Inheritor

“Sandra Johnson.”

“ Yes, sir.”

He shut his eyes and blocked out the atevi world. Imagined a pretty woman in an ivory satin jacket, candlelight, Rococo’s, and a quiet chat in her apartment. Nice place. Plants everywhere. She named them. Clarence, and Louise. Clarence was a spider plant, one of those smuggled bits that the colonists weren’t supposed to have taken, and some had, and spider plants were common, but no ecological threat. Louise was a djossivine, and he’d said—he’d said she should set it on her balcony. They liked more light. The paidhi knew. They grew all over Shejidan.

The phone was ringing. And ringing.

Please, God, let someone pick it up.

“ Hello?”

“Sandra? This is Bren. Don’t hang up.”

“ Bren Cameron?” Justifiably she sounded a little shocked. “ Are you on the island?”

“No. No, I’m calling from Shejidan. I apologize. Sandra. I—” Words were his stock in trade and he couldn’t manage his tongue or his wits, or even think of the social, right words he wanted in Mosphei’. It was all engineering and diplomatese. “I’ve run out of resources, Sandra. I need your help. Pleasedon’t hang up. Listen to me.”

“ Is something wrong?”

God. Is something wrong? He suffered an impulse to laugh hysterically. And didn’t. “I’m fine. But—” What did he say? They’re harassing my family and threatening their lives? He’d just put Sandra Johnson on the list, just by calling her. “Sandra, how are you?”

“ Fine. But—”

“But?”

“ I just—was rather surprised, that’s all.”

“Sandra, my mother’s in the hospital or she’s home. I can’t get the hospital to admit she’s in there. Probably it’s a security precaution, but the clerk’s being an ass. I know—” God, he had no shame. Nor scruples. “I know I have no right to call up like this and hand you a problem, but I can’t get through and I’m worried about her. Can you do some investigating?”

“ Bren—I—”

“Go on.”

“ I know she’s there. I know they’ve got police guards. It’s in the news. Bren, a lot of people are mad at you.”

“I imagine they are. But what in hell’s it doing in the news about my mother and police guards?”

“ Bren, they’ve thrown paint on the apartment building. Somebody shot out the big windows in the front of the State Department last week. You’re why.”

He felt a leaden lump in his stomach, “I don’t get all the news.”

“ Bren, just— a lot’s changed. A lot’s changed.”

The operator, he was sure, was still listening. The call was being recorded.

“Shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“ Bren, I’m a little scared. What are you doing over there? What have you done?”

“My job,” he said, and all defenses cut in.

“ They say you’re turning over everything to the atevi.”

“Who says? Who says, Sandra?”

“ Just— on the news, they say it. People call the television station. They say it.”

“Has the President said anything?”

“ Not that I know.”

“Well, then, not everything’s changed,” he said bitterly. Eight days out of the information flow, maybe. But by what Banichi had said about things not getting to Tano’s level, with Banichi gone for six months, God alone knew what hadn’t gotten to him.

And common sense now and maybe instincts waked among security-conscious atevi told him he’d both made a grave mistake in getting on the phone and that he’d learned nothing in this phone call that he could do a damn thing about. “So now that I’ve called you, youcould be in danger. How’s your building security?”

“ I don’t know if we have any.” It was half-laughing. Half-scared. Life on Mospheira didn’t take crime into account. There wasn’t much. There weren’t threats. Or had never been, until the paidhi became a public enemy. “ What do I do?”

“Get a pen. I’m going to give you instructions, Sandra.”

“ For what? What’s going on?”

“Because they’re threatening my family, they’re threatening my brother and his wife and kids, and Barb got married to get an address they couldn’t access. I shouldn’t have called your number.”

“ You’re serious. This isn’t a joke you’re making.”

“Sandra, I was never more serious. Have you got a pen?”

“ Yes.”

“I want you to go to Shawn Tyers. You know who he is. His apartment is 36 Asbury Street.”

“ The Foreign Secretary.”

“Yes.” The line popped. His heart beat hard. He knew he was about to lose the co

“ Oh, my God, Bren. What’s going on? What are you involved in? Why did you call me?”

It’s not me, he started to say.

But the line went dead.

He stood leaning against the desk. He was gripping the phone so hard his hand was numb. He hung up the receiver knowing he commanded any security help he wanted on this side of the strait—and couldn’t get through to his own mother on the other.

Deana Hanks was broadcasting messages to incite sedition on the mainland. That no one stopped her meant no one knew or that no one could get an order to stop her.

That no one in the atevi government including Tabini had told him about Deana meant that, Banichi’s protestations aside, either no one had told Banichi or Banichi was covering something—Banichi ordinarily wouldn’t lie to him, but there were circumstances in which Banichi wouldlie to him. Definitely.

He’d thrown in the bit about the damn houseplants to cue Sandra he was speaking on his own and now he didn’t know but what she didn’t take it as some joke.

The stakes had gotten higher, and higher.

And higher.

Maybe he was just so out of touch he was a paranoid fool. But what he could feel through the curtain of security that lay between Mospheira and the Western Association scared him, it truly scared him.

He straightened, met the grave face of an atevi servant who’d, probably passing in the hall, seen him in the office and seen his attitude and paused. Or his own security had sent her. God knew.

“Do you wish anything, nand’ paidhi?”

He wished a great deal. He said, for want of anything he could do, “I’d like a glass of shibei, nadi. Would you bring it, please?”

“Yes, nand’ paidhi.”

Instant power. More than fifty people completely, full-time dedicated to his wants and needs.

And he couldn’t safeguard Sandra Johnson and two stupid houseplants he’d put into grave danger.

God! Led by his weaknesses and not by his common sense, he’d made that phone call. Why the hell had he felt compelled to push the matter and try to get information he knew damned wellwas being withheld from him by the whole apparatus of the Mospheiran government and the rot inside it?

What did he thinkwas going to respond when he kicked it to see whether, yes, it was malevolent, and widespread, and it had everything he loved in its grip.

The drink arrived in the hands of a tall, gentle, non-human woman, who gracefully offered it on a silver platter, and went away with a whisper of slippered footfalls and satin coat, and left a hint of djossiflower perfume in her wake.