“But we could do it here, honored Father! We could connect up the mail and the phones and the security systems and the servants and everything just like theirs, and once you have the computers talking to each other, it goes far faster than phones, because if you call someone, you have to say hello and they have to say hello and you have to talk through the courtesies, but these are just pieces of information, just sitting there waiting for you, just the things you need to know. And they fly from computer to computer as fast as thinking. Mani-ma said there was a rudeness about it, but if one’s staff does it, then the servants can throw out the silly bits and find the important things. Mani’s staff did, and her staff sent back and forth to Lord Bren’s all the time. The Guild does it. One is very certain the Assassins’ Guild does it.”
“Interesting.”
It was close, so close. He had his father’s attention. He plunged ahead. “If I could get Gene to get the manuals—he could just send them down to me by Mogari-nai, and once we had the manuals, we could set it up with just two or three computers, and then we would hardly need the—Messengers’ Guild.”
“One is certain the Messengers’ Guild would be gratified to think so.”
“But, well, they could find something to do. They can run computers.”
“Gene is this young associate of yours on the ship.”
“He is extremely reliable, honored Father.”
“And he will somehow find the ship’s manuals and give them to us without the paidhi’s intercession? Remarkable, this reliability.”
“Everybody has the manuals, honored Father, well, the ordinary ones…One can even use the computers to read their own manuals.”
“And you can read them that fluently?”
He was caught with his mouth open. He shut it, and bowed. “Yes, honored Father. I can.”
“And in which language does my son habitually speak with Gene?”
Deeper and deeper. And a lie would come out to his discredit, at the worst possible time. “Whichever one seems to fit, honored father.”
“Ah,” his mother said. “So Gene speaks Ragi.”
“A little. Just a little of the children’s language.”
“And you,” his father said, “speak the ship-language and Mosphei’ and this alien language, too.”
He bowed respectfully. “Yes, honored Father. Expediency.”
“Expediency. What a precocious choice of words.”
“Mani would say that. But she taught me, honored Father.”
“Well, well, two years in her care, and one is hardly surprised at such thoughts.”
“I ever so need to maintain these associations with the ship-folk, honored Father. You have nand’ Bren, and his advice. I have Gene.”
“A person untested and unadvised.”
“He will grow up, honored Mother. And so will I!”
“And you wish to slip a personal letter through this wonderful system,” his father said, “of course with a ship-aiji’s permission, asking that technical information be sent down—with or without the paidhi’s intercession?”
“It would be absolutely no inconvenience to the system, honored Father. And nand’ Bren would approve. And it is honorably owed that I present courtesies to Gene-nadi. I had no proper chance even to speak to them when I left.”
“Them,” his father said. It was a question.
“Gene, and Artur, and Irene, and Bjorn.”
“The convenient number of a personal guard.”
“They were that. They were, honored Father. They would defend me.”
“They are children,” his mother said.
But his father gave a small wave of his hand, which he dared hope was indulgent dismissal, with permission. “Compose a letter. Nand’ Bren must approve it before sending. You will not ask for the theft of manuals. You may ask nand’ Bren what he will request for you, in that line, and what nand’ Bren approves may go out. Only what he approves may go. Is that clear? He is the paidhi, and he must rule on technological matters, even when we see ways around his authority. You will need his favor, and he will need my permission as we need his assent to obtain such books. That is the way the world turns. See to it.”
“Shall we have computers, if one can get the manuals, honored Father?”
“Ask Bren-paidhi, I say! Deal with him!”
Did his father already know how angry Lord Bren was with him, and that he had somewhat skirted the truth in that matter? It was possible. It was also possible that particular complaint was still to blow up as badly as it might. It was probably not the time to ask for a television.
“Honored Father.” He bowed. “Honored Mother.”
“You will not leave these premises without senior security,” his father said. “Deal with Lord Bren as best you can.”
“Yes, honored Father.” Another bow. One to his mother. And a retreat without argument. He had learned that with Great-grandmother: if one had gained something in the exchange, it was not time to risk losing more than one had come in with.
He exited with his tidbit of permission and walked, head high, back to his own rooms, collecting his two implacable Atageini guards and Great-grandmother’s two men, and Antaro and Jegari fell in as he went. Antaro and Jegari he bade come inside, and left the other guards standing at the door, if that was where they were determined to stand, in a household guarded by his father’s men, and all sorts of other precautions. He was what they were watching, not protecting his personal premises from intrusion. If there was intrusion, they were likely the ones committing it—which was the unfortunate difference between here and the ship.
Antaro and Jegari were too polite to ask what had just happened or how the interview with his father had affected their fortunes. So he told them. “I have permission to write a letter to the station. The misfortune is that those two outside have to go with us everywhere, nadiin-ji.” He was bitterly upset and tried not to let it affect his voice or his manner. “They are upset with us and now my father has said they have to be with us. So they will go with us to the library. I think my father has heard another story of where we went today.”
Their faces were duly sympathetic. “These guards outside our door are men are in your great-uncle’s man’chi, nandi. They do not favor Taibeni.”
“They do not,” he agreed glumly, thinking that if he were clever he might still get out the door alone, but he had better make it worth it. In an otherwise idle portion of his mind, he wondered how Great-grandmother would deal with the situation if he and his staff simply went down to the public train and showed up at the Atageini station.
More to the point, he had to wonder how his father would deal with such a slippery move, and he did not think the outcome would be good.
Tano and Algini were on the next air cargo flight to the coast—Jago was in touch with them, and she would, Bren was sure, tell him if there was any glitch in their plan. Tano and Algini would reach the coast, the local boat would get him to the yacht, and they would go with the party from the household to make absolutely certain they could find Toby out at sea. They had the best of chances. The best of equipment, that was certain.
Bren rested on pins and needles the while.
And in the meanwhile, since a note had arrived from the aiji, he was already scheduled for a special meeting with Tabini before supper—God, there went the schedule. The note did not give the reasons of such a summons, and that meant having all his mental resources in working order. The occasion of the office party had at least gotten the staff together, and now the party-goers were at work restoring order in the premises and cleaning up the last of the crumbs, so that was handled…he had meant to go back, but postponed that.
By tomorrow, the office would be in full swing, and he had set its number one priority as getting communications established and bringing the shuttles—in some measure the paidhi’s particular responsibility from the beginning—up to operation as soon as possible. That had become the paidhi’s responsibility in the first place
because building the shuttles had meant coordinating an immense volume of cross-cultural communications, and (which had never been the paidhi’s responsibilty, but which had become so) getting the secretive and jealous Guilds and various legislative departments into communication with each other.
And Mogari-nai was talking. The station was talking to departments again—granted the link stayed up. Tabini might want to get straight what the station had to say.
And for his own agenda, the earthbound Pilots’ Guild had to reestablish its training facilities, the technical branch of the Mechanics had to establish its space operations offices and get credentials in order. All of it, what little he had begun to heave into motion, had been on his shoulders until now. Now he had a thousand hands, a hundred small offices in communication with his staff. And it was not at all excessive for the task.
The whole space services system had to be repaired, from manufacturing and testing upward…and his staff, who had done the bulk of the translations, now had to get those manuals and the people trained in the professions reunited, not to mention printing copies of the manuals and training and checking out any new personnel they had to hire—and then double-checking to be sure what was agreed upon to do had actually got done. Equipment had to be checked, down to the smallest detail, and materials and spare parts had to be found, a great deal of it unique to the shuttles, which meant a supply reserve of less than ten, down to spare bolts and cover plates, if they were lucky. The inventory system had gone into chaos.
There had to be staff lists, at the companies that manufactured the parts. There had to be copies of the agreements and specifications. All, all this complex business meant finding experts scattered to the winds…and being sure they were loyal, which meant, though reluctantly, engagement of the Assassins’ Guild, with its investigative expertise at finding out man’chi, estimating relationships—he doubted there was a single individual inside the program who had wholeheartedly supported Murini, but that confidence did not extend down into, say, the third marriage of the financially troubled factory worker. That depth of understanding was easily the province of the Assassins, who could gather up that sort of information as readily as asking the local membership.
And it all had to be done. They had a station up there depending on resupply of critical things the planet provided, and they had a space program to get running.
But they could not make the same mistakes as they had made in the past, to so trample on certain regional jealousies as to create uproar and protest. There had to be an oversight committee, someone to investigate the validity of complaints and mediate where mediation would serve.
And it was not precisely the paidhi’s job to suggest to Tabini that he hear regional complaints the paidhi saw fit to bring to his office, but he felt constrained to try, if the opportunity presented itself. Damned sure few other court functionaries had the gall to broach the topic.
With Tabini, there was quite often no round of tea before talk. One went into the room and delivered information, answered quick questions, heard the aiji’s instructions and bowed one’s way out. The aiji’s schedule would have the aiji awash in tea if he were not, to a certain degree, abrupt and untraditional.
Today, however, there was tea offered, setting a genteel pace for such a private meeting. And a cup of tea provided time enough to recall the heir’s invasion of the party, the problems he had presented the aiji’s house, and the various reasons the aiji might have for a summons of the paidhi-aiji which did not involve the paidhi’s agenda with the space program, his office, or the location of his missing brother. One waited for the aiji to declare the subject of the meeting. And waited, until the tea ran out.
“My son,” Tabini began ominously, and then took an unexpected curve…“suggests we link computers together, for ease of communication within the household, and one is not certain how much farther. He believes he can do this if he has certain manuals he declares to exist on the ship.”
Bren drew in a breath, thinking rapidly, and finding himself at the edge of a cliff, and not at all the cliff he had planned. “To do that, aiji-ma, yes, he indeed has the skills do it, given computers with the capacity to connect. The aiji knows we do this in a limited fashion. But to establish that link for personal communications the young gentleman envisions, in the fashion the young gentleman has been accustomed to use on the ship—the changes the space program has brought would be slight, compared to the changes such a system would bring, implemented in full. And I must say, in all good will, aiji-ma, the regions are distraught enough—”
“Name these changes.”
“Speed of information would increase. So would proliferation of bad information and rumor. Speed of daily events would increase. Secrets would travel down paths that would proliferate by the hour and change in retelling. The giving of decorous invitations and messages would meet the same challenges the custom encountered in the introduction of telephones. Communication would become more abrupt. And less formal. I cannot immediately foresee all the changes such a system would bring, but I advise against it, aiji-ma. Given the upheavals already troubling atevi life, I very much advise against opening that particular door for the young gentleman, no matter his frustrations with the pace of things. The ship operates entirely on linked computers. If one wants something, one does not go to a master of craft; one requests a computer to act, and the computer figuratively opens a book in some library and makes that information available instantly. It can contact another computer and has a message waiting for some associate the moment he sits down to use the machine, much like the message bowl in the foyer. But it leaves no papers behind. And it is subject to misuse. A skilled operator can reach out and affect a system half the ship away, or gain a key to one he is not supposed to enter. Security becomes a major concern.”
“My son,” Tabini said, and sighed, chin on fist. “My son, one fears, wants to recreate the ship.”
“He will adjust his thinking, aiji-ma. He understands the ship very well, but he is only beginning to meet the world. The aishidi’tat must not see the heir as providing a more rapid pace of change than his father has done.”
Tabini gazed at him a long moment in silence, with that remarkable pale stare. “Perhaps we erred not to keep him here with us. But one does not know how he would have survived, where we have been.”
One could only guess what territory that covered: the aiji’s survival had been a hard struggle, one that had left its mark on Tabini—he was harder, leaner, his eyes darting to small sounds. And he had grown more reticent, if that was possible.
“What he has learned on the ship, aiji-ma, will benefit atevi all his life—if these things are wisely delivered.”
“Are they true things, paidhi-aiji? Are they truly profitable? Or are they like this computer system, fraught with immeasurable problems? And can the paidhi explain to the child why this should not be undertaken?”
It hit him with peculiar force, that question. No, it was not possible to explain such things to a boy who saw only the ship, and who had not truly met the world such things would disturb. The father might have met the problems inherent in hasty change; the son had yet to know there were problems.
“I shall at least try to explain to him, if the aiji wishes.”
“Perhaps he will listen to you.”
That was equally troubling, such a request from Cajeiri’s father…who was accustomed to obedience from strangers. Not to have obedience from his own son—
“He will more aptly listen to Banichi, aiji-ma. And Banichi can say things very simply: I think he will say that if the young gentleman does such things it will create a great deal of bother the young gentleman will have to deal with.”
Tabini had not smiled often since his return. This smile began subtly, and became an outright laugh as he sat upright. “The paidhi has a certain insight into my son’s thinking.”
Tabini remained amused, and the slight smile lightened everything. It was a vast relief to find communication op
ening up, both of them finally seeming on the same wave length about risk and change, and with something like the old easiness coming back to their conversation. Things southward, Bren thought, must be going well—the mop-up of the rebellion was proceeding. And things with the boy must not be all that bad: certain families might be disturbed to know their offspring was somewhat self-centered and not quite thinking of their interests so much as his own ambitions. But a future aiji was somewhat self-centered.
“Well, well,” Tabini said then, leaning back and seeming to have recovered his sense of humor. “So the dish at Mogari-nai is up. And Jase-aiji speaks to my son in front of your staff…I have had the transcript.” A small wave of his hand dismissed any report on the details. “And Toby-nadi is found. This personal news surely pleases you.”
“Immeasurably so, aiji-ma.” He was so relieved he only then recalled that the whole conversation, ergo the transcript, had been in ship-speak.
“Amazing feat,” Tabini said, “to locate a specific boat, in so much water.”
“Your staff may have told you, aiji-ma—” Straight to the one piece of news he must not seem to conceal—nor had he any such intent. “The ship established much more precise surveillance over the world during the disturbance. It has—I surmise—established numbers for the entire planet, in a gridwork of precise coordinates. It dropped ground stations—these, I have discovered, are the mysterious landings in the reports: I believe they must be communications relays, but I am far from certain, or whether they are even connected to this mapping system. I am seeking clarification on that point—I am not familiar with the details of the technology, and it was not sent through my office.” And dared he tell the rest, the precise location of persons available with the equipment his staff carried?
A world where hiding became impossible, where, first of all persons, Assassins were in possession of such devices, starting with his own staff? It was another earthquake of information as profound as a computer web, and Jase had blithely handed the technology to his security staff without consulting him.
Deliverer Page 16
