Destroyer

“It has a few more defenses than seems,” Banichi said. Electronics, Banichi implied. Electronics. In this most kabiu of households. It would be a surprise to him. “More downstairs than up—the security in this room is alarmingly thin.”

“Cenedi suggests we move out and spare us finding out the answers to these questions,” Jago said. “It is not, he says, in our interests that the Kadigidi and the Atageini go at each others’ throats yet. But the dowager strongly resists this notion and wishes to provoke Guild notice and to insist on a hearing. She assuredly wishes to get you before the Guild, nandi.”

Forestalling him, at breakfast. Keeping the argument all on her terms.

“One would hesitate to question the dowager’s grasp of politics,” Bren said ruefully, which was the very truth, and his heart felt the chill of old experience with the dowager and her willingness to charge downhill. If Ilisidi was making her move, just in being here, and Cenedi was trying to advise against it, the fat was already in the fire, so to speak, and the Kadigidi would move. Fast.

“Perhaps I should prepare a convincing letter,” he said, “so we can offer it, at least, if this mission is in fact to go to the Guild.”

“If the paidhi sees fit,” Jago said, and Banichi said:

“A very good idea. A letter at least to confirm the dowager’s assertions.”

A letter which must be written by hand, not printed out from a computer: a computer-written message was not kabiu on so formal an occasion as a Guild hearing, even if the house had the requisite printer, and he would not offend this house by asking.

But writing it out first and copying it fair would save time, ink and paper… granted they could lay hands on paper. Granted only they could persuade the Atageini to carry it.

“I shall do it,” he said, committing himself to the course of action. “I shall need pen, paper and the wax-jack. I shall provide Tatiseigi a copy, for his own reading. Might there be tea?”

They scattered on their various missions and he opened up his computer and stared at a blank screen.

Shut his eyes a moment, seeing steel corridors. Seeing forest paths where they had ridden. So many realities.

Then:

The paidhi-aiji to the honored members of the Assassins’ Guild.

That much was easy. No reference to his lordly title in the heavens, just the ordinary one, the one he lived by, and hoped to continue to live by.

One is privileged to report to this august body that the aiji-dowager’s mission to the distant station succeeded in every point. This mission prevented a powerful spaceborne nation, neither atevi nor human, from advancing against this world with deadly force in its mistaken notions of offense emanating from here. By the extreme effort and sacrifice of the aishidi’tat in organizing this mission, and also thanks to the foresight of Tabini-aiji in sending the aiji-dowager as a high emissary on this mission, all matters have carried well. These foreigners, grievously provoked by human exploration in their territory, have been considerably mollified by negotiation with the aiji’s close relatives and now accept the explanation advanced by the aiji-dowager that the binding authority of the world is indisputably atevi, and that atevi will not permit further provocations against them. More, we have removed the human authority responsible for this provocation and placed them under the authority of the atevi space station…

Atevi space station. That was a reach. But it was the situation Tabini insisted on, and had been fairly well on his way to having, before this catastrophe.

… making it absolutely essential that atevi shuttles maintain regular flights, to keep a firm hand on that situation, and to maintain atevi authority.

In the other matter, understanding that a wise and enlightened ruler sits in command of the situation here, namely Tabini-aiji, these new foreigners have settled a preliminary peace with the aishidi’tat, a situation which gives the aishidi’tat great advantage over other claimants to authority in the heavens, if the aishidi’tat will seize this opportunity and exert this new authority. The paidhi-aiji is ready to appear before the Guild to render a full account of these complex events, in the name of the aiji-dowager and the heir, and to present visual and documentary proofs of all events. Meanwhile, one urgently requests the Guild support the dowager, the heir, and the reputation of Tabini-aiji, by whose foresight peace was achieved, and on which peace now depends.

A rare moment of brilliance, if he did say so himself. Occasionally the words were just there, ready to spring out.

At such moments of overwhelming self-confidence—well to ask an impartial observer. He called Jago, who surveyed it both for felicity and persuasion.

“Excellent,” she said, “excellently worded, nandi.”

“I shall write it out,” he said, and carefully did so, in his most formal script, provided a reading copy for Lord Tatiseigi, a second one for the dowager, and affixed the paidhi’s seal in wax to the actual missive. He weighed it in his hand, looked at the computer screen to assure himself that he had nowhere hinted the darker thoughts of his heart, such as the damnable paralysis of your Guild or your general policy, which arises from willful ignorance, corruption, and scientific illiteracy of certain members. He thought those thoughts. God, he thought them, with such force it seemed impossible they had not branded themselves on the paper in his own handwriting.

But he had been politic throughout. He had flattered. He had told the minimal truth. He had promised—literally—the sun, the moon, and the stars, if they would come to their senses and take authority. The alternatives were not pretty… three bands of humans trying to deal with the aliens they had thus far only antagonized.

He brought the letter and the copies to Jago, watched her take them out the door, and let go a deep breath, wishing every syllable had been perfect, which now he knew was not the case, wishing he had been brilliant, which he was completely dubious was the case, wishing he could miraculously transport himself to the dowager’s vicinity to watch her reaction and answer questions; and to Tatiseigi’s, after that.

And there was the question, the very good question, whether, even if the dowager wished it, the letter would ever get past Tatiseigi’s grounds. The dowager would have to approve it before the next copy went to Tatiseigi, and Tatiseigi would have to approve it to get it out the door.

He walked to the open window, and gazed out on the cultivated fields, the broad expanses of grassland that lay behind the very ineffective walls of the estate.

Beyond those fields, barring the horizon, rose wooded hills; and beyond them the eye could find a faint haze where a range of snow-covered mountains would stand, if the mountains were being cooperative today. Today a stranger who didn’t know such mountains existed would assume that haze was sky, the continent unbarriered. He would think there was no split between east and west.

Would history not have been different, if that were the case? Would history not have rolled over the human landing on this world, if that were the case? The western atevi were an inquisitive progressive lot, exceedingly prone to investigate, to take an oddity in the hand and look at it carefully. Humans had landed on Mospheira, and had ended up on the mainland, briefly. The mainland atevi, the westerners, had been astonishingly outgoing and accepting… until the war. A landing on the other end of the continent—just a little rotation of the world away—and there would have been no human presence left on the planet, in very short order. Ilisidi’s people, Ilisidi’s neighbors’ forebears, would have obliterated any human landing, no great number of questions asked.

That would have kept humans in space, giving no alternative but the ship, and no leadership or authority but the captains who had insisted on going out and exploring further, ostensibly hunting some vantage from which they could figure out where they were—but in fact poking and prodding among likely near stars for further and further expansion of human presence, greater and easier resources.