There can be no remedy by apology. The atevi administration cannot excuse such a reckless charge.
As a second point, in the official view of the aishidi’tat, the disposition of the Reunioners is not solely a station issue, but an international issue, to be settled at Presidential level and at the level of the aijinate, in consultation with the Ship, and in no way at the level of the Stationmaster.
We now know, as a result of the recent visit, and thanks to a medication easily available to the ship-folk, that this spaceborn population can adjust to life on the planet. This adds a new choice. In my own view, the best solution for the Reunioners is movement toward permanent residency on Mospheira. These are skilled workers whose technical expertise can easily be applied on the planet. The Mospheirans on the station may be joined one at a time by Reunioners who have cleared the same screening they passed, but for the majority, including families with children, the planet offers the best answer.
I hope in all good will for your quick assistance in these matters. I cannot stress enough the urgency involved.
Damn, he didn’t want to send that letter cold. He wanted it to sit for at least four hours for several reviews of the wording.
Shawn Tyers, multiple times President, past head of the Department of State, and, in the early years, his direct boss—had been his friend and sometime sounding board in years since.
But for various reasons—his own mother’s death, Toby’s role as go-between during the years he’d been gone—he hadn’t talked with Shawn all that often since he’d landed amid the troubles of the aishidi’tat. So glad you’re safe. Very glad to hear from you.
He hadn’t communicated officially with the Mospheiran government even to ascertain whether he currently held any official position within it. No one had ever withdrawn his appointment, true. But no one but Shawn in this entire last year had so much as asked him a direct question—and he had never asked in what capacity Shawn had asked him.
So now, out of the blue, he asked Shawn to use Presidential power to fire a very high level appointee, one who probably had political clout that could come back to haunt Shawn’s party.
Then he had to urge Shawn to take in the Reunioners, against strong objection likely from various interests inside Mospheira—and that led to the knotty question of where Reunioners might be settled with least problem. He wished he’d kept the contact with Shawn a little more current—though he didn’t know when in the last frantic year he’d have found the time.
Well, a personal phone call to precede that unpleasant letter was at least a start on patching the relationship and figuring out what his position officially was, these days.
He called for the phone, and for a line to the Presidential residency across the channel.
Narani brought the phone—and at least a connection to the residency. Beyond that point, it became a problem in Mosphei’, and Narani never attempted to translate.
“This is a member of the Presidenta’s staff, nandi,” Narani said. “At least one surmises him to be such.”
It was, as turned out, indeed, the President’s staff—but a secretary to the head of staff.
“This is Bren Cameron,” he said, “in Shejidan. I need to talk to the President. Personally.”
That took a bit. Three separate senior secretaries were sure they needed to talk to him instead.
“This is classified and this is urgent,” he said. “Advise the President.”
He definitely needed to have called Shawn before now. He didn’t know any of these people.
The President was at breakfast. Fine. The President could take five of his minutes away from the table and get on the phone. Urgently.
The President had been told he was calling. The President was coming to his office. Please wait.
He waited.
In the old days there was no likelihood of anybody successfully eavesdropping on the call. Nowadays it was a certainty there would be such people all along the physical route of the call. The Assassins’ Guild had a few members who could get the gist of a conversation, he was near certain. The Messengers’ Guild he was sure cultivated the same talents, and those people were likely working very hard to improve their linguistic skills. The longer the call waited, the more likely eavesdroppers could get into position.
Fifteen minutes. He took a few notes on other matters, with the handset braced against his shoulder.
“Bren?” Shawn asked.
“Shawn. Good to hear your voice.”
“Problem?”
“There is. I need you to get a courier to Shejidan on the afternoon flight. I’ll have one of my bodyguard run the document out to the airport, deliver it straight into your courier’s hands, and stay there ’til the plane takes off again.”
“Understood.” Shawn didn’t ask the subject or the urgency that demanded such precautions. The last completely couriered exchange had been his report to Shawn on the voyage, and on Tabini’s return to power, a report which had massed more than five hundred pages. Back had come Shawn’s answer, also in writing, and classified, and in four words. Thank God. Stay well.
Beyond that—he’d sent a few reports over by courier, usually to relieve worry. The recent assassinations in the north—that had required a routine advisory note from the aiji’s office to the President’s, to assure Mospheira that everything was under control and that the young visitors were safe—should the station ask corroboration.
But the most recent and critical situation—the profound change in the Guild—he hadn’t had a clear enough picture to deliver a final report to Shawn.
Now events got ahead of him.
“How are you doing?” Shawn asked.
“Really very well. Had a great visit with Jase Graham and the kids.” Dead certainty that Shawn knew whatever details of the visit the human side of the space station knew, but with what slant in Tillington’s report was uncertain. “They did marvelously. Nobody was sick. The kids were outdoors, running all over the place, no problems. They had a great time, I’m glad to report.”
“Glad to hear it. I hear the aiji’s named an heir and now has a new daughter.”
“He has, both. Everybody’s happy, the baby’s doing fine—the aishidi’tat is very happy with the situation. I’m glad to report everything over here is in great shape.”
That slid rapidly across two topics in the letter the courier had to pick up, and the kids’ visit and the new daughter might have Shawn thinking down other problematic paths as the possible subject of the letter—the changes in Tabini’s family, the appointment of an heir, and all the upheaval and assassination inside the aishidi’tat.
All those matters—and that Jase had paid a visit.
One of those items was certainly dead on. And if anybody in the information chain was going to leak information up to Tillington, he didn’t want to explain it was Jase’s visit that now occasioned a couriered message. Tillington might well add two and two.
“How are you getting along?” Bren asked.
Code for: is there a circumstance I should know that’s going to complicate the situation on your side?
“Pretty well,” Shawn said—freighted with the current situation in the Mospheiran legislature, Bren was sure, applying to Shawn’s health, the prevailing weather, and the stability of current politics. It began to feel like their conversations before the voyage, the polite inquiries, the subtexts they both knew, the fact that the courier that came to the mainland to carry back the letter he was sending was very likely to bring an answering letter from Shawn. “Typical weather for the season. Fairly pleasant in the capital, however.”