Inheritor

by C. J. Cherryh

  Now Geigi, who'd had the only large aircraft manufacturing plant in the world in his province, which could have been replaced, out-competed, even moved out of the district by order of the aiji, owed his very life and the prosperity of his local association to his joining Tabini's side.

  So now director Borujiri was firmly on Tabini's side, and so were those workers. If atevi were going to space faster than planned, it was a windfall for Patinandi Aerospace, the chance of a lifetime for Borujiri, prosperity for a locally depressed job market, and a dazzling rise to prominence for a quiet, honest lord who'd invested his money in the Tasigin Marid oilfields and lost nearly everything — no help from Saigimi, whose chiseling relatives were in charge of the platforms that failed.

  What promises Saigimi might have obtained from Geigi and then called due in the attempt last year to replace the paidhi with the paidhi-successor, he could only guess. Geigi had never alluded to that part of the story.

  And how dismayed Geigi and Saigimi alike had been when the paidhi-successor rewarded her atevi supporters by dropping information on them that had as well have been a nuclear device — all of that was likely lost in Geigi's immaculate discretion and now in Saigimi's demise. No one might ever know the whole tale of that adventure.

  And, damn, but he wished he did, for purely vulgar curiosity, if nothing else.

  But clearly the Saigimi matter had either stayed hotter longer than he would have believed that last year's assassination attempt could remain an issue with Tabini — or it had heated up again very suddenly and for reasons that he'd failed to detect in planning this trip.

  That was granting Tabini had in fact done in Saigimi.

  In the convoluted logic he'd learned to tread in atevi motivations, if Tabini had done it, perhaps Saigimi's assassination had been timed precisely for the hour he was with Geigi on public view and thereby reassuring Geigi of the aiji's good will: if the news had come in the middle of the night and on any ordinary day, Geigi might have concluded the aiji was beginning a purge of enemies.

  Then Geigi might have done something disastrous, like running to lady Direiso, far more dangerous an enemy than Saigimi, and that might have led to Geigi's death — if Geigi misread Direiso. Or, potentially, though he himself doubted it, it could have led to Direiso rallying the rest of her band of conspirators, drawing Geigi back to her man'chi, and setting him against Tabini, a realignment that would hold that ship back there hostage to all kinds of demands.

  Tabini preferred not to provoke terror. In atevi terms, only a fool made his enemies nervous; and a far, far greater fool frightened his potential allies. Tabini rarely resorted to such an extreme measure as assassination, preferring to leave old and well-known problems holding power in certain places rather than elevating unknown successors who might be up to God knew what without such good and detailed reports coming back to him. That tendency to let a situation float if he had good intelligence coming back to him was a consideration which ought to disturb lady Direiso's sleep.

  And in that consideration, either something had happened sufficient to top Saigimi's last offenses, demanding his removal or, it was even possible — the assassination of Saigimi had in fact been simply a warning aimed at Direiso, who was the principal opposition to Tabini.

  Certainly it was possible that Direiso was the real target.

  He certainly hadn't been moved to discuss that question with Geigi; and as for Tano and Algini, in the one careful question he had put to them as they boarded: "Is this something you know about, nadiin, and is the aiji well?" they had professed not to know the agency that had done it, but had assured him with what sounded like certain knowledge that Tabini was safe.

  They were usually more forthcoming.

  And now that he began thinking about it — neglecting the business of collating his notes, the paidhi's proper job — the news of Saigimi's death was eerily like a letter from an absent —

  Friend.

  Oh, a bad mental slip, that was.

  But Banichi was infallibly Banichi as Jago was Jago, his own security for part of the last year, as close to him as any atevi had ever been. And of the very few assassins of the Guild to whom Tabini might entrust something so delicate as the removal of a high lord of the Association, Banichi and his partner surely topped the list.

  Banichi and Jago, both of whom he regarded in that spot humans kept soft and warm and vulnerable in their hearts; and both of whom had been on assignment somewhere, absent from Shejidan, unlocatable to his troubled inquiries for months.

  Tano and Algini, fellow members of the Guild, had assured him all winter that Banichi and Jago were well and busy about something. He sent letters to them. He thought they were sent, at least. But nothing came back.

  And, no, neither Tano nor Algini knew whether or not Banichi and Jago might return. He'd asked them whenever something came up that provided a remotely plausible excuse for his asking: Banichi and Jago both outranked Tano and Algini, and he never, ever wanted to make Tano and Algini doubt his appreciation of their service to him — but — he wondered. He worried about the pair of them.

  Dammit, he missed them.

  And that wasn't fair to the staff he did have, who were skilled, and very devoted, and who offered him all the support and protection and devotion that atevi of their Guild could possibly offer, including a roster of Tano's relatives, one of whom headed the paidhi's clerical staff and some of whom, technical writers in offices across the mainland, sent him messages through Tano, whose clan seemed prolific, all very good and very solid people.

  And Algini, God, Algini, who seemed to come solo except for his long attachment to his partner. Algini had been much longer unbending and had been far more standoffish than Tano had ever been, but Algini was a quiet, good man, who could throw a knife with truly uncanny accuracy, who had gotten (Tano hinted) two very bad assignments from which he had suffered great personal distress; and who had, Tano had said, been so quiet within the Guild they'd lost track of him for two years and dropped him from the rolls as dead until Tano had pointed out he'd been voting consistently and that he could vouch for his identity — they'd been partners for two years on the same assignments — and it was the aiji's request for them as personal security that had pulled up the information that Algini was listed as dead. Algini thought it a joke quite as funny as Tano did, but the paidhi understood it was a joke that had never gotten beyond the very clandestine walls of their Guild, and it was an embarrassment to the Guild never, ever meant for public knowledge.

  It was indicative, however, of how very good Algini was at melding with the walls of a place. After nearly a year with the man, he'd finally gotten Algini to unzip his jacket, prop his feet up in complete informality, and smile, shyly so, but an approach to a grin, over one of Tano's pieces of irreverence.

  Right now Algini was on his feet, zipped up to the chin and all business, up at the forward bulkhead, talking to Tano, who was also sober, while junior staff kept their distance, all frustrating his desire for information. He supposed that his staff was trying to get accurate reports on the situation in the Marid before they told him anything, or possibly reports were coming in from various other affected places, some of which they had to route over, and one of which might even be a touchy situation in the capital. There were times to talk to one's security and there were times to stay out of their way and let them work.

  And right now he had notes to work over, a job to do. Possibly there were deaths happening. Possibly —

  Hell, no, he couldn't do anything about it. And they didn't need his advice. He'd been long enough on the mainland to know certain things intellectually, and to understand the atevi way of doing things as part of a wider fabric that actually saved lives.

  But he'd made the decision some time ago that he never wanted to get so acclimated that he didn't think about it. It still had to bother him. It was necessary to his job that it continue to bother him: he was supposed to translate, not transit into the culture, and no matter how
emotionally he was tempted to damn Saigimi to hell for the decent people whose lives Saigimi had cost, he had to remember he didn't know what the reason was, not at the bone-deep and instinctual level at which atevi knew what they were doing to each other. He had to stay out of it.

  He opened his computer as the plane reached cruising altitude, and called up dictionary files that held hundreds of such distinctions as man'chi unresolved.

  Loyalty wasn't man'chi; man'chi wasn't loyalty. Man'chi responded to the order of the universe, a harmony which in some indefinable way dictated man'chi, and didn't.

  Man'chi, he had learned, was emotional. Association was logical. And to figure how some other ateva saw them, atevi were mathematicians par excellence. One constantly added the numbers of one's life, some of more traditional philosophy believing literally that the date of one's birth and the felicitous or infelicitous numbers of one's intimate associates or the flowers in a bouquet mattered to the harmony of the cosmos, and dictated the direction one moved. Logically.

  Tabini was a skeptic in such matters and regularly mocked the purists. Tabini would say, half facetiously, that Saigimi hadn't added his own numbers correctly, and had been unaware what the sum was in the aiji's mind.

  Best for a human to stay right in the guessable center of a man'chi directed to a very powerful ateva, best that he listen to his security personnel, and never, never, never tread the edges with unapproved persons.

  Deana Hanks had started out her tenure by courting the edges, and now had more blood on her hands than she would ever comprehend. Saigimi's, for instance. The circles of the stone she'd so recklessly cast into the waters, in her seeking out atevi who could give her an opinion opposed to the aiji (every dissident she could find), had associated a number of atevi who might never have been encouraged to associate. Hanks might well have killed Saigimi.

  In the human sense of responsibility, that was.

  Atevi would just say she'd brought infelicitous numbers into Saigimi's situation and Saigimi had done nothing ever since but make them worse.

  "Fruit juice, nand' paidhi?" the juniormost of the guards asked, and Bren surfaced from the electronic sea of data to accept the offered drink.

  It was about a two hour trip from the peninsula to Shejidan, factoring in the devious routing that took this particular flight into Shejidan Airport as if it originated from the east instead of the west. The detour wasn't much out of their way, but the plane had turned about half an hour ago, and that told Bren fairly well where they were.

  He feared he would meet security delays due to the assassination in the south. He almost wished the food offering were something more than fruit juice, but he'd wait for food until he reached secure territory — they'd been to three towns and made four courtesy stops without taking on security-approved food service, they'd crossed boundaries that held the appropriate meat for the season to be something different than the last had. It was one of those little matters that didn't matter to every ateva, but that had to matter to the aiji's private plane, and he truly didn't think he could stomach another fish salad or egg salad sandwich, the items that were almost always kabiu, proper, and almost always the fallback for any plane with a security problem and a lot of seasonal zones to cross.

  The sandwiches had seemed quite good, on the first three days of this eight day tour.

  "Any news?" he asked the guard, meaning the Saigimi situation, which was bound to be general knowledge by now throughout the country as the news hit the television networks, and the guard said, "Shall I ask, nand' paidhi?"

  There was, he understood by that offer, official news; and the junior guard wasn't going to inform the paidhi's serious need to know with his limited knowledge: the junior guard was, by that question, offering to advise his officer that the paidhi was asking.

  "Do," he said, and before he'd downed the second sip of the glass Tano was there, slipping into the seat facing his.

  "By your leave, nand' paidhi, the situation in the Bu-javid is calm and the capital itself is quiet. We thought of routing you instead to Taiben, but there seems no need. Given your agreement, we'll proceed on to the airport."

  "What do you think, Tano-ji?" It hadn't been his intention at all to question the security arrangements. "Absolutely I trust your judgment."

  "I think we should go in as quickly as possible, nand' paidhi. I'm assured we'll be met by very adequate security, and the longer we delay the harder it may be to guarantee that, at least for the next few hours. Celebration is more likely than opposition to this event, as I would gather will be the case behind us in Sarini province; and that will discourage fools from unFiled retaliations. Professionals, however, may still be acting under legal contract against persons other than yourself, nand' paidhi, and I would advise discretion."

  "I'm sure." Things were stiffly formal when Tano and Algini had the staff present, or he'd invite Tano and Algini both to sit down, share a drink, and tell him the real goings-on. The plane flew serenely between a human-occupied heaven and an atevi earth in turmoil. And his security, licensed assassins of the Guild, declared it safe to go into the capital city airport, but there were elements loose and still in motion that had them worried. That was what he heard in Tano's statement: knowledge of a threat not precisely aimed at him but through which he might have to pass. Guild members contracted to Saigimi were professionals who would not waste themselves or their colleagues' lives in a lost cause, but there would be moves for power within the clan and around it. Aftershocks were not over.

  Trust these two, and leave Geigi, who owed him his intercession and thereby his survival? Absolutely. Tano's and Algini's man'chi was to Tabini, and if Tabini ever wanted him dead, these were the very ones who would see to it. If Tabini wanted him alive, these were the ones who would fling their bodies between him and a bullet without a second thought. Man'chi was very simple until one approached the hazy ground between households, which was where Geigi's grew too indistinct to trust in a crisis like this. Man'chi went upward to the leader but not down from him. It was instinct. It was mathematics as atevi added matters. And these two advised him to move quickly and not to divert to any other destination.

  So he simply began to fold up his work and to shut down his computer as Tano got up again to order something regarding their landing.

  The plane banked sharply and dived, sending dignified atevi careening against the seats and up. Bren clamped his fingers to hold onto his precious computer as the smooth plastic case slid inexorably through his grip, aimed by centrifugal force at the window.

  Fruit juice had hit the same window and wall and stood in orange beads.

  The plane leveled out.

  "Nand' paidhi," the copilot said over the speakers, "forgive us. That was a plane in our path."

  Tano and Algini and the rest of the staff were sorting themselves out. The juniormost, Audiri, came immediately with a towel, retrieved the glass, which had not broken, and mopped the fruit juice off various surfaces.

  He had not let the computer escape his grasp. His fingers felt bruised. His heart hadn't had time to speed up. Now, belatedly, it wondered whether it might have license to do that, but the conscious brain advised it to forget it, it was much too late.

  "Nadiin," Algini was saying to the crew via the intercom, "kindly determine origin and advise air traffic control that the aiji's staff requests names and identifications of the aircraft in this matter."

  "Probably it's nothing," Bren muttered, allowing Tano custody of the precious computer. The air traffic control system was relatively new. Planes were not. Certain individuals considered themselves immune to ATC regulations.

  If on a given day, and by their numerology, certain individuals of the Absolutist persuasion considered the system gave them infelicitous numbers, they would change those numbers on their own and change their course, their altitude, or their arrival time so as to have their important business in the capital blessed by better fortune.

  And the assassination to the south had
changed the numbers.

  Tabini and the ATC authority had fought that battle for years, particularly trying to impress the facts of physics on lords used to being immune to lawsuit. There were laws. There were ATC regulations. There was the aiji's express displeasure at such violations, and there was the outstanding example of the Weinathi Bridge disaster for a cautionary tale.

  Security today had been very careful to move the aiji's private plane onto a flight path usually followed by slower-moving commercial air… for the paidhi's safety.

  His security was understandably worried about the incident. But whatever the closeness of the other aircraft had been, the emergency was over. The plane did some small maneuvering as the nose pitched gently down and it resumed its landing approach.

  Tano and Algini came to sit opposite him for the landing, and belted in.

  "Likely it was someone else worried by the Saigimi business," Bren said. "And likewise taking precautions about their routing. Or their numbers. I doubt it was intentional."

  "The aiji will not take chances with you, nadi Bren," Tano said.

  "I'm sure not, Tano."

  The Bergid snowed in the window, hazy mountains, still white with winter, the continental divide.

  Forest showed, blue-green and likewise hazed — but that haze was pollen and spores, as a lowland spring broke into bloom and the endless forests of atevi hunting preserves, like the creatures that lived within that haze, reproduced themselves with wild abandon.

  The fields came clear, the little agricultural land that developers had left around burgeoning Shejidan. And there were the stubbornly held garden plots clinging to hillsides — always the gardens: the Ragi atevi were keen diggers and planters, even the aristocrats among them. Gardens, but no livestock for food: atevi considered it cruel and uncivilized to eat tame animals.