Inheritor

The plane banked and turned and leveled again, swooping in over the flat roofs of industry that had grown up around the airport.

Patinandi Aerospace was one: that large building he well knew was a maintenance facility. The aiji had spread the bounty of space industry wide throughout the provinces, and the push to get into space had wrought changes this year that wouldn’t be stopped. Ever.

There was a new computer manufacturing plant, and atevi designers were fully capable of making critical adjustments in what humans had long regarded as one of the final secrets, the one that would adjust atevi society into a more and more comprehensible mold.

Not necessarily so.

Faster and faster the pavement rushed under the wings.

Wheels touched dry pavement, squealed arrival.

The paidhi-aiji was as close to home as he was likely to come. This was it. Shejidan.

And hearing the wheels thump and roll and hearing the engines brake and feeling the reality of ground under him again, he let go a freer breath and knew, first, he was in the safest place in the world for him, and second, that he was among the people in the world most interested in his welfare. Delusion, perhaps, but he’d grown to rely on it.

4

The van transfer to the subway in the airport terminal was thankfully without extravagant welcome, media, or official inquiry. The paidhi-aiji was home. The paidhi-aiji andhis luggage, this time together and without misdirection, actually reached the appropriate subway car, and without incident the car set into motion on its trip toward the Bu-javid, on its lofty and historic hill on the edge of Shejidan.

Then, while he leaned back in comfort and velvet splendor, there arrived, via his security’s com link, a radioed communication from the airport authorities requesting an interview with the aiji’s pilot and copilot, and reporting the identity of the pilot of the strayed prop plane: the son of the lord of the island of Dur, one Rejiri of the Niliini of Dur-wajran, whose affiliations Tano and Algini were ordering researched by grim and secret agencies which, God help them, the lords of Dur-wajran had probably never encountered in their wildest imaginations.

Figure that the owner of such a private plane was affluent. Figure that on the small island of Dur opposing traffic wasn’t a problem the pilot, possibly of the only plane on the island of Dur, had ever met.

But as an accident, or near accident, it wasn’t the paidhi’s business to investigate or to deal with. Someone else had to explain the air traffic regulations to the lord’s son. He sat back in the soft red seats of Tabini’s private subway car and had a glass of fruit juice, confident his second try at a drink would stay in the glass. He timed the last sip nicely for the arrival at the station.

He let a junior security staffer carry the computer as he rose and left the car. He let others, very junior, carry the baggage while the clerical, Surieji, carried the voluminous physical notes. He let Tano and Algini deal with the details of routing himself and his entourage together down the concrete and tile walk in the very security-conscious Bu-javid station. The whole apparatus of government as well as the seasonal residences of various lords was above their heads in this echoing cavern, and he walked entirely at his ease to the lift that would carry him, Tano, and Algini to the third floor of the residences.

His apartment, on loan from the Atageini, was next door to Tabini’s own residence, a location he could hardly complain of for security or comfort; but getting to and from it was a matter of armed and high-clearance security. There was no forgetting something at the office, for damn certain, and dashing solo back after it.

But long gone were the days when he could go anywhere unguarded, anyway.

“Tabini-aiji wishes to see you personally,” Algini reported to him as they activated the lift, information doubtless from the device he had set in his ear. “But nand’ Eidi says that the aiji is occupied with briefings at the moment. He says further that you may rely on him that the aiji will, contrary to his expectations, be occupied all evening, and Eidi-nai will take the responsibility of saying so. He hopes that the paidhi will rest comfortably, quite likely for the night, although I myself would never promise that that will be the case. The aiji does as the aiji will do.”

Eidi was Tabini’s chief of household staff, an elderly man, whose good will and private counsel one wisely kept.

“I have no regrets for a night of rest, nadi-ji, I assure you.” The business with the stray plane had taken the spare adrenaline out of him. He felt bone tired, and a quiet di

He wondered, with the comfort of familiar things, what Jason Graham had been doing in his absence, and how Jase had fared, left alone with the staff who spoke nothing but Ragi.

And he wondered whether or not the workmen repairing the historic Atageini lilies in the breakfast room (a casualty of a security incident) had gotten the painting done. They’d proposed to do that during the dry weather that had been forecast—accurately, as happened; he’d followed the weather reports as one touch he could maintain with Shejidan.

He’d imagined the tiled roofs of Shejidan under sunshine, under twilight—security might change the view on him, moving him here and there within the Bu-javid, and he knew that one of these days the Atageini clan who really owned the apartment he was using had to repossess it, but for the while it was home to him; and the weather on the television in his hotel room had linked him with this place, and with what had become home.

And, oh, he was glad to be back, now. If there was a piece of hardwiring atevi and humans must share, he thought in that wandering way of a mind unwinding its tensions, it had to be the instinct that needed that anchor of a place to come back to. He felt vast relief as the lift let the three of them out upstairs, in the most secure area in the Bu-javid, a familiar hall lined with extravagant porcelain bouquets in glass cases, marble floor hushed by a broad carpet ru

They reached the door of the apartment, a short walk from the lift, which would bring up more of the party, and items of luggage. Instead of using the key he was sure Tano had, Tano quietly rang for attention.

The lift opened again. Their luggage was catching up. The door in front of them opened, the deadly devices deactivated, one sincerely trusted, which would have been the delay, and a servant let them in, as a half dozen other servants (they were all female in this household, which had been lady Damiri’s before she scandalized the whole Atageini clan by moving next door and residing openly with Tabini) converged to take custody of the paidhi and his coat and his luggage.

“Nand’ paidhi.” Saidin, major domo of the lady Damiri, came from the i

“Thank you.” He’d bet any amount of his uncollectible wages that Saidin was well-briefed on the reason for the just slightly early arrival, maybe even on the ATC incident; and he knew by experience that everything he could possibly need would appear like magic.