A clerk at the very modern reception desk inside the castle was occupied with a tremendous yawn. “We aren’t really open till eight o’clock,” he said hollowly.
“I want to see the Ambassador.”
“The Ambassador is at breakfast You’ll have to make an appointment.” In saying this the clerk wiped his watery eyes and was able to see the visitor clearly for the first time. He stared, moved his jaw several times, and said, “Who are you? Where — What do you want?”
“I want to see the Ambassador.”
“You just hold on,” the clerk said in the purest Nioti accent, still staring, and put out his hand to a telephone.
A car had just drawn up between the drawbridge gate and the entrance of the Embassy, and several men were getting out of it, the metal fittings of their black coats glittering in the sunlight. Two other men had just entered the lobby from the main part of the building, talking together, strange-looking people, strangely clothed. Shevek hurried around the reception desk towards them, trying to run. “Help mel” he said.
They looked up startled. One drew back, frowning. The other one looked past Shevek at the uniformed group who were just entering the Embassy, “Right in here!’ he said with coolness, took Shevek’s arm, and shut himself and Shevek into a little side office, with two steps and a gesture, as neat as a ballet dancer. “What’s up? You’re from Nio Essela?”
“I want to see the Ambassador.”
“Are you one of the strikers?”
“Shevek. My name is Shevek. From Anarres.”
The alien eyes flashed, brilliant, intelligent, in the jet-black face. “Mai-god!” the Terran said under his breath, and then, in Iotic, “Are you asking asylum?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Come with me, Dr. Shevek. Ill get you somewhere you can sit down.”
There were halls, stairs, the black man’s hand on his arm.
People were trying to take his coat off. He struggled against them, afraid they were after the notebook in his shirt pocket. Somebody spoke authoritatively in a foreign language. Somebody else said to him, “It’s all right. He’s trying to find out if you’re hurt. Your coat’s bloody.”
“Another man,” Shevek said. “Another man’s blood.”
He managed to sit up, though his head swam. He was on a couch in a large, sunlit room; apparently he had fainted. A couple of men and a woman stood near him. He looked at them without understanding.
“You are in the Embassy of Terra, Dr. Shevek. You are on Terran soil here. You are perfectly safe. You can stay here as long as you want.”
The woman’s skin was yellow-brown, like ferrous earth, and hairless, except on the scalp; not shaven, but hairless. The features were strange and childlike, small mouth, low-bridged nose, eyes with long full lids, cheeks and chin rounded, fat-padded. The whole figure was rounded, supple, childlike.
“You are safe here,” she repeated.
He tried to speak, but could not. One of the men pushed him gently on the chest, saying, “Lie down, lie down.” He lay back, but he whispered, “I want to see the Ambassador.”
“I’m the Ambassador. Keng is my name. We are glad you came to us. You are safe here. Please rest now, Dr. Shevek, and we’ll talk later. There is no hurry.” Her voice had an odd, singsong quality, but it was husky, like Takver’s voice.
“Takver,” he said, in his own language, “I don’t know what to do.”
She said, “Sleep,” and he slept.
After two days sleep and two days’ meals, dressed again in his grey Ioti suit, which they had cleaned and pressed for him, he was shown into the Ambassador’s private salon on the third floor of the tower.
The Ambassador neither bowed to him nor shook his hand, but joined her hands palm to palm before her breast and smiled. “I’m glad you feel better, Dr. Shevek. No, I should say simply Shevek, shouldn’t I? Please sit down. I’m sorry that I have to speak to you in Iotic, a foreign language to both of us. I don’t know your language. I am told that it’s a most interesting one, the only rationally invented language that has become the tongue of a great people.”
He felt big, heavy, hairy, beside this suave alien. He sat down in one of the deep, soft chairs. Keng also sat down, but grimaced as she did so. “I have a bad back,” she said, “from sitting in these comfortable chairs!” And Shevek realized then that she was not a woman of thirty or less, as he had thought, but was sixty or more; her smooth skin and childish physique had deceived him. “At home,” she went on, “we mostly sit on cushions on the floor. But if I did that here I would have to look up even more at everyone. You Cetians are all so tall!… We have a little problem. That is, we really do not, but the government of A-Io does. Your people on Anarres, the ones who maintain radio communication with Unas, you know, have been asking very urgently to speak with you. And the Ioti Government is embarrassed.” She smiled, a smile of pure amusement. “They don’t know what to say.”
She was calm. She was calm as a waterworn stone which, contemplated, calms. Shevek sat back in his chair and took a very considerable time to answer.
“Does the Ioti Government know that I’m here?”
“Well, not officially. We have said nothing, they have not asked. But we have several Ioti clerks and secretaries working here in the Embassy. So, of course, they know.”
“Is it a danger to you — my being here?”
“Oh no. Our embassy is to the Council of World Governments, not to the nation of A-Io. You had a perfect right to come here, which the rest of the Council would force A-Io to admit. And as I told you, this castle is Terran soil.” She smiled again; her smooth face folded into many little creases, and unfolded. “A delightful fantasy of diplomats! This castle eleven light-years from my Earth, this room in a tower in Rodarred, in A-Io, on the planet Urras of the sun Tau Ceti, is Terran soil.”
“Then you can tell them I am here.”
“Good. It will simplify matters. I wanted your consent”
“There was no… message for me, from Anarres?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t think of it from your point of view. If you are worried about something, we might broadcast to Anarres. We know the wave length your people there have been using, of course, but we haven’t used it because we were not invited to. It seemed best not to press. But we can easily arrange a conversation for you.”
“You have a transmitter?”
“We would relay through our ship — the Hainish ship that stays in orbit around Urras. Hain and Terra work together, you know. The Hainish Ambassador knows you’re with us; he is the only person who has been officially informed. So the radio is at your service.”
He thanked her, with the simplicity of one who does not look behind the offer for the offer’s motive. She studied him for a moment, her eyes shrewd, direct, and quiet. “I heard your speech,” she said.
He looked at her as from a distance. “Speech?”
“When you spoke at the great demonstration in Capitol Square. A week ago today. We always listen to the clandestine radio, the Socialist Workers’ and the Libertarians’ broadcasts. Of course, they were reporting the demonstration. I heard you speak. I was very moved. Then there was a noise, a strange noise, and one could hear the crowd beginning to shout. They did not explain. There was screaming. Then it died off the air suddenly. It was terrible, terrible to listen to. And you were there. How did you escape from that? How did you get out of the city? Old Town is still cordoned off; there are three regiments of the army in Nio; they round up strikers and suspects by the dozen and hundred every day. How did you get here?”