Inheritor

The situation scared him, deep down scared him—for his family, for atevi, for everyone on the planet.

And he himself had argued with Tabini-aiji notto detain Deana Hanks on the mainland: to ship her home, safe and sound, mad, and dangerous. If things had gone that wrong, he had fault to bear. He could muster excuses when atevi politics were at fault. In this one, he could by no means blame the atevi government.

He smiled for the benefit of the servants who put away his coat, and he accepted their polite questions soberly: he didn’t lie to his staff, who had to handle touchy situations, and who had to fend away importunate and unauthorized persons of sometimes ill intent. “There was a difficulty at the interview, nadi,” he replied to the question of how it had gone. “A subject which should not have been brought up: nand’ Jase. We know the staff here didn’t release the information, but it is out.”

“One will inform nand’ Saidin, paidhi-ji. One is distressed to hear so.”

“Thank you, Sasi-ji.—How ishe doing?”

“He’s speaking to his mother now, nand’ paidhi.”

“ Thankyou, Sasi-ji.” He went aside immediately to the security station, into the usually open doorway and straight into the monitoring station which lay just inside.

Tano was there with an ear-set, as were Banichi, Jago, and a junior security operator, all listening.

Tano didn’t say a thing, just surrendered his earpiece to him, and Bren tucked the device in his ear.

“—don’t know what else I can do,” he heard, Jase’s voice, speaking the language of the ship, and a long pause followed, where a reply should be.

“ I know,” a woman’s voice said finally, sad-sounding. “ I have no way to help you. I can’t. And you can’t. Except to get back as soon as you can.”

“They say it’s making progress. That’s all I can say.”

“ Can you call again?”

“I just don’t know. I’ll try. I will try.”

“ I love you.”

A long pause, while that human expression hung thin and potent in the air. Then: “I love you, too, mama. I’m fine. Don’t worryabout me.”

Another pause. “ I’d better shut down now.”

“Yeah.—It’s good to hear your voice.”

“ Good to hear yours, Jase. Take care. Please take care.”

“I will, mama.”

There was silence, then. Bren looked at the occupants of the room, tall, black, a collection of alien faces one of whom was a woman he’d almost gone to bed with, all looking to him for reaction.

Some of whom understood enough of what had been said and some of whom trusted him enough to have expression on their faces.

Banichi did. And Jago.

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary in the exchange,” he said. “A son talking to his mother in—” There was no word for affection. There was just no concept. There was no possibility in the faces that stared at him with such good will and acceptance—and worry. “In terms ordinary for that relationship. Jase is concerned for his mother. He fears she is concerned about his mental well-being. She asked whether he could call again. He replied that he wasn’t certain, but he’d try.—He willhave access, will he not, nadiin-ji?”

“There’s no reason to the contrary,” Banichi said.

“The death of his father is attributed to accident,” Jago said. “We do not follow the precise cause.”

It was an offering of good faith in itself, that the most security-conscious atevi he knew let him know how much they understood. The faces came back into ordinary perspective for him. His heart was beating hard in sheer terror and he thought it was because he’d beensomewhere else for a moment, he’d been in human territory, and seeing two people he loved very much—

—not through a distortion, but as the atevi they were, incapable of returning that emotion. Seeing them as incapable of saying, as Jase’s mother said, I loveyou.

Seeing them as incapable of understanding, as Jase had said to a woman orbiting above them, I love you, mama.

Atevi children clung to their parents. But it wasn’t love that made them do that.

Go to the leader. Always go to the leader when the bullets start to fly: rally to the leader.

Could a human feelthe emotional satisfaction atevi got when they responded to that urge and were responded to? No more than atevi could feelwhat Jase meant when a mother and son said, at such uncrossable distance, I loveyou.

But they knew that, held at such distance from the chief of their association, theirprofoundest instinct would find no satisfaction. And on that side of the gulf, one face of the lot was deeply troubled.

Jago said, quietly, “As if she were on the moon, isn’t it?”

It was a proverb for the unattainable.

“Even the moon,” Banichi said, ever the pragmatic one, “will have railroads and television if this ship flies.”

“That it will,” Bren said, with that hollow spot still cold inside him. “And Jase knows it logically.—I’d better talk to him.”

They seemed relieved then, whether to think he could deal with the trouble, or simply to close off the presence of alie

He left them to their discussion of whatever they might discuss—the oddness of humans was his guess. He walked across the foyer and down the hall that led to the heart of the apartment, and to the library, where the phone was, where Jase had to be.

But so were the servants—all the servants, who weren’t standing in knots talking, as his first glance informed him, but arrayed somewhat in a line, and holding each a flower, whence obtained he had no idea; maybe one of the cut arrangements which appeared every few days. They bowed as he walked past in mild confusion, his attention on the same destination, past the dining rooms, past the bedrooms and the baths, alongside the grim steel barrier of the construction and on to the private office where the lady Damiri’s personal phone was.

Jase stood outside, his hands already holding a few blossoms, as one by one the servants came, each solemnly presenting him a single flower, bowing her head and walking away in silence.

Jase didn’t seem to know what to do. He stood there accepting the flowers, one after the other, and Bren stopped, just stopped and stood, as madam Saidin came up beside him, and also waited.

Jase stood there with his arms increasingly loaded, with the load greater and greater on his soul, by the look of him, until his arms were full, and the last servant had passed, given him a flower, and bowed and gone her way.

“If you please, nand’ Saidin,” Jase said with meticulous courtesy, and offered the mass of flowers toward her. “What is proper to do?”

“You may give them to me, if you wish,” Saidin said, and carefully took them, all forty-nine, as Bren guessed there were in that armful of assorted flowers. The whole hall smelled of them. “Shall I personally cast them on the garden pond, nand’ paidhi?” It was Jase she addressed. “That would be appropriate.”

“Please do,” Jase said, looking and sounding very much at the end of his self-restraint. But he bowed correctly. “Nandi. Thank you.”

“We are all sad,” Saidin said, and took the flowers away.

Bren expected to speak to him, and waited.

But as soon as Saidin had gone, Jase violently shoved past him and went toward the front of the apartment, headed, as Bren guessed, for his room.

The opening and slam of a heavy, well-hung door said that he guessed right.

Well, he thought, Jase had done everything in an exemplary fine ma

And he could ignore the gesture, and forgive it, and let it pass. It wasn’t the task he wanted when he was still exercised over the news conference: adrenaline started flowing and he couldn’t use it here, no matter what.