Tabini laughed silently. "So. You and I were to go fishing. But I fear there's a business afoot —"
He didn't know how he could drag himself out of the chair. Or, in fact, sleep at night. "One understood back in Shejidan, aiji-ma, that the fish might have to wait."
"You look very tired."
"I can look more enthusiastic. Tell me where and when. Otherwise I'll save it for the landing."
"I think we should have a quiet supper, the two of us. We should talk about the character of our women, share a game of darts, and drink by the fire."
"That sounds like a very good program, aiji-ma."
"The fish can sleep safely this evening, then. Possibly the paidhi will get some rest."
"The paidhi certainly intends to try."
It was, as Tabini promised, a quiet supper. Other people were very busy — Banichi and Jago had gone off duty for the last quarter of the afternoon and, one assumed, fallen facedown and slept like stones, Bren told himself: it had to be rare that they could sleep in the sure knowledge they were absolutely safe, absolutely surrounded by security, and the primary job wasn't theirs.
He certainly didn't begrudge them that.
And after supper, Tabini defeated him soundly at darts — but he won three games of ten, whether by skill or the aiji's courtesy, and they sat, as Tabini had promised, by the fire.
"I'd imagine our visitors are well away by now," Bren said in the contemplation the moment offered. "I'd imagine they'll board the lander at the very last — ride out in whatever craft will take them to the brink, and perform their last-minute checks tomorrow. Everything has to be on schedule, or I'm sure they'd have called."
"These are very brave people," Tabini said.
"Very scared people. It's a very old lander." He took a sip of liquor and stared into the endless patterns of the wood fire. "The world's changing, aiji-ma. Mine is, the mainland will." Tabini had never yet mentioned Ilisidi's presence in the house. "I have a request, aiji-ma, that regard for me should never prompt you to grant against your better judgment. They tell me the dowager was here last night. That she's with the Atigeini. — Which I do not understand. But I would urge —"
Tabini was utterly quiet for the moment. Not looking at him. And he looked back toward the fire.
"In my perhaps mistaken judgment, aiji-ma — the dowager, if she is involved, seems more the partisan of the Preservation Commission than of any political faction. At least regarding ideas expressed to me. Perhaps she was behind the events last night. But I don't think so."
"You don't think so."
"I think if Cenedi had meant to do me harm, he had far subtler means. And they wouldn't guest with the Atigeini if they'd shot up the breakfast room. That's all I'll say this evening on politics. But I want to speak for the dowager, if I have any credit at all."
"Your last candidate for favor was Hanks-paidhi."
"True."
"Well, trust grandmother to find a landing spot. I offered her a plane. Which she declined."
"It's, as I said, Tabini-ma, the limit of my knowledge. I only wish to communicate my impression that she viewed the experience of atevi before humans came as an important legacy to guide the aiji in an age of change and foreign ways. I realize I'm a very poor spokesman for that viewpoint. But even against your displeasure I advance it, as my minimal debt to what I believe to be a wise and farseeing woman."
"Gods inferior and blasphemed, you're so much more collected than Brominandi. That wretch had the effrontery to send me a telegram in support of the rebels, do you know?"
"I hadn't known."
"He should take lessons from you. At telegraph rates he's spent his annual budget."
"But I believe it, aiji-ma. I'd never urge you against what I believe is to the benefit of atevi."
"Grandmother will take no harm of me."
"But Malguri."
"Nor will there be public markets at Malguri. — Which some would urge, you understand. Some see the old places as superfluous, an emblem of opprobrious privilege."
"I see it," he said, "as something atevi can never obtain from human books."
Tabini said nothing in reply to that. Only recrossed his ankles on the footstool, and the two of them stared at the fire a moment.
"Where is man'chi," Tabini asked him, "paidhi-ji?"
"Mine? One thought atevi didn't ask one another such questions."
"An aiji may ask. — Of course —"
A hurried group of security went through the room, and the seniormost, it seemed, stopped. "Aiji-ma, pardon." The man gave Tabini a piece of paper, which Tabini read.
Tabini's leg came down off the chair arm. Tabini sat up, frowning.
"Is it distributed?" Tabini asked.
"Unfortunately so."
"No action against the paper. Do inquire their connections. One wonders if this is accidental."
"Aiji-ma." The security officer left.
And Tabini scowled.
"Trouble?" Superfluous question.
"Oh, a small matter. Merely a notice in the resort society paper that we're here forthe landing."
"Lake society?"
"The lake resort. A thousand tourists. At least. Passed out free to every campsite at the supply store."
"God."
"Invite the whole damned resort, why don't we? They'll be here, with camping gear and cameras andchildren! We've a chance of heavy arms fire! Of bombs, from small aircraft! We've a thousand damned tourists, gods unfortunate!"
Public land. There was no border, no boundary. One thing ran into the other.
" Damnedif this is a mistake," Tabini said. "The publisher knows it's stupid, the publisher knows it won't make a landing easier or safer. Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
Tabini flung himself to his feet. Bren gathered himself up more cautiously, as Tabini drew his coat closed and showed every sign of taking off.
"We can't be butchering tourists in mantraps," Tabini said. "Bren, put yourself to bed. Get some rest. It's clear I won't."
"If I could help in any way —"
"Since none of our problems of tonight speak Mosphei', I fear not. Stay by the phone. Be here in case we receive calls from the heavens that something's gone amiss. Don't wait up."
Property where private was sacrosanct and even tourists respected a security line — but a landing was a world-shattering event. The Landing was the end of the old world as the Treaty was the beginning of the new. Atevi were attracted to momentous events, and believed, in the way of numbers, that having been in the harmony of the moment gave them a special importance in the universe.
There couldn't be an ateva in the whole world, once the news got beyond Taiben and once it hit the lake resort and the airport, who wouldn't phone a relative to say that humans were falling out of the sky again, and they were doing it here, at dawn tomorrow.
It wasn't a prescription for early sleep. Tano and Algini came in briefly to say they'd indeed contacted the rangers, who took the rail over to the lake and personally, on the loudspeakers, advised tourists that it was a dangerous area, that and that they risked the aiji's extreme displeasure.
"One wonders how many have already left," Bren said.
"The rangers are all advised," Algini said.
"But one couldn't tell tourists from Guild members looking for trouble."
"Many of us know each other," Tano said. "Especially in the central region."
"But true," Algini said, "that one has to approach closer than one would like to tell the difference. It's very clever, what they've done."
"Who's done? Does anybody know who's behind this?"