Inheritor

“Theoretically—” Jase said. Possibly Jase didn’t know that word.

He’d not wanted, for one other thing, to lose his credibility in a descent into name-calling and accusations. He’d never wanted to bring the whole of the stresses on him into question in the household here: it would raise concerns even with the staff. But maybe Jase wasable to understand the complexity of the constraints on him. Maybe he’d been around atevi long enough not to draw wrong conclusions and maybe it wastime to lay some of the truth on the table, if Jase was listening behind doors. He changed to Mosphei’.

“More than theoretically, Jase, the sons of bitches are calling my mother at three in the morning. She’s got a heart condition.—But they’re freelance operators so far as I know. Isolationists. Pro-spacers. Anti-spacers. The whole damn gamut, Jase. It’s the radical fringe that wants another war. Or an end to building on the north shore. I’m sure Ms. Mercheson has had lunch with them, though I haven’t wanted to act as if I were trying to affect herindependent judgment. They’ll be perfectly polite to her. They’ll be dressed in their Sunday best and telling her atevi can’t be trusted.” He knew he’d wandered further than he’d intended, into areas he probably shouldn’t discuss with Jase, politically speaking. But if he didn’t find a starting point to include Jase on the inside of the information flow, Jase couldn’t understand the atevi’s chosen isolation, either.

The hell with it, he thought. It wastime to talk, seriously, about the con job the Mospheiran government was bound to be trying on Yolanda Mercheson; and he’d tried to take the high ground rather than have his own side sound like a con job. But that strategy could backfire, if Jase had gotten some report from Yolanda that painted the other side of the strait as flawless and cooperative; and he wasn’t sorry to have hit Jase with the nastier truths of Mospheira’s underside.

“There’s a lot of humans,” he said, in Ragi again, and more calmly, “who don’t want atevi to go to space. And among those, some are crazy. Some are honest, law-abiding citizens.”

“An infelicity of two: you mean—some are neither.”

That was a first. He waspleased. If Jase had gotten that far, they couldtalk, and he was ready to do so. “Just so, nadi. Better and better. Another such improvement and I might well present you at court.”

“Not—quite ready for that, I think.”

“But very much better. I don’t know if information helps the digestion, but that’s the truth from my side. What’s yours?”

A slight hesitation. Then: “My father’s dead.”

For a moment he didn’t even hear it. Or didn’t believe he could have heard what he thought he had.

“God, Jase.—When?” He couldn’t figure out how Jase would learn such a thing. Whenever the ship called, it created a stir in the household; and he hadn’t heard of it.

“Four days ago.—I got it from Yolanda. I haven’t even been able to call my mother. Security wouldn’t let me call the ship because you hadn’t left instructions and I couldn’t reach you.”

Thatwas the distress over the period out of contact. That was the aborted conversation before supper.

“Damn. Damn, Jase, what do I say?—I’m sorry.”

“It’s one of those things, you know. Just one of those things. He just—just was working—” The glass trembled in Jase’s fingers, and he lifted it and drank. “An accident. Yolanda had talked to the ship. She heard. She thought I already had. She offered condolences—All right?” The glass met the small table. Click. “But I haven’t been able to call herback. I found out four days ago and I haven’t been able to get hold of you. I haven’t been able to call the ship.”

He had to revise a great many estimations of Jase, with this performance, both cool-headed and confrontational, recklessly so: Here’s what I know, be damned to you, I want off this planet.

No wonderJase had been bearing down on the lessons in the last several days. To the point of hysteria, alternated with cold, clear, bloody-minded function. He was speaking now in Ragi and doing it with steady self-control.

“Jase. I didn’t hear. I don’t know why I didn’t hear. And I don’t know why you didn’t get a call from the ship. I’ll ask official questions. I’m extremely sorry.”

The facial nerves were verywell under control, as perhaps his were. He forgot, he feared, to adjust between languages. Between mindsets, he forgot to respond in the human sense. He forgotto use human expressions.

“Jase.” He switched to Mosphei’ and, like an actor assuming a role, brought expression consciously to his face. “I didn’t know. I’m going to find out why I didn’t know. I know that atevi will be concerned that you didn’t learn this in any proper way.”

“Can we use the word ‘care’ here? Are we finally permitted?”

“In this, Jase, I assure you the staff would care.”

“Shed tears, I’m sure.”

“No.” He refused to back up from the attack, and equally refused to attack back. “But making demands like that serves no one.—I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. I put you off and I’m sorry. I wish I’d been here. I am here now. Can I do anything?”

“No. I’ve been keeping up with my studies.” Jase’s tone was light, his eyes distracted by something across the room. The wall, perhaps. Or a blowing curtain. “It’s the only choice I have, isn’t it?”

“Is your mother all right?”

Slight pause. Restrainedly, then: “I have no idea.”

“Damn. Damn, Jase. I willstraighten out the phone situation.”

“I’d like to talk to my mother. Privately. If you can arrange that.”

He didn’t know what to say. “I’ll arrange something. As soon as I can. Do you want to speak to her tonight?”

“If she’s gotten to sleep, I’d rather not disturb her this late.” The ship-folk had sensibly adjusted their day-night schedule to the Mospheira-Shejidan time zone. And it was still evening up there on the ship, as it was evening here, but he didn’t argue that fine point with Jase, either.

Excuse, he thought. And asked himself why, and with what motive, and didn’t come up with charitable answers, a reaction he didn’t trust in himself. Hewas angry. He didn’t know why that was, either. He didn’t think he was angry at Jase. Or the staff. Having just talked about his own home situation, he knew why he mightbe angry.

He wasn’t sure, though, why he wasangry, or at what he could even be angry, and was far less certain that his anger would do any possible good to anyone.

The servant came in, hesitated, and at a slight lifting of his hand, poured two more drinks.

But Jase said, after the young woman had left, “I’ll take mine to my room, if you don’t mind, nadi. I’m feeling unsteady.”

Jase rose. Bren did. One part of him said in spite of Jase’s evasions and in spite of his anger he should go over to Jase and put his arm around his shoulders. He should offer—something of an emotional support.

But he didn’t. As Jase never quite addressed him with the intimate form in Ragi, though he did it toward Jase.

Jase had never made such gestures toward him in that interpersonally sensitive language. Maybe Jase didn’t think he was of status to do it. Maybe there was another reason.

Whatever it was, they’d never made such gestures toward one another, certainly not intruded so far as an embrace, between the only two humans on the mainland. He’d held out a hand to welcome Jase when he’d pulled him from the capsule and into the world. Jase had accepted that hand, but hadn’t met him with the enthusiasm or the ope

The one gesture, nothing more, from either side. And somehow they’d found no way to begin again. Not in six months.

It seemed impossible to try in this situation, when sensibilities were raw-edged and, he admitted it, when he wasn’t sure he’d mean any such move toward a greater closeness with Jase, because of an anger the causes of which he wasn’t himself right now sure of.