Inheritor

And this was a very upset young man, as shaken and as distraught as he’d ever seen an ateva become. “So,” he said to the young man, “the aiji-dowager is listening to every word. What will you say, regarding this treason?”

And hope to God the treason wasn’t something Ilisidi was involved in. The boy couldn’t know, any more than he could, unless his information accidentally involved Ilisidi’s associates or activities, which he truly didn’t think.

“Radios,” the boy said. “And humans, nand’ dowager. I’m not making it up.”

“Go on about these radios and humans,” Ilisidi said, seated like an aiji in court, indeed, with her silver-headed cane in her wrinkled hands and her yellow eyes sharp and absolutely uncommunicative. “What do you say, nadi?”

“That—” Having gotten permission, the young man lost all control over his breathing. “That a plane keeps going out and flying over the ocean, aiji-ma, and you can hear it talking with somebody who speaks Ragi, but who sounds like a human.”

“Female, nadi?” Bren asked.

“On the radio—I don’t know. I think it might be, nand’ paidhi. One—one would hesitate to say—”

Bang! went the cane on the paving-stones. “And you were where, when you heard these things?”

“In my father’s plane, aiji-ma.”

“So you immediately flew to Shejidan and scared hell out of the aiji’s pilot.”

“Aiji-ma—” The young man was rattled. Badly.

“Could you not have made a phone call?”

“I was afraid—I was afraid it had to go through somewhere—”

“You could have told your father, young man.”

There was a flicker of fear, real fear, in the young man’s expression. “I stole the plane, aiji-ma.”

“Keeping your father out of the notoriety, are you, nadi? The hell you stole it!”

“Aiji-ma, I stole his plane.”

The paidhi himself would not like to have been the recipient of that look, in that position; and he had been, both.

“So,” Ilisidi said, “what else do you know? Notfrom this plane. From your own sense and the gossip of your elders, what do you know?”

“The man’chi of my house is to the descendants of Barjida, nand’ dowager.”

That was a neat piece of evasion—to the Barjidi, meaning Tabini’s line at the time of the War. Ilisidi was marriedinto that line, not born to it, and it was a man’chi predating the present Ragi aiji but including him. He was in a damned machimi play and the kid was doing a piece of footwork either his father regularly did or that he’d seen on television, the classic cousin-to-the-line who turned out to have a knife on his person.

But it wasn’t television, and the smile Ilisidi gave him was a dangerous, dangerous thing, while—the human tumbled to the fact slowly, being dead to atevi emotions— hewas in exactly the same position, appointed and protected by the Barjida’s descendant, Tabini-aiji.

Who had sent him here. Who had sent—God! Banichi and Jago—here.

The same team the aiji had sent to kill Saigimi—here, inside Ilisidi’s defenses. He’dseen this game before, the extreme gesture, this insertion of someone deadly dangerous as Banichi and Jago along with the very vulnerable paidhi inside Ilisidi’s defenses—challenging the dowager to make an overt move against him.

Or to take his pledge of alliance.

It was hard to keep his calm. But he stood there expressionless, having realized exactlywhat he’d been playing with when he’d taken Jase to Ilisidi.

He’d walked right into an operation of some kind, a thorn-patch where atevi could feel their way and he had to find it by sheer logic.

Did it feelright to Banichi and Jago right now? Did it feelright to Ilisidi and Cenedi? Or were atevi on one side or the other reaching some pitch of decision that would come crashing down?

Hadn’t he said it? The ship would send another one. So would the island.

No. No. Tabini couldn’t count on anyonemore on his side than he was if he shot Deana and demanded the backup to her. Which might say something about his own sanity—but it wasan atevi consideration, for a species that feltsomething about man’chi and its direction: a lord didn’t attack his own—ask them to die, yes, send them to die, yes, but not without gain to him and his partisans.

Either Tabini was very sure of Ilisidi—now—or ready to take a loss that would not be inconsiderable to his power, a sacrifice of a very major piece for nogain commensurate with the loss.

“So,” Ilisidi said in a tone of restrained anger. “If your man’chi is to the Barjidi, ifyou have sought the paidhi-aiji, perhaps you will deliver your information to the paidhi.”

The boy’s glance at him was instant and distraught. “I wish you to deliver what you have to say to the aiji-dowager,” Bren said, “as a lord in whom I have confidence.”

Clearly the boy looked marginally relieved. But scared. And going through layers upon layers in his mind, surely. He bowed one more time.“I heard people plotting against the aiji, nand’ dowager. I haven’t lied, nand’ dowager.”

“Young and foolish,” Ilisidi said. “What have you observed?”

“This human person. These pilots. Radios that move about the countryside and operate on the trains.”

On the trains, Bren thought in surprise. Of coursethat would be one way to get a broadcast into some remote village, trains passing through, radios operating on the public bands, on or off by turns.

But Tabini had to be aware of such things going on.

So must Ilisidi.

“Who would do such things?” Ilisidi asked.

“People who say the aiji is turning us over to humans.”

“Oh, and one day, one certain day some internal computer chip will make all our machines fail as the ship rains death-rays down on us and the humans pour off the island to ruin us—have you heard that one, nand’ paidhi?”

“No, aiji-ma, I have not.”

“More rational ones say that the ship itself is meant to fail, to bring down the government by that failure, and that the means will be a technical fault introduced through the designs themselves.”

He had heard that argued soberly in the council rooms of the legislature. “There are numerous reasons that’s not the case, nand’ dowager.”

“One has confidence in your confidence, nand’ paidhi. But you are sopersuasive.—What do yousay, young man?”

“About—”

The cane banged the pavement. “Your wits, boy! What werewe talking about?”

“About the aiji turning us over to humans, nand’ dowager.”

Ilisidi leaned forward, her hands clasped on the cane. “Do youbelieve it?”

“No, nand’ dowager.”

“Does your father the lord of Dur-wajran believe it?”

“No, nand’ dowager. We are—”

“—in the man’chi of the Barjidi.”

“And to all who support the aiji, nand’ dowager.”

“Does birthing the ingrate’s fathersettle me in the Barjidi man’chi?”

“If you will it to, nand’ dowager.”

Clearly the boy was losing his composure but not necessarily his wits. But a game of wits with the dowager was not one any boy could win.

“Say that my ingrate grandson and I should have the same interest,” Ilisidi said, leaning back, carefully skirting the question of whether she had an overlord, which was private and privileged information, but she admitted, for the first time he had ever heard, to associationwith Tabini. After years living among atevi a human could begin to hope he had the straight of it. “And say that your father, within the man’chi of the Barjidi, has sent his son to Shejidan—”

“My father never sent me—”

Bang! went the cane. “The hell, boy! Your father sent you when the assassination of lord Saigimi shook the inattentive out of bed from here to Malguri! You flew immediately to Shejidan, accidentally arriving inthe flight path of the aiji’s plane, and were involved with the tightened security so you could by no means deliver your message, which you have regularly attempted to inflict upon the paidhi! Am I correct!”