Deliverer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Nadi,” he wrote to the old man who cared for his estate, “please express my gratitude to the staff, and accept my most earnest sentiments….”

  He plowed through more messages, mostly from department heads, felicitations on his survival, reports on where the scattered directors of agencies had fled, measures they had taken for the security of their staffs, occasional, probably very sincere apologies for having worked with the new administration—assurances they had only been waiting for reversion back to legitimate authority, and preventing damage to equipment or records by remaining at their posts.

  “The paidhi-aiji is extremely gratified by your message,” he wrote to each, with suitable variations for circumstance, and filed the details away in memory.

  He had gotten through a small stack of such messages when one of the dowager’s servants, Pahien, appeared in the doorway, reporting that he had a phone call—the staff, she said, with just too lively a curiosity, believed it came from the island.

  He leaped up, went out and took the call, in the dowager’s well-appointed library, hoping—

  Hoping it was Toby.

  “Hello?”

  “Bren. Delighted to hear your voice.”

  “Mutual.” A disappointment, but not a deep one. Not Toby. An official call, and welcome. Shawn Tyers, his old boss. The President of Mospheira.

  “I got your message. My staff’s been trying everything but rocket launches to get through to you. How are you?”

  “All in one piece. All of us are.” Damn, he hadn’t known he was that worried over Toby. But he was. He tried to re-sort things in his head, bring up the things he needed to tell Shawn. There were details he wished he dared give, specifics on who was where and in what degree of stability, but giving them over the phone was roughly equivalent to shouting them in the public street.

  More, if Shawn had been using unorthodox methods to get to him, the Messengers had not gotten them to him. And he took that mental note, intending to refer a complaint through channels—the Messengers’ Guild had roadblocks somewhere in its structure, purposeful slowdowns, he strongly suspected. And he did not trust them…nor, he thought, did Tabini.

  He retained, within his computer, the means to reach into the island secure network—if he had been able get a stable and noise-free connection, but his line to Shawn was far from noise-free at the moment, and he wasn’t ready to risk too much verbal frankness, not yet. No details.

  And Shawn seemed to observe equal caution. “Tell me all you can. Are you safe?”

  “We’re certainly in far better shape than we expected—the people have backed the aiji, the dissidents have fled without too much fuss: comfortable and secure here. The shuttles—the pilots and techs have saved the manuals and hid out. They’re coming back—some in transit at the moment. It’s going to take a while to get the shuttles flying again, but we’re in good shape there, comparatively. The University is back in operation; we didn’t lose the books.” The Astronomer Emeritus, Grigiji, had come into the fray with a handful of his faithful students. Grigiji and his entourage were currently resident in the hotel below the hill, with a fierce group of the coastal folk of Dur around them for protection…the hardiest Assassin would hesitate at that much trouble; and students who had carried away the precious books were filtering back to the University, with classes due to resume within days. “We’ve been promised full service on the dish in another few days…I’ll leave that to the Messengers’ Guild. But I’ve been trying to get through from my side.” He tried to sort his scrambled thoughts into order, trying to think what Shawn most needed to know, besides the restoration of Tabini’s regime and the good news about the space shuttles. The connection cracked and hissed, and might go down at any instant. “How is it aloft?”

  “The station reports all the refugees are now aboard the station and the new tank is functioning—they’re holding for another few months with no problems at all, but they’re sending down an order for fruit candy as soon as we can deliver it.”

  It was code for hurry-it-up, he understood that—four-plus-thousand new residents, refugees from the remote depths of space, dumped onto a station already short of supplies. That was a worry—but the wording was worth a laugh. He could actually laugh, now, if shakily, hearing Shawn’s voice. So much suddenly seemed possible again, including getting ahead of the mess. But the hissing on the line had increased.

  “Shawn, I’m afraid I’m about to lose you. Tell my brother, will you?” It went against years of discipline to give way to personal matters, but he couldn’t stand it. “Personal favor, Shawn. I haven’t heard from him. Can you find out if he’s all right?”

  The faltering line went completely dead, then, on one personal item he desperately wished he could learn—and before he was sure Shawn had heard him.

  But the phone had worked, and he’d gotten through to Shawn, at least, and Shawn had been aware of where they were. He was vastly relieved to have that, just to touch the island and to know things were well there, that the shuttle and crew that had brought them to the planet were still safe, that everything he relied on that wasn’t in his power was secure…and that the informal network of coastal radio and spies was still operating.

  He flashed the receiver, got the operator, and decided to press his luck on that personal matter, while the Messengers’ Guild was having a moment of efficiency. “This is the paidhi-aiji. Please restore the connection to the Mospheiran operators.”

  “Nandi,” the reply was, deferentially. “We shall try. Please wait.”

  He waited. And waited. And waited.

  “This is the Port Jackson service operator,” a human voice said, through static. “How may I help you?”

  “This is Bren Cameron, calling from the mainland. I need to reach Toby Cameron, either by ship-to-shore or residential phone.”

  “Which do you wish, sir?”

  “Try one and try the other. The boat name is Brighter Days.”

  “You have a bad connection. I’m not hearing you. Please redial.”

  “I’m calling from the mainland, for God’s sake! This is the best connection available. I need to reach Toby Cameron, ship-to-shore or residential. On the Brighter Days.”

  “You’ll have to contact the marine operator for ship-to-shore,” the reply came back.

  “Then call his residence, please.” On the verge of swearing, he gave the old number, the personal number that ought to stay valid for life, clenched and unclenched his fist the while. “This is an emergency.”

  “Yes, sir.” Blandly, as if sleepwalking. The woman still didn’t know who he was, or where. Not the brightest light in the phone service, Bren was sure.

  Clicks. Silence. More clicks. He bit his lip and waited, but the phone did ring. And ring. Toby’s voice came on, making his heart skip for the moment, but it was only the answering service, saying Toby was on his boat and could be reached via the Port Jackson operator.

  He tried to get the operator back. The connection cut out.

  “We have lost connection to the island, nandi,” the atevi operator informed him regretfully. “Shall we continue to try?”

  “Attempt to reach Toby Cameron on ship-to-shore, boat name Brighter Days.” He gave the name in Mosphei’. “Advise me when there is an answer—at any hour you receive it. This is an urgent personal matter.” He was trying to persuade himself his sudden attack of anxiety was only that. It hadn’t been so many days, and it was unreasonable suddenly to go feverish with desire for news, but the momentary thought it might be Toby calling had just taken the lid off his anxiety.

  Which was stupid of him. Toby might have stayed out at sea awhile, attempting to pick up shortwave transmissions, looking for information. Or if he had come back to shore, he probably was camped out on his boat in some harbor, even at Port Jackson, ready for a call to go pick his errant brother up off some beach on the mainland. Toby would very likely do exactly that, and maybe not communicate with Mospheiran authorities for fear of having the navy st
ep in and take the job away from him. He’d be ready for one phone call, the same phone call he was trying to get through to him.

  Toby was all right. He had to be all right. It could even be a weather delay. It had rained, hadn’t it? So there’d been weather at sea.

  He desperately hoped Shawn had heard his last statement in that call and would check up on Toby, which would bring down the whole Mospheiran navy into the search, for sure, but dammit, he wanted to know, and he wanted to know now. He wanted someone looking out for Toby, when he couldn’t go do it himself.

  He’d ask Shawn in the next call he made. Maybe by tomorrow the communications would be a little better. The Messengers were working on it.

  Frustrating. But that he had any phone contact with Mospheira at all was a great improvement over yesterday…a relief not just in his personal level of anxiety. Peace between the mainland and Mospheira rode a little easier now that Mospheira had been made officially certain Tabini was back in power, and the station could start making preparations to make drops of supplies and personnel on this side of the straits—if that had to be done—to help them get the shuttles flying…because the station, in turn, depended on the shuttles getting foodstuffs up to them.

  “Shall we continue to try the contact with Toby, Bren-ji?” Jago asked from the door.

  He hadn’t even realized she was standing there. The servant had departed.

  “Insofar as you have time,” he said, “yes, nadi-ji, pursue it with the Messengers’ Guild. I have some concern for him. One cannot understand why the Guild cannot come up with one clear line.”

  “Yes,” Jago said, receipt of an order.

  “Is there news?” he asked. She had that manner about her.

  Jago came all the way in and shut the door. “Tabini-aiji’s choice of bodyguards is under Guild dispute at this hour. The western and northern members want their own members near the aiji. The aiji has selected only Taibeni clan. This does not please the south or the Padi Valley. This may go on some hours. One believes the aiji will have his way, particularly as the last choice was not trustworthy.”

  The chief of Tabini’s guards, Ismini, was dead, with two of his men. Another had gone south, which said something. The surviving heart of the usurping regime was in the south, on the verge of eradication—politically struggling for what scraps of power it could get back, and damned cheeky to be asking anything.

  “There was some notion,” Jago said, “of myself and Banichi being called to that post. We have refused, Bren-ji. Banichi has refused a direct request from the aiji’s staff.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Tabini’s safety was paramount. But losing Banichi and Jago to Tabini—he didn’t know what he would do, and yet he couldn’t refuse the order to give them up, either.

  “We would not consider it,” Jago said, “and the aiji has graciously backed us in that determination.”

  He owed Tabini for that one. He ever so greatly owed him.

  “If it were advancement for you,” he said, constrained to think of their side of the situation.

  “No,” Jago said, flatly, and simply walked out on the discussion.

  Offended? He earnestly hoped not. But when he found her a little later in her quarters, she seemed content and rather smug.

  Preparations for the formal dinner still did not produce Banichi, nor Tano nor Algini. So it was an Infelicity of Two, himself and Jago, unless one counted them each a Stability of One—Bren personally chose to do so.

  Given any choice at all, he would have declined the honor of dining with people he knew wished him dead. But his appearance surely had its purpose. It was difficult for the aiji-dowager to hide his presence in her household: that he resided here was a matter widely known in the Bu-javid, and it was not the dowager’s nature to hide any controversial fact, not in the least. Her neighbors from the East surely knew her ways, her inviting him was a statement on her part, and the wisest thing he could do, he was firmly convinced, was to keep his expression pleasant and his mouth generally shut.

  So he gave himself up to the dowager’s domestic staff, bathed, dressed in his courtly best, braided and beribboned—he insisted on the white ribbon, the paidhi’s neutrality, rather than the black of the Lord of the Heavens, that title with which Tabini had attempted to put a human of no house into the ranks of the great houses. That distinction had been useful in dealings on the station. It was not useful here, and certainly not among conservative Easterners.

  “Nawari will accompany us tonight, nandi,” Jago informed him. That was one of Ilisidi’s young men, a member of the dowager’s own bodyguard, a very reliable man, and it improved the security, besides improving the numbers. “The young gentleman will also attend,” Jago added. And then dropped the bombshell: “So will the lord of the Atageini.”

  God. Lord Tatiseigi. Preeminent lord of the Padi Valley, in the central regions of the West, and an old flame of the dowager’s—in any sense, Tatiseigi was certainly an odd and volatile inclusion in tonight’s invitation. But Ilisidi and Tatiseigi had become thick as thieves since Ilisidi’s return from space, and perhaps the dowager meant her Eastern neighbors to see that she had strong allies in the West, that her power was increased, if anything, since Tabini’s return to power…and to make one additional point that if they shared her dinner table and sought her favor, they had to share it with her intimates and behave themselves.

  It was like a great deal else Ilisidi did: difficult to parse, and covered with thorns. Tatiseigi’s presence would not please the East, though in conservatism, they hardly had him outdone. More, he had to wonder if Tatiseigi knew that the paidhi-aiji would be there, or if Jago had gotten the full story of the dowager’s dinner party even from Nawari: Ilisidi’s guest lists could produce very uncomfortable surprises. Her sense of humor was not what other people called amusing, particularly when someone pushed, and he suspected it was in full force tonight.

  Jago appeared, sleek, black-clad, and armed, at the very moment they needed to depart. Nawari had showed up at the door, likewise elegant, a handsome young fellow—all Ilisidi’s “young men” tended to that description, besides their other qualifications.

  From there it was a short walk to the dining hall—and despite coming from within the apartment, he was not the first or even the second guest to arrive: Lord Tatiseigi was already there, his arm in an elegant brocade sling. Lord Tatiseigi had been wounded in recent action, and was quite proud of himself. Cajeiri was there, attended by two Atageini men in Assassins’ black, as well as the Taibeni youngsters, the latter in genteel court dress…rumor would tell the Easteners who and what the two anonymously-dressed young people were: not Guild, but certainly self-appointed bodyguards to the young gentleman—from a clan not highly approved by the Atageini, who asserted their close kinship to the heir…

  “Nand’ Bren!” Cajeiri said brightly, rising from his chair and bowing—due courtesy for a young person to an elder, but a little out of precedence. Bren managed a courteous, quick bow to Lord Tatiseigi, and had a nod from him, before addressing the youngster.

  “One is honored, nandi.” One saw the white token at the place opposite Cajeiri, and next to Lord Tatiseigi—and above the places designated for their guests. It was not where the paidhi would have chosen to sit…certainly not above a trio of Eastern guests. And one had an immediate intimation that the dowager was up to something.

  “One is bored,” Cajeiri complained, as he began to sit, but at that exact moment the Easterners showed up, a commotion at the doorway, with their own clutter of bodyguards and only the colored markers to tell them that they were sitting below the paidhi-aiji at the table.

  And just then, thank God, the dowager and her guard entered by the other door. Bren reached his seat, but remained standing. So did Cajeiri. Lord Tatiseigi—senior, elderly, and injured—made only the most perfunctory gesture toward rising, but received a small motion of the dowager’s hand, making even the effort unnecessary.

  There were grim bows f
rom the Easterners, and a lingering, frowning glance at the two Taibeni, as the dowager introduced her great-grandson, then Lord Tatiseigi—an impassive politeness on both sides, while Ilisidi beamed; and then smugly introduced the paidhi-aiji—“Whom surely you know, nandiin.”

  As if anyone could mistake him. The looks shifted his direction went a shade darker, and Bren chose to ignore the fact in a small, respectful bow—but not too deep a bow.

  The Eastern glower turned to stony smiles and polite bows, however, as their regard swept back toward Lord Tatiseigi and their hostess.

  Cheerful lot, Bren said to himself, and realized he had himself physically braced, as if shooting might break out at any moment. There was a godawful array of weaponry on every hand, openly visible on the varied bodyguards, that was certain. Only the Taibeni youngsters stood in civilian dress, stiffly polite.

  Ilisidi provided the names in their acknowledgment: Lord Caiti, Lady Agilisi, and Lord Rodi—Caiti was youngish, broad-faced, a surly customer. Agilisi, a thin, stylish woman, was expressionless, which never boded well among atevi. And Rodi, as plump as atevi came, eyed both the Atageini lord and the paidhi-aiji with a biding frown.

  Neighbors of the dowager’s estate of Malguri. Not the best sort of neighbors, Bren decided. And his chair was not too happily between Lord Tatiseigi on the right and Lord Caiti on the left. Never would he have thought to find Lord Tatiseigi the more comforting presence—but at this moment the old man was a haven of courtesy and kindness. Cajeiri was across the table, between his great-grandmother and Lord Rodi, a perfect model of young gentlemanliness and current Ragi fashion. It was chilling, the grim look on that young face when no one was addressing him: it transited to perfect affability and a spark in the eyes as quickly as ever his father could manage, as his great-uncle Tatiseigi addressed him and asked whether he had seen his mother today.

  Little politician, Bren thought. Never mind “little” was as tall as he was.

  “No, Great-uncle,” Cajeiri said quite cheerfully. “One is certain she is busy.”