Pretender

by C. J. Cherryh

  He found himself winded, bruised, and shaken beyond good sense. He tried to imitate the aiji and get up, but Jago laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. In the next instant another shot went off, and he jumped, pure reaction.

  “Banichi,” he said.

  “Banichi is attending the problem, nandi,” Jago said quietly, rising and facing the hall. “We did not have confidence in the aiji’s security.”

  “But if they would have assassinated him—” he asked from below.

  “Not him,” Jago said, beneath the rising buzz in the chamber, the racket of chairs being moved or set back up. “You, nandi. The Guild has no inclination to strike at the aiji: They knew Murini would go down soon. But we have not let the aiji’s security near you. Or the young gentleman, for that matter. One requests you stay down a moment more.”

  To make a move that fatal, that absolutely fatal to the shooter, just to get him…He was not surprised that someone wanted to kill him; but the aiji’s own guard, and to do so in such a wild, fanatic way, so at odds with the ordinary way the Guild worked—

  What Jago said made no damned sense. The shooter had risen from among the legislators, from the hasdrawad, had he not? He had had a seat there? Did a person of such stature pay that high a price, all to shoot down a court functionary?

  One did, if such a move struck caution into the aiji, if it robbed the aiji of the aiji’s fiercely held human contact. One did it, if it took power out of Tabini’s hands and put it in others’ and if the aiji’s own guard knew what was going to happen—and let it—

  His brain raced wildly. He recognized a high-speed fugue for what it was, and tried to gather his wits into the useful present. He felt bruises atop other bruises—hitting Tabini was like hitting a brick wall and it dawned on him that he’d brought the aiji down publicly, a human embarrassment at the most critical of junctures. Tabini was back in command of the situation, though tumult was still racketing and echoing in the chamber. Tabini ordered something or someone removed and of all things—

  Of all things, another voice ordered men detained who happened to be the aiji’s own guard—shocking enough; but the voice echoing so loudly through the chamber was Banichi’s.

  That did it. He had to see what was going on. He started to his feet. Jago quickly thrust him back down.

  “What are they doing?” he asked.

  “The Guild is attending its business,” Jago answered him in a low voice, while he kept his head down. “Banichi has taken down the target. Now they take the collaborators.”

  Cenedi and his men meanwhile had formed a living wall of body armor before the aiji-dowager and Cajeiri, standing there, hands on weapons. Cajeiri’s young guards were right with them, armorless and unarmed, but putting their bodies between the young gentleman and harm.

  Tabini, meanwhile, had set himself in front of Damiri, who was also on her feet, and several voices from the chamber had lifted in indignation, Tatiseigi’s among them, decrying the action of fools and traitors to their own houses, and cursing damage to historic premises.

  The eis thrummed, three insistent strokes. The vibrations overran their own echoes, and hurt human ears.

  It hurt atevi hearing, too, perhaps far worse than that. He saw Jago’s grimace, and when the sound cleared, the chamber seemed hushed and stunned.

  “Nadiin, nandiin,” Tabini resumed, as if nothing at all had happened, and there was a last moment movement of chairs and bodies, a diminishing buzz of conversation as the legislature tried to get itself back to order and decide whether it was safe to sit down.

  Time, clearly, for the paidhi-aiji to get up off the floor before he became an object of complete embarrassment. Bren gathered himself up with Jago assisting, her body still between him and the chamber, which more or less shielded him from view as he regained his chair.

  “That was grand, nandi!” Cajeiri leaned forward, whispering much too loudly, and the dowager’s cane thwacked the boy’s shin.

  Grand. Hell, Bren said to himself. He had affronted Tabini’s dignity in front of the whole legislature. He’d maybe saved the aiji’s life in the process, but he doubted it: It turned out the shooter had likely missed because the attack was aimed at removing him and not Tabini, and he had plunged straight in front of Tabini. Security in the chamber had immediately pounced on the shooter, and the aiji of the aishidi’tat had been flattened by the very human who was the target—it was a damned comedy, not a rescue.

  A second disturbance, this one to the rear of the dais. Heads turned, bodies poised for another dive to the floor. But whoever had just hit the ground stayed there, and Tabini-aiji elected not to give it more than a passing glance.

  “We accept the support of the quorum,” Tabini said calmly. “All officials in office at the time of this interlude resume their offices as if there were never disruption; those who have accepted office from the false regime have never had authority, and their acts—excepting the ordinary civic business of marriage and divorce, are subject to careful review, with prejudice. If there are office vacancies thereby created, let a local vote fill those positions within five days, in public meeting, and report the outcome to us. All rights abrogated by the false regime are restored, all possession given by the false regime is reverted subject to review, and all other acts under that regime’s seal are subject to review. The man’chi of some may have wavered in the face of outright falsehoods and deceptions, but we accept its return, as we accept that certain houses may have acted under constraint and entirely without choice: Their actions will be given benefit of the doubt.”

  The exhalation in the room was almost audible, along with a little settling of very anxious people.

  “The Guild leadership will support the aishidi’tat, and untoward action will be dealt with summarily.”

  There was still blood on the floor, the paidhi had no doubt whatsoever, and the smell of gunpowder permeated the chamber.

  “The actions of the false regime constituted a self-serving seizure of power, allied to a sentiment of dissatisfaction among certain individuals of certain houses, not even of general benefit to clan or province. Let the hasdrawad and the tashrid judge the validity of whatever complaints have been lodged, and if inequities have hitherto existed, let them come to light, and let the whole aishidi’tat examine them and correct them. If they have existed, we maintain they are the gift of nature, baji-naji, which bestowed mineral riches here and fishing there: Such gifts as one province may bring to the aishidi’tat are to its profit, but not to extortionate profit. We have attempted to distribute public works equitably among the provinces, based on three criteria: the least damage to the environment; the greatest economic need of the citizens; and the most efficient transport of resources. Wherein we have erred, we will hear such matters: Be it known that the location of such facilities was our choice, not the paidhi-aiji’s, who neither administrated nor settled the choices. Hear me clearly: Those who have laid all discontent at the feet of the paidhi-aiji and the humans have taken a simple and incorrect answer to flaws that the aishidi’tat must address. The faults are in ourselves, nadiin, nandiin, and human presence has only shone a light on the matters we need to mend within our own institutions. Were we wrong to build a presence on the station? Were we wrong to hasten every effort to secure atevi participation in the human mission to this far station? Were we wrong to elevate the paidhi-aiji to lordly rank, to enable him to represent us with authority in these far regions? And were we fools to send our heir out to this far place, to see with his own eyes what truth there is out there? We think not. Now we have reports that the mission succeeded. We have waited to hear the results, in confidence that they could be presented in this chamber, under these circumstances, and that the legislature would sit in judgment of the facts. Here we have come, at personal risk to many of you. And here is my heir, here is the aiji-dowager, and here is Lord Bren, with a report the gist of which is in your hands. We have not seen it. We have not influenced it. We have not forbidden or suggested any part o
f it. Judge!”

  Tabini swept an unexpected hand sidelong, toward Bren.

  And stepped aside.

  It was his moment, his turn to speak. He hadn’t his notes. Jago quietly walked into range and gave him the computer case, and said, quietly, “We have taken the images, nandi, from the printing and Tano is prepared to show them at your request.”

  Thank God. Thank Jago and Tano. He walked to the center-point of the dais, the speaker’s point, and had the presence of mind to bow to the aiji, to the dowager, the heir, and independently to the hasdrawad at their desks and the tashrid sitting down in the well, all the while his mind was juggling the pros and cons of trying to open up his computer and bring up the records, or just get to it before the audience grew restless.

  He set the computer case on the ground against his leg. Bowed again, to gain time to collect his thoughts, and to try to focus his wits on the numerical intricacies and pitfalls of courtly expression. Setting up—was impossible. He would lose them.

  “Nadiin, nandiin,” he began, trying to overcome a little buzz of comment from the chamber. “The case for or against the paidhi-aiji rests on whether or not I have properly served the aiji, the aishidi’tat, and the people of this continent, and the report is in your hands; one need not repeat it verbatim. We never misled you: We reported to the aiji our apprehensions that without atevi presence in the heavens, decisions would be taken by humans aloft and on the planet, decisions that would profoundly affect your welfare.” The buzz simply would not die. He had grave doubts that people at the back of the chamber were hearing him, and it set him off his rhythm. He wished he had delayed to turn the computer on. He wished he had some control over the visual presentation that he could evoke.

  “Nadiin, nandiin,” he said again, and restored a little quiet. “The paidhi-aiji urged extreme and upsetting haste; he by no means denies that. And in fact an action was about to be undertaken, since the ship-aiji Ramirez had preserved a secret that came out only at his death: That humans in the far depths of the ether had contacted foreigners, and that they had abandoned a populated station out in the depths that would be in dire danger of foreigner hostility…that there was great danger of foreigners taking that station and deciphering records which would lead them to attack this world.”

  The buzz rose up again, and someone shouted out, as the hasdrawad would, with speakers of lesser rank, “This we know! Go well beyond this, paidhi!”

  “Nadiin.” He bowed, to cover his confusion.

  “And why risk the heir on this adventure?” someone shouted.

  Another murmur, loud and long.

  A movement brushed against him, unheard in the racket. The young gentleman himself had gotten to his side, and what the dowager or Tabini or Damiri was doing in the background, Bren had no idea. Cajeiri could move like lightning when he was motivated.

  But it was no time for a gesture of the heir’s solidarity with his influence—it was the worst thing.

  “Because if we had stayed here in our apartment we might be dead,” Cajeiri shouted. “Because Murini would have killed all of us if he could reach us. My father wanted me to go out and learn everything I could about the humans, to see and to make sure they were telling the truth! And it was indeed the truth! We saw what happened—we saw nand’ Bren deal with the station, we saw him rescue the people, we saw it all, we talked to the foreign humans, so did my great-grandmother, and we know nand’ Bren is not a liar. He did everything my father asked and saved all sorts of people!”

  It was a shocking declaration, particularly from an eight-year-old. It was, one suspected—except the lapses in grammar, the mingled negatives and the confused symmetry of numbers—the dowager’s own words. That young voice shocked the chamber at least enough to diminish the buzz of exchanges, probably while adults added the items and took into account whether the three-part we was the singular, the regal we, or the number of persons acting.

  The lord of Dur stood up, in the tashrid seats. “Did the paidhi not just go to the aiji’s defense?” Dur shouted out, and Bren’s heart went thump and the warmth drained from his face.

  Go to the aiji’s defense. Never mind the assassin had been aiming at him.

  Go to the aiji’s defense—like the mecheiti after the herd leader, fences and barriers be damned. Go to the leader—like everything native to the world. He’d outright flattened the aiji of the aishidi’tat—he’d afflicted Tabini’s dignity and simultaneously made Tabini a target in the process. But Dur’s statement produced a racket of debate in the chamber that did not die away.

  And what did he then say if the assembly took that move of his for proof of that deep atevi emotion? Use as fact the misapprehension paidhiin had spent generations denying, that there was, after all, an atevi sense of man’chi operating in a human? Claim that the two species felt things exactly the same, when what he’d felt most was a desperate sense of priorities, a visceral outrage that one shot could take out the one man who could knit everything together?

  The War of the Landing had started on such a convenient misconception, allowed to bubble along in the subtext.

  “Nand’ Bren came to rescue me!” Cajeiri shouted out at the assembly. “And nand’ Bren saved everybody in the foreign station! And we met new foreigners who were angry at us, and we ended up talking to them on their own ship, because nand’ Bren rescued one of them, too! His name is Prakuyo an Tep and he is very respectful of my great-grandmother!”

  There was the matter, inside out and hind end foremost, but the new item in the mix created two breaths of bewildered silence, in which first Tabini-aiji and then Damiri moved near their son. Then, with a crack and a measured tap of her cane, Ilisidi rose and came forward to stand by Cajeiri, a solid front, the entire leading family of the Ragi clan.

  He bowed, clearly become an extraneous particle in this line, willing quietly to cede the floor to authority and postpone any explanation while atevi sorted out their own business.

  Bang! went Ilisidi’s cane, silencing every murmur, and every head in the chamber turned toward the dais, in a moment of breathless silence. Bren respectfully froze in place.

  “A fool would urge us to stay out of matters in the heavens and let humans dictate such things as they understand,” Ilisidi said. “A fool would argue we could build the necessary machines with no fleeting disturbance to our social schedules, not a ripple in our occupations and our attention to the numbers of this world. But we are not fools, and we know the one is not wise and the other is not possible. No, this generation is not a generation of fools! It has sacrificed! This generation has secured its command over this world, an authority which the ship-aijiin and even the Presidenta of Mospheira acknowledge. The ship-aijiin appointed a ship-paidhi to consult with Tabini-aiji on all matters, acknowledging that nothing of value comes from this world but that the aiji in Shejidan sends it. Were you aware of that? But the rebel attacked and tried to kill her, as he attacked the aiji himself. Are you aware that the foreigners we have met in the farthest distance of the ether have acknowledged the authority of my grandson as governing, binding, and safeguarding our world? If Murini failed to tell you such things, why, it was surely not because he would wish to conceal the aiji’s success from you. It was because he, being only a shortsighted upstart and ignorant of every needful activity of educated governance, had appointed no observers aloft. He had constituted no authority in the heavens, he wielded no authority in affairs of dire import to the world, and he not only proved utterly ignorant of the numbers of the wider world, he even failed to govern the continent or satisfy the reasonable requests of its regions and associations, sowing only discord and jealousy, and attending to not even the proper benefits of his own region! Bad numbers, false numbers, nandiin, nadiin, inevitably lead to wider error. Baji-naji, the universe does not tamely bear a fool on its back! We, on the other hand, know the numbers that do exist, numbers as wide as the distance we have traveled. More, we have numbers reported by foreigners who have voyaged still fart
her, into territory as yet unexamined and unaccounted—numbers contained within the records of our voyage. We have reported all these numbers to the Astronomer, whose records his devoted students rescued from fools bent on destroying them…” A mild buzz, quickly suppressed by a crack of the cane. “Ask the paidhi-aiji why they would so urgently wish to destroy these numbers.”

  God. Bren’s mind went blank, utterly blank, in that second.

  Then snapped back into focus. He took a step forward, found breath enough to make himself heard over the murmur.

  “Truth,” he said, “is in those numbers, nadiin, nandiin, and those numbers clearly favor the government which has led atevi through these delicate points of balance. Peace is possible, through the outcome of a mission planned by Tabini-aiji and supported by this body. Knowledge brings to this world the true numbers of the universe, and baji-naji, the universe still orders itself, caring nothing for fools. You have the greatest opportunity and the greatest danger. The ship-humans, through a series of mistakes, had made these foreigners their enemies. The dowager and the heir themselves gained the respect of these foreigners, who are encouraged to know that their kinsman is in charge of an association of such wide-reaching power, and they have ignored the offense of the ship-humans, concluding the error is now corrected. They may well visit this world to pay respect to such an authority. One has every confidence they will be met by a strong and impressive association which will assure the integrity of its own territory. Nadiin, nandiin, you have the report of the voyage. Images are provided within the document.”

  Now let the murmur loose. Now let legislators look at one another and flip through the pages of the document, but before they could get to the back, where those pictures were…

  Seize the moment, Bren said to himself, and aloud: “Tano.”

  A breath later the chandeliers dimmed and two of Ilisidi’s men, as smoothly as one could wish, brought a screen up on the dais, set it beside the aiji and his household, and unfolded it.