"Scare hell out of Hanks-paidhi," Ilisidi said. "That's a beginning."
"I wish I could. I've tried. She's new. She's quite possibly competent in economics —"
"And she has powerful backers."
"I have freely admitted to it."
"Amazing." Ilisidi held her cup out for her servant to refill. "Tea, nand' paidhi?"
He took the offering. "Thank you. — Dowager-ma, may a presumptuous human ask your opinion?"
"Mine? Now what should my opinion sway? Affairs of state?"
"Lord Geigi. I'm concerned for him."
"For that melon-headed man?"
"Who — nevertheless occupies a sensitive and conservative position. Whom — a pretender to my office has needlessly upset."
"Melon-heads all. Full of seeds and pulp. The universe of stars is boundless. Or it is not. Certainly it doesn't consult us."
"That sums up the argument."
"Do humans in their wisdom know the universe of stars?"
"I — don't know." He wasn't ready to tread in that territory. Not for any lure. "I know there are humans who study such things. I'd be surprised if anyone definitively knew the universe."
"Oh, but it's simple to Geigi. Things add. They have it all summed and totaled, these Determinists."
"Does the dowager chance to have access to Determinists?" Many of the lords paid mathematicians and counters of every ilk, never to be surprised by controversy.
Certainly Tabini's house had a fair sampling of such experts, and he'd bet his retirement that Ilisidi had.
"Now what would the paidhi want with Determinists? To illumine their darkness? To mend their fallacious ways?"
"Hanks-paidhi made an injudicious comment, relative to numbers exceeding the light constant. I know you must have certain numerological experts on your staff, skilled people —"
More toast arrived at Ilisidi's elbow. And slid onto her plate to an accompaniment of sausages. "Skilled damned nonsense. Limiting the illimitable is folly."
"Skilled people," Bren reprised, refusing diversion, "to explain how a ship can get from one place to another faster than light travels — which classic physics says —"
"Oh, posh, posh, classic folly. Such extraneous things you humans entrain. I could have lived quite content without these ridiculous numbers. Or, I will tell you, lord Geigi's despondent messages."
"Despondent?"
"Desperate, rather. Shall I confide the damage that woman has done? He's trying to borrow money secretly. He's quite terrified, perceiving that he's consulted a person of infelicitous numbers, a person, moreover, who let her proposals and his finances become too public — he's quite, quite exposed. Folly. Absolute folly."
"I'm distressed for him."
"Oh, none more distressed than his creditors, who thought him stable enough to be a long-term risk as aiji of his province; now they perceive him as a short-term and, very high risk, with his credit andhis potential for paying his debts sinking by the hour. The man is up for sale. It's widely known. It's very shameful. Probably I shall help him. But I dislike to trade in loyalties and cash."
"I quite understand that. But I find him a brave man — 1 and possibly trying to protect others in his man'chi."'
"Posh, what do you understand? You've no atevi sensibilities."
"I can help him. I think I can help him, dowager-ji. I think I've found a way to explain Hanks' remark… if I had very wise mathematicians, correctmathematicians from the Determinists' point of view…"
"Are you asking me to find such people?"
"I fear none of that philosophy have cast their lot with your grandson. You, on the other hand…"
"Tabini asks me to rescue this foolish man."
"I ask you. Personally. Tabini knows nothing about it. Rescue him. Don't buy him. Don't take a public posture. Don't say that I suggested it. Surely he could never accept it."
"Why?" Ilisidi asked. "Is thisthe mysterious trip to the north?"
"I'd be astonished if I ever achieved mystery to you, nand' dowager."
"Impudent rascal. So you were out there rescuing Geigi the melon?"
"Yes."
"Why, in the name of the felicitous gods?"
He couldn't say in terms he knew she couldn't misapprehend. He looked out toward the Bergid, where dawn was turning the sky faintly blue. "There's no value," he discovered himself saying, finally, "in the collapse of any part of the present order of things. The world has achieved a certain harmony. Stability favors atevi interests. Yours, your grandson's. Everyone's. Stability even favors Mospheira, if certain Mospheirans weren't acting like fools."
"This woman is a wonder," Ilisidi said. "She should have sought me out. But she had no notion she should."
"She's harmless on Mospheira. Where I'd like to send her. But in moments of fright, my government freezes solid. This is such a moment. Let me tell you, dowager-ji, one secret truth of humans: we have self-interests, and truly selfish and wicked humans can be far more selfish than atevi psychology can readily comprehend."
"Ah. And are atevi immune?"
"Far more loyal to certain interests. Humans can be thorough rebels, acting alone and in total self-interest."
"So can atevi be great fools. And if Geigi believed this woman, still I wonder why you took this very long, very urgent excursion, and sought advice of such eccentrics."
"A brilliant old man, nand' dowager. I recommend him to your attention."
"An astronomer"Ilisidi said with scorn.
"Possibly a brilliant man, aiji-ma. I'd almost have brought him back to court, aiji-ma, but I feared court was too fierce a place for him. His name is Grigiji. He's spent a long life looking for a reconciliation of human science and atevi numbers. His colleagues at the observatory have devoted themselves to recovering the respectability of atevi astronomers. They want to create an atevi science that uses atevi numerical concepts to look past human approximations… approximations which I will assure you humans do use, from time to time… to an integration of very vast numbers with the numbers of. daily life."
He said what he said with calculation, in hope of catching Ilisidi's interest in things atevi, and in atevi tradition. And he saw the dowager paying more than casual interest for that one instant, the mask of indifference set aside.
"So?" Ilisidi asked. "So what does this Grigiji say to Geigi?"
Ilisidi was intellectual enough to set aside beliefs that didn't gibe with reality, politician enough to accept some for political necessity; and atevi enough, he suddenly thought, to long for some unifying logic in her world, logic which the very traditions she championed declared to exist.
He reached inside his coat and found the small packet he'd made, copies of the emeritus' equations and his own notes such as he'd been able to render them. She didn't reach for it: the wind was blowing.
"What is this?" Ilisidi asked.
"A human's poorly copied notation of what the astronomer emeritus had to say. And his own words, aiji-ma." A servant, young and male — Ilisidi's habit — showed up at his elbow to take the papers into safekeeping.
"Not the astronomer-aiji?"
It was a gibe. Is there some reason, the question meant, that Tabini's own astronomers, high in the court, failed — and a human sought his sources elsewhere? Doubtless this very moment, Cenedi would be sending out inquiries about Grigiji, his provenance, his background, his affiliations. And Ilisidi, who habitually gave the paidhi a great deal of tolerance, but — propositioned — would notcommit herself to touch such an obviously political gift: clearly the paidhi was being political; so, in turn, was she.