Mospheira also had such boats. There was a danger of confrontation if this state of crisis went on too long. “What does the presidentsay?”
“There is a protest from the Trade Office regarding the aiji’s action,” Banichi said. “If they’re officially aware of Hanks-paidhi’s provocations, they’re being very quiet about the matter. There’s no signal they’re willing to correct the problem.”
“One suspects they areaware,” Bren said, and was conscious he now contemplated treason; his stomach knotted up—but so did his nerves, from years of coping with the administration. “But they’re not very brave, dowager-ji. They’ll please their contributors until the first consequences show up where the voters can find out. Then their attention will be on keeping the voters from finding out and keeping their contributors from being exposed. They’ll pull back. The main thing is keeping the customs boats away from each other. That’s where people at lower levels could worsen the crisis.”
“If they link up with Direiso,” Ilisidi said, “she’ll lead them on much more precipitate courses.”
Or she’ll be driven mad with frustration trying to deal with the Mospheiran government, Bren thought. Unless Direiso planned to invade Mospheira if she became aiji.
Which was not a joke. Direiso might indeed have such a notion. The island was ill-prepared to resist, precisely as it had been ill-prepared and ineptly led in the War of the Landing. It was, potentially, the same situation: a mushrooming crisis and most of the human population in slumberous disregard of the danger of a rebel ateva seizing power and running with it.
The same way one decree from Tabini’s pen had swept away all debate, all studies, all partisan delays in relocating Patinandi Aerospace and reconfiguring the space program, so events around them now could replace Tabini, who tolerated humans, with Direiso, who would wipe them off the face of the earth.
Bad news multiplied and Mospheira blamed the Foreign Office which told it things that didn’t match its expectations; Mospheira then refused to listen to the paidhi in the field and, rather than face down human agitators who now thought they were winning political points, Mospheira had withdrawn police protection from his mother’s apartment, or worse, politics infiltrating the police departments had made it impossible for the Mospheiran government to do anything about political thugs and lunatics if they wanted to.
He’d seen it coming. He’d watched it barrel down on them like a train headed down the tracks.
Thistime there was a strongly centralized power in Shejidan. Thistime the Edi and Maschi atevi of the peninsula weren’t raiding the Padi Valley. Thistime they had a ship over their heads that was definitely a player, but which couldn’t reach them or get its people out. This time atevi were verywell advised on human habits and internal divisions, and thistime there were paidhiin.
All of which might—or might not—tip the scales.
Outside, he heard the sound of the plane starting up.
The boy was on his way. With the means to take the island of Dur for their forces. That was one stretch of beach, if the lord of Dur was on their side, they were relatively sure they could win.
And one of the men outside the glass walls came in and handed Cenedi a note. Cenedi’s expression changed as he read it.
“Nand’ dowager,” Cenedi said, “the warehouse down in the town is moving its trucks out. Down the harborside road to the west. Do we stop them, or allow them to clear the harborside?”
Ilisidi frowned and looked down at the maps.
“Maintain the peace,” Ilisidi said. “For the next hour or so.”
So now atevi forces were moving. Bren didn’t know where, or how many, but the consoles out there were manned by loyal Guild and watched over by loyal Guild, and he tried to sit in one of the soft chairs in the lounge, lean his head back on the back of the seat and rest, when he wanted to be up pacing the floor.
Jase came into the little nook with a cup of tea. He had a worn, grim look, and found even the padded chair uncomfortable—at least he’d winced when he sat down, and Bren would have done so when he’d sat down, if he’d had the strength left. He eyed the arrival, muttered to indicate he didn’t mind Jase being there, and shut his eyes, thinking that in Shejidan it would be about bedtime.
Their company was getting the little rest they could. Not all of them: Banichi and Jago were in close conference with Cenedi, and the dowager had taken possession of the director’s office to rest, having taken a map with her.
He’d rather, personally, have stayed in the briefing; but it was Guild business in there, not the Messengers, but the Assassins, and when Banichi said in that very polite tone, “nand’ paidhi, you need to rest,” he supposed even aijiin took that cue and went to nurse their headaches.
And watch over their other responsibilities.
Mospheira didn’t care so much, Bren told himself, if it let both its Ragi-speaking paidhiin, him andDeana, travel out of its grasp; there were other students in the University. Someone’s son or daughter could replace either of them. Of course.
Jase shifted. Bren heard the creak of the other chair. Jase was worried about Yolanda. Justifiably so.
As Mospheira’s allowing Deana Hanks to cross the water meant risking her life. If Mospheira lost her, that meant they had no translator who’d actually been in the field advising them, and their maze of security precautions was going to operate very slowly in giving anyone outside the State Department access to documents: the aiji’s blockade order, which hehadn’t translated, must either have come in Ragi and sent them scurrying for advanced translation, or in atevi-written Mosphei’, which wasn’t supposed to exist. He did wonder which.
But the readily obvious fact was, the government didn’t give a damn whether it talked to atevi so long as it thought the ship up there would deal with them.
It would, however, panic at the thought of Yolanda Mercheson leaving its shores or the ship aloft cutting them off cold from the flow of technology that was coming to the atevi. There was a level of self-preservation in the President’s office that hated adventurous doings, and that wouldn’t letDeana Hanks take Yolanda with her. He reasoned his way to that conclusion.
There werealso people in charge of Deana: Deana who did not have the intelligence or the authority she dreamed she had. She was not a random and stupid threat until she was in the field dealing with atevi. They, the theywho controlled her, didn’t know how bad her handling of the translation interface was, which was their major flaw. If there wereatevi experts able to know how bad she was, there wouldn’t bean intercultural problem. They liked her because what she told them would work was shaped exactly to fall into their plans, and that was their blind spot and her reason for getting the post.
But they had to be restraining her from her wilder notions, or God knew what would happen.
And somebodycould keep Hanks on the island. George Barrulin could, if he could get through to him.
But the paidhi-aiji was out of phone numbers that would mean anything, and he couldn’tget through to George. They fired everybody in the whole Foreign Office. God!
“Bren,” Jase said.
He opened his eyes a slit. And saw Jase sitting opposite him, elbows on knees, cup in both hands, with a downcast look.
“Bren,” Jase said in human language. “I want you to understand something.”
He had to listen. Jase’s voice had that tone. He sat up, tucked a foot across his knee, and tried to look as if his brain were working.
“The business about my father,” Jase said. “I don’t have one. Fact is—fact is, he isdead.”