Inheritor

“I do hear what you’re saying. If you’re not lying one moretime, what are we doing out here in the middle of it? Why did they bring us here, if this was going on? Can you answer that?”

“I’m trying to!”

“What does it take? More research?”

“Use your head, dammit! This is serious.”

“I don’t take it for anything else. Where are Tano and Algini? Why are we suddenly with thesetwo? Bren, give me an answer!”

The dowager was getting back in the saddle. They had to follow or it was certain the mechieti would go and leave them stranded.

“I assure you they’re all right,” Bren said. “They’re working back at the fortress, securing the area.”

“Easy answer.”

“These are partners of theirs!” The man assigned to help Jase up was waiting. They were almost the last.

“Consider man’chi. Consider everything I’ve told you. Banichi and Jago aren’t going to see anything happen to them.”

“Meaning you don’t knowwhy they didn’t come.”

Question begot question begot question. “I can’t argue with you. We haveto go.” He went to Nokhada, so charged with temper he hardly felt the effort it took for bruised muscles to catapult him into the saddle. He reined about to be sure Jase made it as the man boosted Jase up, then assisted the boy from Dur into the saddle.

Jase didn’t understand him. Given professional experience, he ought to be able to achieve an understanding with Jase with far less trouble than he had with atevi; and it didn’t work that way. It hadn’t worked that way all year.

Why are we withthese two? Stupid question, ignoring everything he’d said.

But Tano and Algini had been there while Jase was in the apartment, and Banichi and Jago hadn’t been there for a long while. Tano and Algini were the reliable figures in the household that Jase knew of, the ones hewould go to; so from Jase’s viewpoint there was attachment quite as valid as his—admitted—attachment to Banichi and Jago.

In that reassessment of Jase’s obstinacy he rode Nokhada near him, hoping that he would choose to talk; but Jase said nothing to him nor seemed to care he was there. Jase sometimes rode with his eyes shut, maybe ignoring the pitch and heave of the land, maybe motion sick: he had complained of it a great deal when he’d first come down.

“Pretty clouds,” Bren said.

No answer.

“This whole land tilts,” Bren said. “There aren’t that many roads. The fortress watches the slope up off the plains. If it weren’t there, someone could drive up undetected. They’re back there to warn us. That’s what they’re doing.” It dawned on him then in cooler temper that a man who had trouble with a flat surface wouldn’t intuitively grasp warfare and its tactics. “Like the foyer at home. Stand in that door and nobody can come in. Just like them staying in the foyer office. As long as they’re there, nobody can come up on this land. And Tano and Algini might do that if we wereout here on vacation. The aijiin never assume no one’s after them. Ever.”

Jase didn’t answer. But Jase did at least look at him.

“Four, five hundred years ago,” Bren said, “before humans on this planet, atevi rode mechieti to war.” He pointed to the rolling land ahead of them. “Five hundred riders could be just up there, close as the gardens to the apartment. You couldn’t see them. That’s why men keep riding ahead of the dowager. Ordinarily the mechieti don’t like to do that—get ahead of the leader. But they do it for short rides out and back, looking to see the way is clear.”

Jase waslistening. He caught the quick and worried glance at the horizons, and saw Jase’s whole body come to a different state of tension. In that distracted moment Jase suddenly synched with the mechieta’s moving and seemed to feel it.

“That’s how you oughtto ride,” Bren said, “Jase.”

Jase looked at him, lost his centering and found it again; and lost it.

The fact Jase hadsomehow coped with being out here didn’t mean Jase knew a thing, Bren thought, not about the mechieti, not about the concept of land, or tactics, or how to stay on or how to protect himself if someone did come up on them and mechieti reacted as mechieti would do. Politics and language and living in an apartment was what he’d taught Jase. It was allhe’d taught Jase.

“If the mechieti have to run,” he said, “—in case they do.” He changed languages and went rapid-fire. “The atevi riders stay on by balance. Youjust hunch down tight and low and hold to the saddle. It won’t come off. Get as low as you can. If they canjump something they will; otherwise they can turn very fast, and if you’re not low you’ll fall off. Join his center of mass. All right? If he jumps, his head will come back, and if your face is too far forward he can knock you cold. If they jump, center your weight, lean forward, head down while he’s rising, lean back while he’s landing and duck down again. We’re small. Nothing we do affects them as much as an ateva’s weight. Don’t pull on the rein and don’t try to guide him. It can turn his head and blind him to the ground and kill you both. If you do nothing with the rein, he’ll follow Ilisidi’s mechieta come hell or high water.”

“Are we going to run?” Jase said. “From what?”

“It’s just an ‘in case.’ ”

Jase gave him one of those looks.

“It’s a possibility, nadi,” Bren said, and then wished he hadn’t said. He wished he’d said, To hell with you, and not shaved the meaning one more time. “You’re not going to find absolutes in this situation. There aren’t any. I’m sorry. I knew I was asking for a hard time up here when I turned matters over to other people. I knew last night things were getting complicated. I figured—maybe we’d get a chance to go down to the water. Somehow. And things might not even involve us.”

“Once we left the fortress,” Jase said in Mosphei’, “I knew we weren’t going fishing.”

“Because you knew I’d lie? You don’t know that.”

There was lengthy silence.

Then Jase said, “We were still going fishing? All around us, people with weapons. People on radios. Hanks. We were going fishing.”

“Well, we will.” It sounded lame even to him, in what he began to see as a long string of broken promises, broken dates, incomplete plans—not professional ones, but personal. He couldn’t explain all that was going on. Jase didn’t understand the motivations. And God knew what conclusions he’d draw.

The silence persisted some distance more. He wasn’t there for the moment. He was across a table from Barb. Barb was saying, When? When, really, Bren?

“You really tellyourself we’re going fishing,” Jase said, “don’t you?”

“Jase, if I don’t plan to do it, we’ll damn sure never get there. At least,” he added, begi

“Are all Mospheirans like you?”

He’d like to think not. He liked to think, on the contrary, that he was better than the flaws that frustrated him in his countrymen. But it was an island full of people living their safe routines, their weekend trips to the mountains, their outings to the market, like clockwork, every week, sitting on a powder keg, electing presidentiwho lived the same kind of lives and left decisions to their chief contributors rather than those with any knowledge or insight.

Delusion played a large part in Mospheiran attitudes.

Delusion that they had a spacecraft, or could build one, with no facility in which to do it.

Delusion that they could fix their deficits when there was suddenly a great need and all their bets came due.

Self-delusion to which, apparently, he was not immune.

“Lifestyle,” he said, with self-knowledge a bitter lump in his chest. “But I still do plan to go fishing, Jase.”

“Just not this trip.”

“Even this trip, dammit! Security alerts go on all the time. I livewith it! In between times, I relax, if I can get a few hours. Nine tenths of the time nothing happens or it happens elsewhere and life goes on. If you’ve pla