Destroyer

Home, that mountain said to him, as nothing else on Mospheira. The buffet spread below, table upon table of elegantly offered food, tastes they had not enjoyed in a very long time.

And even with hot tea and the longed-for chair at hand, Ilisidi lingered standing, gazing at that view… Ilisidi, who loved the world and its natural state.

And whose species had owned this island once, before humans came.

She settled slowly, painfully, into a chair which faced that view. She gazed on it, while her staff moved to bring her tea and offerings from the buffet.

Shawn gave a little bow and settled in a chair and Bren sat, staff doing the serving—staff and Cajeiri, who sampled an item or two then contentedly served himself a heaping plateful of little sandwiches and sweets.

Shawn ca

The dowager finished. Definitively set down her teacup. “Thank the Presidenta,” she said, “nand’ paidhi, and ask how fast he can get us to the mainland.”

“Nandi. Mr. President, the aiji-dowager very much appreciates the hospitality and asks for your assistance in reaching the mainland safely and as soon as possible.”

“Tell her we’re honored by her sentiment, and we could try by air, but there are air and sea patrols out from time to time. There is no safe landing site for a plane except perhaps up in the north, or out on the southern peninsula, Lord Geigi’s territory.”

He translated that.

“A boat,” Ilisidi said, “and the central coast, south of Mogari-nai.”

He translated. And added: “You could shadow us by sea.”

“We could,” Shawn said, “and it has advantages. Murini’s people don’t have a firm grip on the coast and might have trouble positioning agents.”

“He offers all assistance, aiji-ma, and offers the protection of patrol boats, with, no doubt, air, if we need it.”

A wave of an aged hand. “More tea,” she said. “The details are for Cenedi to determine.”

“She takes it under advisement,” Bren said. “She does favor the idea. Our security staff will consider our options.”

“Then I won’t linger long,” Shawn said. “I can’t manage any lengthy visit without extensive noise, unfortunately, and I’ve got a press conference to manage. You have your contact numbers. Your access is active. Your phone installation on this floor is State Department, secure. If I stay much longer, the news is going to speculate outrageously, as if it hasn’t, already.”

“Hardly possible to stop air traffic at Jackson and stay unobtrusive, I know.” Unbridled news access was one great drawback of their landing site. But the drawbacks on the mainland were far worse. “The shuttle crew will continue to come and go to the spacecraft. They’ll need extremely good and determined security for it, or we’ll have the curious out there taking souvenirs.”

Shawn’s mouth twitched. “Absolutely.” He rose, a slight breach of etiquette, but one Ilisidi passed with a nod. “My respects, nandi. Bren, I’ll be out of here before we have news cameras in the lobby; I’ll go do a media show over by the shuttle, answer questions—distract the mob and promise them more at my office. The story I’m giving out is that you’re all here in refuge, you plan to enter into extensive consultations and gather essential items before returning to the station—the shuttle will have a showy pre-launch checkover, under close security. That’ll keep them busy.”

He could imagine the controversy in the legislature, motions proposed, resolutions offered, all the usual fears of atevi taking over the island they’d used to own, radical notions of appropriating the shuttle as human-owned, if they could. Most of all, Mospheirans feared getting dragged into an atevi conflict, with dark memories of the only war they’d ever fought.

“You’re going to have your hands full,” he said to Shawn.

“That’s what I do for a living,” Shawn said wryly, and offered a hand to him, a warm, old-times handclasp, before a parting bow to the dowager and the heir. “Good luck to you, nand’ dowager.”

“Baji-naji,” Bren rendered it: the flex in the universe. Things possible. Things falling by chance and fortune. Without chaos and upheaval, the universe stagnated.

“Baji-naji,” she repeated, the only answer, and nodded graciously, even going so far as to rise, painful as it was, and with Cajeiri’s help, to respect the withdrawal of their host.

“Ma’am.” Shawn was truly touched. He bowed very deeply, and took his security with him, except a pair of marines that stood by the lift.

“We take the Presidenta for an ally,” Ilisidi murmured, “despite the opinion of certain in the legislature.”

“He is that, nandi. As good a one as we could possibly ask. He has among other things established a cover for us, as if we were conferring here, and as if we plan to return to the station.”

“Clever gentleman.” Ilisidi nodded approval, leaning on her stick. “Well, well, but we shall want quiet passage across the straits.”

“As soon as we can arrange it, nand’ ’Sidi,” Cenedi said.

“Do so.” She gazed past them, as she stood, looking toward the windows, toward the view of whitecapped mountains. “Tell me, nand’ paidhi.”

“Aiji-ma?”

“What mountain is that?”

“Mount Adam Thomas, aiji-ma.”

She stood staring outward a long, long moment at the mountain that he’d regarded as his, his, from his first childhood view of it.

“A grand view,” she said. “A very grand view.”

Curiously, Bren, thought, he had never heard any ateva literature mention the loss of the island and its special places, places important to them. But atevi were not given to mourning the impossible and the unattainable.

“Noburanjiru,” Ilisidi said. “Noburanjiru is its name.”

Grandmother of Snows. Center of an entire atevi culture, now displaced to the mainland, lodging generally on the north coast, where they were fishermen. It was the mountain where he’d learned to ski, where he’d spent as much of his off-time as he could—and couldn’t, these days. Hadn’t been up there for years. He had a vision of his own, white, unbroken crust, above the snowline, a view that went on for miles.

“Well, well,” she said, “I have seen it. I shall rest. Perhaps I shall have a nap.”

“Assuredly,” Cenedi said to her, in the surrounding hush, and offered his arm. “Assuredly, nandi.”

Her chosen rooms would have that view, too. Bren was glad of that—glad, in a regretful sort of way—because atevi, lifetimes ago, had ceded something precious and sacred, to stop the War that was killing both nations.

Humans built lodges up there. Built restaurants and ski lifts that he increasingly suspected didn’t belong up there, when atevi of Ilisidi’s persuasion would have made pilgrimages.

He was home, after a fashion—he was home, and had not, in the haste and the normalcy of these people around him, even thought of the view outward, Jackson, and what it held… the buildings, the traffic, as normal to him as breathing, and as alien as the face of the moon these days. Ilisidi would never see that side of human Mospheira. He remained a little stu