Conspirator

Atevi didn’t blush, outstandingly, but it was possible that the old man did. At very least he found momentary contemplative interest in a sip of tea. “Indeed, nandi, one will so advise the staff.”

“One earnestly hopes to forestall another such event,” Bren said. “And one apologizes to the staff. My brother and the lady will guest here—perhaps two weeks, certainly no longer. Kindly station staff in the main hall to see to their comings and goings. During part of that time, I hardly dare wonder if I might leave them here unattended for a day. One is urgently obliged to pay a visit to the neighbors.”

That was to say, Lord Geigi’s estate, their nearest neighbor— whose regional influence had likely saved the paidhi-aiji’s residence during the Troubles, or he might not be sitting sipping tea in this sitting room now.

“You do know, nandi, that Lady Tejo has died.”

Geigi’s sister Tejo had been in charge, in Geigi’s long absence, a fairly young woman, too, though not the most robust in health. “Yes, one did hear that. A loss, especially to that clan. Illness, was it?”

“One is given to understand so.”

“Her son is in charge. Beiji? Baiji, is it?”

“Baiji, indeed, nandi. A young man. New in his post, new to responsibility,” Ramaso said. And added: “Samiusi clan, on his father’s side, nandi, and of a little flightiness that has become a concern to us. One is sure your influence will be as good as his uncle’s presence to remind him of responsibilities.”

The Samiusi were inland, containing most of the remaining identifiable elements of the Maschi clan, some distance east— no need to jog his memory on that score. All the nuances were important. Alliances outside the coast and somewhat southward were uneasy alliances, these days, and the Samiusi had provided Geigi’s last wife, who had politicked with the Marid. “Is there some question of Baiji’s man’chi?”

“None to speak of,” Ramaso said.

“None of his associations?”

“He is young,” Ramaso said. “Just a very young man, not in years, but Tejo-daja coddled him extremely. He spends a great deal of his time on his boat, he neglects his purchase debtsc he simply does not pay his suppliers until the second and third request.” Ramaso broke off in some uneasiness. But Najida was one of those suppliers, at least in fish. “One hesitates to speak ill, nandi, but this is a boy who definitely needs a more attentive accountant. He was not expected to succeed Tejo for years yet. He was unprepared for this.”

“Time I did pay a visit, perhaps.” It wouldn’t be easy to tell Geigi his nephew was a fool and a dilettante, but his own strongest memory of the boy in question was ten years ago, when his mother had had to go upstairs in person to bring a recalcitrant adolescent down to di

“He seems not a villain, nandi, but one suspects his management is lax. He owes the village some three thousand five hundred fifty-three, in sum.”

He blinked. It was a large sum. And it was entirely unpleasant, to go bring the law down on a young fool, the relative of a trusted associate. But he was lord of this district, and the young fool had not well served Lord Geigi, and had brought financial hardship on hispeople, who had their own bills to pay. So there it was, one thing he had to do, and at the earliest.

“Send to Baiji,” he said. “I shall write the message myself, and visit him in five days. The letter alone may jar the late payments out of him. Then we can have a much happier visit, and he may be more careful of our accounts. The lord of thisestate has been absent. Perhaps that has encouraged him to believe our people can wait for payment. One expects we can change his priorities.”

They had their tea. He turned aside at the last to pen, with fair calligraphy, salutations from a neighbor and the intent to visit five days hencec with absolutely no mention of the debt. He delivered that to Ramaso for delivery by courier. “One has not mentioned the money, but if it does not arrive before the day, advise me, nadi-ji, and it will assuredly arrive, if Lord Geigi has to be the source of the instruction.”

“Nandi,” the old man said in some satisfaction, and took the message, to properly encase it in a cylinder and send it.

Five days was notice enough.

And five days from now he might be ready for a day’s vacation from Barbc but he tried not to borrow trouble. He found his briefcase, his reading, and his notepad, and called for a second, contemplative pot of tea—to cool mostly untouched, as he read up on cell phone and wireless technology, and tried to frame a persuasive arguement for the legislators.

All the while he had a Guild pocket com on his person. But that was a security matter—that co

There was one legitimate use for the technology—if it saved the life of a lord on whom the aishidi’tat relied.

It would not be a legitimate use, however, to shortcut the process of informing, for instance, young Baiji. One could, in hot blood, call up, call the young man a fool, demand immediate payment, and, due to startling the young man and embarrassing him, have a nasty quarrel on one’s hands that might force even a reasonable Lord Geigi to take his own estate’s side.

A beautifully written note, in a courtly hand, in a message cylinder that bore the identification of the paidhi-aiji and the Lord of the Heavens—reminding said young fool who he was dealing with, and all the associations involved—gave the young fool time to panic as to the content of the message, to cool down, figure out that owing money was not the best frame of mind in which to meet one of his uncle’s closest allies. So with any sensitivity at all, he would pay up, and create the best possible mood in which to meet his visitorc

He could hardly use that example in his speech to the legislature. But it was the heart of the problem. There were ways of doing things. Old ways, graceful ways. And not every ateva born was gifted with verbal restraint—to say the least. Things went through cha

On the other handc atevi had wisely concluded that phones, however convenient for summoning an airport bus, reaching the space station or the Island, or notifying a receptive associate of an imminent Situation, were notfor social calls, and ought notto replace the appropriate hand delivery of a written, courteous message in its identifying case.

Which was precisely the argument proponents were going to throw back at him. Atevi had coped with regular, nonportable phones.

Portable, into any inappropriate situation—there was the problem.

The speed of wireless messages could accelerate a security situation out of safe limits, or enable the involvement of non-Guild in Assassins’ Guild operations. That was one great fear.

That the young would take to the wireless as a way to save effort, as they had on Mospheira, thus undermining the traditional, conflict-reducing forms of messagingc that was a worry. That it would accelerate the exchange of information into an exchange of misinformation or half information—the evening news managed that. On a national scale, at times.

People could get killed over bad information. Information and the misconstruction of information was, history told him, exactly the sort of thing that had led humans and atevi to war— bad information coming too fast, too easy interaction, too many people who thoughtthey understood each other.

People communicating without going through cha