Foreigner

So he gave the official, the carefully worked out, translatable reply: “We saw association possible. We saw advantage to us in your good will in this region where fortune had cast us.”

“You tell us whether we shall have roads, or rail. You deny us what pleases you to deny. You promise us wonders. But the great wonders, as I hear, are on Mospheira, for the enjoyment of humans, who have paved roads.”

‘’A very few. Fewer than you have.“

“On a continent a thousand times the size of Mospheira. Be honest, nand’ paidhi.”

“With vehicles that don’t use internal combustion. Which will come, nai-ji, which will come to atevi.”

“In your lifetime… or in mine?”

“Perhaps in thirty years. Perhaps less. Depending on whether we have the necessary industry. Depending on finding resources. Depending on the associations and the provinces finding it politic to cooperate in producing scarce items, in depending on computers. Depending on man’chi, and who’s willing and not willing to work together, and how successful the first programs are… but I needn’t tell that to the aiji-dowager, who knows the obstinacy of vested interests.”

He had made the dowager laugh, if briefly and darkly. The sun cast Ilisidi’s black profile in shadow against the hazy distances of the sky and the lake. They rode a while in silence, there on the crest of the mountain, with the wind picking up the mecheiti’s manes and himself rocking, child-sized, on the back of a creature bred to carry atevi into their infrequent and terrible wars.

“There’s the airport,” Ilisidi said, pointing ahead of them.

Straining his eyes, he could make out what he thought was Maidingi Airport, beside a hazy sprawl he decided must be Maidingi township. Nearer at hand, he could just make out the road, or what he took for it, wending down the mountain.

“Is that the town? he asked, knowing it was a stupid question, but only to break the silence; and Ilisidi said it was Maidingi.

After that, looking out over the broad plain, Ilisidi pointed out the direction of villages outlying Maidingi township, and told him the names of plants and regions and the mountains across the lake.

But in his mind was the history he had seen in the books in his room, the castle standing against attack from the Association across the lake, even before ca

Don’t romanticize, his predecessor had told him. Don’t imagine. See and observe and report.

Accuracy. Not wishful thinking.

Lives relied on the paidhi’s accuracy. Billions of lives relied on the truth of his perception.

And relied equally on his representing both sides accurately to each other.

But, he thought, how much have we forgotten about them? How much have we encouraged them to lose? How much have we overridden, imposing our priorities and our technological sequence over theirs?

Or are those possibilities really forgotten here? Have they ever wholly been forgotten?

They rode to the very end of the ridge. Clouds were rolling in over the southern end of the lake, dark gray beneath, flashing with lightnings, brooding over slate-gray waters. But sunlight slanted over the blue peaks to the east, turning the water along the Malguri shore as bright as polished silver. A dragonette leapt from its nest among the rocks, crying protest to the winds, and thunder rumbled. Another dragonette was creeping back up the mountain the long, slow way they must, once they’d flown, wings folded, wing-claws finding purchase on the steep rocks.

Dragonettes existed in Shejidan. Buildings near the park had slanted walls, he’d heard, specifically to afford them purchase. Atevi still valued them, for their stubbor

Predator on the wing and potential prey on the return.

Ilisidi turned Babs about on the end of the trail, and took a downward, slanting course among the rocks. He followed.

In a time more of riding, they passed an old and ruined building Cenedi said was an artillery installation from a provincial dispute. But its foundations, Cenedi said, had been older than that, as a fortress called Tadiiri, the Sister, once bristling with ca

“How did it go to ruins?” he asked.

“A falling out with Malguri,” Cenedi said. “And a barrel of wine that didn’t agree with the aiji of Tadiiri or his court.”

Poison. “But the whole fortress?” he blurted out.

“It lacked finesse,” Cenedi said.

So he knew of a certainty then what Cenedi was, the same as Banichi and Jago. And he believed now absolutely that his near demise had embarrassed Cenedi, as Cenedi had said, professionally.

“After that,” Cenedi said, “Tadiiri was demolished, its ca

He had not even been sure they were authentic. A memorial, he had thought. He didn’t know such things. But the age of wars and ca

And here he rode with Ilisidi, and her guard, leaving the one Tabini had lent him. Or was it, in atevi terms, a maneuver, a posturing, a declaration of position and power, their forcing him to join them? He might have found something else unhealthful to drink, or eat. There were so many hazards a human could meet, if they meant him harm.

And Banichi and Cenedi did speak, and did intrude into each other’s territory—Banichi had been angry at him for accepting the invitation, Banichi had said there was no way to retrieve him from his promise—but all of it was for atevi reasons, atevi dealing with a situation between Tabini and his grandmother, at the least, and maybe a trial of Banichi’s authority in the house: he simply couldn’t read it.

Maybe Ilisidi and Tabini had made their point and maybe, hereafter, he could hope for peace between the two wings of the house—Tabini’s house, Tabini’s politics with generations before him, and paidhiin before himself.

Diplomacy, indeed, he thought, falling back to Babs’ tail again, in his place and deftly advised of it.

He understood who ruled in Malguri. He had certainly gotten that clear and strong. He supposed, through Banichi, that Tabini had.

But in the same way he supposed himself a little safer now, inside Ilisidi’s guardianship as well as Tabini’s.

VII

« ^ »

In a courtyard echoing with shouts and the squeals of mecheiti, Nokhada extended a leg at his third request, mostly, Bren thought, because the last but her had already done the same.

He slithered down Nokhada’s sun-warmed side, and viewed with mistrust the mecheita’s bending her neck around and nibbling his sleeve, butting capped but still formidable tusks into his side as he tried to straighten the twisted rein. But he wasn’t so foolish as to press on Nokhada’s nose again, and Nokhada lifted her head, sniffing the air, a black mountain between him and the mid-morning sun, complaining at something unseen—or only liking the echoes of her own voice.

The handlers moved in to take the rein. He gave Nokhada a dismissing pat on the shoulder, figuring that was due. Nokhada made a rumbling sound, and ripped the rein from his hand, following the rest of the group the handlers were leading away into the maze of courtyards.

“Use her while you’re here,” Ilisidi said, near him. “At any time, at any hour. The stables have their instructions to accommodate the paidhi-aiji.”