Deliverer

“I think they originated this notion in support of your administration, aiji-ma, or I would be exceedingly alarmed. I believe that they pla

“Indeed. And by this they have found your brother.” Tabini stretched his feet out before him, seeming thoroughly comfortable.

“The lords will assemble for ordinary business; committees will enter session. Your office is functioning. You are seeking to reestablish the shuttles.”

The summation. Change of topic. Or introduction of another one, which might wend its way back to the first. “Yes, aiji-ma.”

“A very reasonable priority. But what will the shuttles bring down to us when they fly? More of these mysterious landings?

Technology in support of these devices? Persons? Ogun-aiji has been in charge of the station during the ship’s absence, and we have had no contact with him for an extended time. One has not had great confidence in Yolanda-paidhi before that: her man’chi, so to speak, is still not to us, and not to this world, and one has, while finding her useful, never wholly understood her motives. She has been resident on the island, in daily communication with Ogun-aiji, receiving orders from him. It seems possible Ogun-aiji’s intentions might also have drifted beyond those we understand.”

“It does seem time to ask Jase what these items do, and to have a thorough account, aiji-ma, of what sort of machine they have dropped from orbit. There seems no great harm intended. I still believe these devices were intended to support your return—”

“Or support Mospheira in an invasion?”

His pulse did a little skip. “One doubts Mospheira would be willing to undertake it on any large scale. Operatives, perhaps. But that my staff did not find any opportunity to tell me—Tano and Algini had the devices, and had them before my return.

Unfortunately—they are in the field at the moment one would most want to ask them questions. Banichi does not know.”

“Guild reticence, perhaps.”

It was a proverb, that the Guild never admitted its assets, particularly in the field. In that light it was entirely understandable. If there seemed an advantage in having it, hell, yes, Banichi would take it, and settle accounts later. As he had. As Tano and Algini had. Whatever Ogun had been up to, Ogun had not cut his on-station staff out of the loop. There was that.

But coupled with the landings, and who knew what other changesc Tano and Algini had given him no explanation, presumably had given Banichi and Jago none, nor any to Cenedi, as he concluded.

“The aiji is justifiably concerned,” he said, “to find they have sent technology down here that my office would not approve. The paidhi is concerned. My on-station staff knew things that were not communicated to me. This is all I know, aiji-ma, and one is distressed by it.”

An eyebrow lifted. Some thought passed unspoken, behind that pale stare. The aiji said: “The paidhi’s office will report when there is an answer. And this time I will receive the note.”

Reference to a time when absolutely no message of his had gotten through, officially speaking. The gateway to communication was declared officially open again. At least that, even if the aiji held some thoughts private.

And he had a job to do—reins of power to gather up, fast, before Ogun’s unilateral decisions—and the questions proliferating around these foreign devices landing on the mainland—did political damage to Tabini, or societal damage to the atevi. Whatever atevi got their hands on—they were damned good at figuring out. And that might already be in progress, in some distant province, if not directly at Tabini’s orders.

He had done enough, himself, casually letting the aiji’s heir get his hands into technology unexamined in its effects. Of course there was a network. Wherever there were computers, there was very soon a network. Small-area networks existed within offices, small nets had aided factories, had shared data within departments.

There was the secure net over on Mospheira. And if Cajeiri could get adequate communications and a computer equipped to communicate, God knew what he could get his hands into, and God knew what mischief he could proliferate.

But what the heir had experienced as ordinary on the ship didn’t just link departments to libraries: it spa

So an eight-year-old boy had come out of that environment and wanted to replicate that convenience in the world he had just re-entered. And Captain Ogun, in charge on the station, and finding the planet going to hell under him, had wanted to know where everything in the world was, at the flick of a key. Proliferation of satellites aloft—he strongly suspected that, after what Banichi had told him about the system. Ground installations of unknown capacity.

Seeing all these things, even Tabini, who had alarmed and unsettled his own generation with his penchant for human technology, Tabini, who was still sponsoring the building of a second starship—even Tabini saw reason for unease in this development, even while he was figuring out what he himself could do with it.

Do your job, paidhi. Advise us. Tell us what to do now. What about this notion of Ogun’s?

It seemed a damned good question.

7

A teacup suffered in the aftermath of the interview: Bren was very glad it was not one of the historic good ones, but the carpet in Lord Tatiseigi’s study certainly was a historic good one, and he had no idea how he had overset the cup, but there it lay, in pieces. He owed a great apology to Madam Saidin.

She looked at him curiously, then ordered it removed and a new one provided, while servants mopped and cleaned the carpet.

“I was distracted,” he confessed to Banichi and Jago, who had come to see what the stir was that had relocated him and his computer to the library and brought such a scurry of activity into the study. They both looked at him a second or two longer than need have been, so that he felt exposed and disturbed and realized he could not be not utterly honest in his answers.

“Tano and Algini have reached the coast, nandi,” Banichi said quietly, “and are heading out on the boat.”

“Excellent.” That was a certain relief, to know things were proceeding in that regard. To lay hands on Toby would at least let him trust that part of the universe was stable, if nothing else was.

“Is it worry for nand’ Toby that distracts you, Bren-ji?” Jago asked him, lingering after Banichi had left on his own business.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Worry for him. Worry for the boy.” No, dammit. She deserved the whole truth. “Worry for the packages Ogun-aiji has decided to drop across the landscapec one earnestly hopes you have not revealed to your Guild the existence of that equipment the ship-aijiin gave you.”

“No, Bren-ji,” Jago said, and that no patched another hole in his universe, the fact that he had been afraid to ask where, in the scheme of things, their loyalty had necessarily come down on the question of illicit human equipment—whether it would be loyalty to their Guild, which on an ordinary day trumped every loyalty they owned, even to the aiji above all—or whether they would give it to him and his office, which properly ought to regulate things that came from the heavens.