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But, given a choice now, he wouldn’t have done it tomorrow.
Damn! He wouldn’t. But he supposed that nobody, including people who had or had not been atop certain buildings in the rain, had considered the paidhi’s interview schedule when carrying out the assassination of a lord of the Association.
8
Banichi and Jago came to the dining room in the morning, cheerful and clearly anticipating the breakfast that was loading down the two service carts that were waiting along the wall outside.
Jase remained shut in his room. Jase was getting some sleep, madam Saidin said. Staff had quietly looked in on him to be sure that he was resting; and that he was safe; and they would be sure that he ate when he did wake.
“I think that sleep is more important for him,” Bren agreed as he sat down at the table. “Thank you, Saidin-ji.”
Tano and Algini came in for breakfast. And Tano, with a little bow, placed two objects beside his plate as he went to his chair, one a piece of vellum paper folded double, not scrolled as one did with formal messages; and the other a scroll in a gold (but very scarred) case.
In the inquiry regarding Jase-paidhi’s message, the simple folded note said, Tano’s writing, no message was received at Mogari-nai directed to him during your absence. I have verified this by electronic record as provided by Mogari-nai.
Indeed, while he’d been sitting talking with Banichi and Jago last night, others of his staff had been querying the Mogari-nai earth station via levels of the Bu-javid staff that could obtain valid and reliable answers.
So Jase’s ship hadn’t informed him of something that personal and urgent. The question was whythey hadn’t informed Jase; and whythey’d told Yolanda without telling her Jase didn’t know and consequently let her blurt out a piece of news like that. It was stupid, to have set up two agents in the field to be in that situation, and stupidity did not accord with other actions the ship had taken.
Nor did Manasi nor any member of the staff receive any request from nand’ Jase to call the ship, although this would not have been granted. He wished to speak to you personally and this request was denied. Nand’ Jase expressed extreme emotion at this denial and requested no call be made to you on his behalf. Nand’ Manasi expresses his distress at the situation, but he passed the tape of the Mospheira contact to the aiji’s staff with no knowledge it was out of the ordinary and the aiji’s staff has issued no report as yet on the content of that tape. Investigation is proceeding on the matter of timely report.
Meaning the aiji’s staff, probably busy Mospheira-watching on other topics, had the tape of the phone call but hadn’t interpreted it against the background of what else was going on, meaning matters in the peninsula, with which it might have been preoccupied. Manasi, watching Jase, hadn’t known what was going on. Jase had given Manasi a request against his orders and then told Manasi to let the matter drop.
Jase also had that tendency to assume a rule could be neither questioned nor broken, a trait that came of the ship-culture Jase had come from, Bren very much suspected, one of those little points of difference between the ship and Mospheira. He and Jase almostshared a language, and met towering problems centered in wrong assumptions. On one level this had all the irrational feel of one of those.
But the misunderstanding wasn’t trivial, this time.
And it still didn’t answer the question why Jase hadn’t been informed by the ship via Mogari-nai. And it didn’t answer the possibility the aiji’s staff had realized something was wrong and hadn’t informed him. He wasn’t sure Manasi had erred; he wasn’t sure, either, that the staff had held anything back from him, but his instincts for trouble were awake.
Tano’s note went on to a second item of the business he’d laid on his staff last night: I forwarded your note to nand’ Eidi. The aiji asks we advise his staff as soon as you’ve finished breakfast. He said he ca
Also, do you recall that there is a live television interview scheduled today at noon? I asked nand’ Eidi yesterday should it be postponed or taken on tape, and nand’ Eidi says the aiji believes any deviation in your schedule would be interpreted by the public at large not as your legitimate wish for rest but as the Bu-javid security staff’s reaction to the general security alert, an intimation of concern the aiji does not wish to convey.
It is therefore the aiji’s wish that you conduct the interview on schedule. I state the aiji’s words. If we may be of service, we will carry another message.
“Thank you, nadiin-ji,” he said, in the plural, figuring that both Tano and Algini had shared duty last night and lost sleep over the Jase matter; the message to the aiji had been much the simpler case, but pursued before he had even thought of it, thank God for Tano’s keeping his schedule straight.
Then there was the second message cylinder, which staff, presumably, had already opened: the seal was cracked. The scarred gold case had a seal he didn’t recognize, but evidently it was a message the clerical staff as well as his household thought he should see, on a priority evidently equal to the Jase matter.
The message he unrolled, as Saidin was serving the muffins and another servant was pouring tea, bore the written heading of the lord of Dur-wajran. That was the unknown seal.
Thatmatter, he said to himself: the pilot who’d nearly collided with their jet.
Nand’ paidhi, it read in a less than elegant hand, one wishes most earnestly for your good will. The unfortunate circumstance(misspelled) of the encounter was unwished by me because of error and I wish to take all responsibility personally. Please do not take offense at my household. I did not mean to hit your plane. I am solely(misspelled) to blame and offer profoundest regrets at my stupidity.
It was signed by one Rejiri, with a clan heraldry he took for the seal of Dur-wajran.
“This was the pilot? How old is he?”
“Young,” Tano said. “I’d be surprised if he’s twenty. He brought the message to the residential security post with flowers. On policy, they declined the flowers and sent them to the public display area but accepted the message.” Tano added, then, in the ma
“What are we talking about?” Banichi asked.
“A pilot brought his plane very close to ours yesterday,” Bren said. “I take it he’s not still downstairs.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Tano said. “They say, however, he was insistent.”
“Young,” Algini said. “One thinks some of his distress may be the impoundment of the aircraft, which may bring his parents to Shejidan. He may wish to ask you to clear the record. I would notadvise you meet with him or to grant that request.”
“He,” Tano added, “has a record of small aerial incidents around the coast near his home. He had no business bringing the plane to the largest airport in the world.”
“True.” He had campaigned for stricter enforcement of the ATC rales. He passed the note to Jago, as the most forgiving member of his security. “I hope they won’t deal too harshly with him.” One could get into a great deal of trouble coming too close to the aiji’s residence during a security alert. “Please have someone advise him I take no personal offense and that the Bu-javid staff has more urgent business.”