so wanted to go outside for a while, and just for an hour to escape to the stables, and not to think about dinner, and brandy, and questions that were edging on very uncomfortable ground.

  He had come to rely on his young aishid. He had told them things, discussed things with them he would discuss with no one else, but now he felt as if telling them his fears would give them things they would feel they should tell the seniors, and they should not. For the security of his family and all the delicate man’chi his father and his mother shared, he could not. So he stood up here to be as alone as he could manage, and knew he could not escape dinner tonight, if Uncle was set on that notion. He could not tell them why this cousin locked in Uncle’s basement upset him so. He could not explain his reasons.

  He wished nand’ Bren were here. He could sometimes ask nand’ Bren things that he would not even ask mani, because nand’ Bren sometimes thought of things differently, and gave him different ideas.

  His aishid, however, stirred from the bench below, and Antaro came halfway up the steps toward him, bearing a troubled look. “Geri-ji.” Geri-ji was the name that felt warm and good, but when he looked down he saw all of them on their feet, and worried, which had the feeling of ice about his heart. “People are at the gate,” Antaro said. “We are asked where you are. We answered. Seniors say we should stay upstairs.”

  It was not the advisement they would get if his father had sent someone, or if it were a tradesman with a delivery.

  At least there was a view from upstairs.

  “We shall go to the west windows,” he said, coming down the steps to join them. “What do they think they are? Nomari’s associates?”