“One—has no idea, honored Father.”
“There will be someone,” his father said. “A fourth. Everyone will say so. But you are approaching your ninth and felicitous year, and one has asked oneself what sort of celebration there should be. Your grandfather and your great-uncle will of course have their plans, andtheir regional ambitions, about which you know something.”
“I know, honored Father. But—”
“Do not interrupt me.”
“Forgive me.”
“I am having a generous moment. I am having an extremely generous moment—and perhaps a moment of far less charity toward these pestilential regional ambitions. I shall not have a civil war breaking out between your grandfather and your great-uncle, or between your mother and me, or between me and my grandmother. Each will deplore the other’s influence. Half will deplore the association with nand’ Bren, half will support it. And it is in my mind to give everyone something else to deplore, if I can prevail upon Jase-aiji to move the parents of these three young people to permit them to attend you on your birthday—down and back up to the station again on the same shuttle cycle. Would that please you, son of mine?”
“Honored Father.” He found himself all but speechless. “Indeed.” He remembered to bow. “One would be extremely pleased.”
“One had little doubt of that. Your mother is anxious. I am not. One will expect extraordinarily good behavior before, during, and after this event. You understand the word ‘incident,’ do you not?”
“Yes, honored Father. One does understand it.”
“Do you understand my desire not to have one surrounding this event?”
“One understands very, very well, honored Father. One will be on absolutely the best behavior. And likewise my associates.”
“This entails the consent of their parents. Jase-aiji can strongly suggest they give it. He cannot order them to permit this, nor is it certain that your young associates will wish to come here. But you may invite them, and Jase-aiji will support your request, as will I. As will your mother.”
He bowed, and bowed again for good measure. “One would be ever so grateful, ever so well-behaved, ever so polite—”
His father lifted a hand for silence.
“Go,” his father said. “Go begin behaving well, today. Let us have another good report from your tutor.”
“You shall have, honored Father! Thank you!”
“Out.”
He left. He left with a look back at the doorway to see whether his father was still serious. He was. He ducked out and shut the door and went straight down the hall to his own door, and inside.
“Nadiin-ji!” he said when he had come in, and he scared Boji, who hopped from perch to perch in his cage and chattered at him.
But he had such good news, such absolutely unexpectedly wonderful news he could hardly hold it.
He had to start reading and writing in ship-speak again. He would teach his aishid. They needed to know it, being his bodyguards.
The whole heavens had opened up.
And when all his bodyguards appeared in the doorway, Antaro in only her underwear, he hardly even noticed that, he was so excited.
“I have news,” he said. “Nadiin-ji, I am going to have the best birthday there could ever be! My ship-associates are coming!”
“Indeed?” Antaro asked.
“For my birthday! Father sent the message, and I have letters!”
It was very little time until his birthday happened and until he could see his shipboard-associates, and they could meet his aishid, and they would all get together and talk until all hours.
Oh, and then he could show themhow clever he had taught Boji to be. They would never have seen a parid’ja, or a mechieta, or anything of the kind. That would be wonderful to them.
He would show them the Bujavid and mecheiti. He would take them on the train, and they could go to Uncle Tatiseigi’s estate, and he would show them all how to ride.
And he would have Boji travel with them, because by then he would have trained Boji. Boji would amaze them. They all told stories about dogs and cats and horses, and he had seen them in the human archive, but he was sure nobody alive had ever seen one. And hehad Boji, who would do wonderful things by then, and everybody would have a grand time, and maybehe could get permission to take his associates from the ship out to nand’ Bren’s estate at Najida, too, and they could see the ocean from right on the boat dock, and maybe even sail on nand’ Bren’s boat. Even if nand’ Bren could not be there, there were people who knew how to sail the boat, and with nand’ Bren’s permission, they could do it.
There would be so many wonderful things. So incredibly many things to do.
He had the envelope in his hand. Wordsfrom them. Shipspeaka.He had drawn his pictures to remember the ship and remember the words. And he had taught a few of the words and the alphabet to his aishid, but now it was urgent, and they were all going to learn and practice every single day.
Oh, it was so good!
Bindanda insisted he needed no day off to recuperate, and the result was a splendid and elaborate breakfast, the junior cook having had the foresight to have made a very large and extended food order, not just the staples for feeding twice the number as before, but the full array of ingredients, as the junior cook put it, that a master chef might expect to find in the best of kitchens.
Bren had signed off on the order, and the market had sent it up. And doubtless their junior cook had made a brilliant move, since Bindanda was clearly in a good mood.
Narani had the running of the household now, that venerable old man, and a dust particle would not dare linger. Narani had ordered flowers and started an arrangement of spring blossoms for the front hall, while staff scurried about on routine tasks, and Jeladi was supervising an inventory and assignment of staff to particular maintenance and supplycit was, in short, becoming a very well-run household this morning, one in which Bren found no fault at all.
Anticipating that he would have a household in reorganization and that his approval might be needed to set up certain accounts, he had not scheduled any committee meetings, not a one. He had foreseen also just the shade of a hangover after last night, but he had wisely avoided one and felt—surprisingly—extraordinary.
He blazed through the policy statement he had promised his clerical staff. Aliens might arrive in the heavens, as foretold, but they would not likely descend. The kyo were not the sort that coped well with strangeness, and that disposition at least seemed part of their makeup, not just a mutable cultural condition.
They are, however, very respectful of elders, and they were fascinated by the aiji’s son, who very favorably impressed them, as did the aiji-dowager, as an elder of great rank. We have a very good grasp of the basics of the language and are confident that the paidhiin on the station and the paidhi’s office in Shejidan will be able to translate adequately to enable a productive and well-conducted meeting. They have conceived of the atevi-human association as a good model for their own situation with their neighbors, and they wish to observe it in operation, which is their reason for contemplating a visit. They expect only to see how we live and to adapt it for their own circumstances.
One omitted the fact that the kyo had had no idea what to do about strangers and had gone to war with whatever strangers they met—though it was a little debatable who had shot first. Their troubles with their own neighbors was a problem one earnestly hoped never arrived on their planetary doorstep.
The world had, however, no choice about a kyo visit. The kyo either would come, as they had indicated they would, or they would argue themselves out of the notion and try to ignore the existence of a different model than the one they had. Politics must operate among the kyo. It did seem likely.