Foreigner

“What do you do regularly when you go back to Mospheira, nadi? Surely you spend some official time…?”

“You had a weapon in your quarters, nadi. What did you plan to do with it?”

Admit nothing, he thought. There wasno friendly question.

“I’m unaware of any gun.”

“An object that size, under your mattress.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it arrived and departed the same day.”

“Please don’t joke, nadi. This is an extremely serious business.”

“I’m aware it is. But I assure you, I didn’t bring it here and I didn’t put it under my mattress.”

“It appeared spontaneously.”

“It must have. I’ve no other answer. Nadi, what would I do with it? I’m no marksman. I’m no danger with a gun, except to myself and the furniture.”

“Nadi. We know this gun didn’t originate in Malguri. We have its registration.”

He looked elsewhere, at the double-edged shadows on the wall. Maybe Tabini had lost politically, somehow, in some way that mandated turning him over to a rival entity. He didn’t know who he was defending, now, in the matter of the disappearing gun, whether Tabini from his rivals or Banichi from prosecution, or whether Banichi’s substitution of that gun had muddied things up so badly that everyone looked guilty.

But he had no question now where the gun had gone.

And, as for lying, he adopted his own official line.

“Nadi,” Cenedi said. “Answer the question.”

“I thought it was a statement, nadi. Forgive me. I don’t own a gun. I didn’t put it there. That’s all I can say.”

“You firedat the assassin in Shejidan, nand’ paidhi.”

“No. I raised an alarm. Banichi fired when the man ran.”

“Banichi’s aim is not, then, what I’d expect of him.”

“It was dark, it was raining, and the man was ru

“And there was no one but yourself in the room.”

“I heard a noise. I roused the guard.”

“Banichi regularly stands guard by your door at night?”

“I don’t know, I suppose he had some business in the halls—some lady. I didn’t ask him.”

“Nadi, you’re lying. This doesn’t help anyone.”

“Only three people in the world know what happened that night: myself, Banichi, and the man on that balcony—who was surely not you, Cenedi-ji. Wasit?”

“No. It’s not my method of choice.”

That was probably a joke. He didn’t know whether to take it as one. He was scared, and sure that Cenedi had information from sources he didn’t know about. Cenedi was building a case of some kind. And while there were laws against kidnapping, and against holding a person by force, there were none against what Tabini had done in sending him here.

“You have no idea how the gun got there,” Cenedi said. “You state emphatically that you didn’t know it was there.”

“Yes.”

Cenedi leaned back in his chair and stared at him, a long, long moment.

“Banichi gave you the gun.”

“No, nadi. He did not.”

“Nand’ paidhi, there are people of the dowager’s acquaintance, closely associated people, whose associations with Tabini-aiji are throughthe aiji-dowager. They don’t accept this piece of paper, this Treatywith Mospheira. Pieces of paper don’t impress them at all, and, quite frankly, they don’t consider the cession of Mospheira legitimate or effective.”

Thatcrowd, he thought with a chill. The conservative fringe. The attack-the-beaches element. He didn’t want to believe it.

“We’ve received inquiry from them,” Cenedi said. “In fact, their agents have come to Malguri requesting you be turned over to them, urging the aiji-dowager to abandon association with Tabini altogether. They argue the Treaty is valueless. That Tabini-aiji is leading in a wrong direction. We’ve arranged a compromise. They need certain information, I’ve indicated we can obtain it for them, and they’ll not request you be turned over to them.”

It was a nightmare. He didn’t know what aspect of it to try to deal with. Finding out where Cenedi stood seemed foremost.

“Are you working for the aiji-dowager, nadi?”

“Always. Without exception.”

“And what side is shetaking? For or against Tabini?”

“She has no man’chi. She acts for herself.”

“To replace him?”

“That would be a possibility, nadi. She would do nothing that reduces her independence.”

Nothing that reduces her independence. Ilisidi had lost the election in the hasdrawad. Twice. Once five years ago, to Tabini.

And Tabini had to write that letter and send himto Ilisidi?

“Will you give me the statements I need, nand’ paidhi?”

It wasn’t an easy answer. Possibly—possibly Tabini hadn’t really betrayed him. Possibly Tabini’s administration was on its way down in defeat, and he’d never felt the earthquake. He couldn’t believe that. But atevi politics had confounded paidhiin before him.

“Nand’ paidhi,” Cenedi said. “These people have sent to Maiguri to bring you back to their authorities. If I give you over to them, I don’t say we can’t get you back—but in what condition I can hardly promise. They might carry their questioning much further, into technology, weapons, and space-based systems, things in which we have no interest, and in which we have no reason to believe you haven’t told the truth. Please don’t delude yourself: this is not machimi, and no one keeps secrets from professionals. If you give me the statement I want, that will bring Tabini down, we can be cordial. If I can’t show them that—”

His mind was racing. He was losing bits of what Cenedi was saying, and that could be disastrous.

“—I’ve no choice but to let them obtain it their way. And I had much rather keep you from that, nand’ paidhi. Again: who fired the gun?”

“Banichi fired the gun.”

“Who gaveyou the gun?”

“No one gave me a gun, nadi.”

Cenedi sighed and pressed a button. Not a historical relic, a distracted corner of his mind objected. But probably a great deal else around Cenedi’s office wasn’t historical, or outmoded.

They waited. He could, he thought, change his mind. He could give Cenedi what he wanted, change sides—but he had Cenedi’s word… and that letter… to tell him what was really going on, and he didn’t believe it, not wholly. Tabini had been too ca

Which was stupid to think. If Tabini wanted him to take any active role in this, if that letter wasn’t to take seriously, Tabini could have told him, Banichi or Jago could have told him— someonecould have told him what in hell they wanted him to do.

And he could have called his office, the way he was supposed to, and filed a report.

X

« ^ »

The door behind him opened. He had no illusions about making an escape from Malguri—half the continent away from human territory, with no phone and no one to rely on except Jago and Banichi—and that was, perhaps, a chance; but out-muscling two strong atevi who stood head and shoulders taller than he did, who loomed over him and laid hands on his arms as he got up from the chair… that hardly felt like a sane chance, either.

Cenedi looked at him, and said nothing as they took him out into the dim hall. They were taking him further back into Malguri’s farther wing, outside the territory he knew, farther and farther from the outside door, and he had at least a notion Banichi might be on the grounds, if Cenedi had told the truth, working wherever the power lines came into the building. He might reach Banichi, at least raise an alarm—if he could overpower two atevi, three, counting Cenedi, and one had bettercount Cenedi.

And get out of Cenedi’s hearing.

“I need the restroom,” he said, planting his feet, his heart beating like a hammer. It was stupid, but after two cups of tea, it was also the truth. “Just wait a damned minute, I need the restroom…”