Intruder

“I should be very happy to open Najida in the same way, except the secure rooms,” Bren said, the whole idea flashing forth with a vision of roads and tour buses and maybe an i

“With great enthusiasm,” Geigi said. “Once I am on the station, I know my mind will be all plastics and metal and circuits again, except my little potted trees. I should be very pleased to have such a correspondence and a partner in such a project, to remind me constantly of my Kajiminda.”

“You must remain lord of Kajiminda, no matter how long this young lady may be resident, Geigi-ji. I value my neighbor extremely. I shall never give you up!”

“One is more than gratified,” Geigi said. “Ah, Bren-ji, how pleasant these days in your residence! You have been a most excellent host. Even under fire at Najida, one could feel it.”

He had to laugh. “One accepts the compliment, nandi.”

“Humans have the concept— friend, different than associate. Would you say, Bren-ji, that we are friends?”

That definitely set him back. He had built such a strong wall about that word, never, ever to use it with an ateva—even with his aishid, who were closer to him than anyone on earth, even closer than Toby.

But if there was one ateva who could use that word advisedly, exploring the interface from the opposite direction—it would be Geigi, who lived and worked with humans of every sort, good and less good.

“I shall admit to that feeling from my side, Geigi-ji,” he said carefully. “And you may have the confidence in me that a human would have in such a relationship.”

“It is an intimate relationship. Excluding family. Excluding loyalties. Excluding obligations of clan or birth.”

He nodded. “It is that. Though it can admit any of those co-existing, it is independent of them.”

“It can occasionally be unwise.”

“As clan obligations can occasionally be unfortunate.”

Geigi gave a little laugh. “No way of being is perfect.”

“Regrettably, no. One thinks not.”

“Yet you are, paidhi-aiji, my friend.I would not say that of any other human, except Jase Graham. And one has not dared use that word with him. He has not your understanding of the hazards.”

“Advisable, that exception. He could misunderstand.”

“But you will not. I also live on that dividing line, Bren-ji. So I say, you are a peculiar association. The co

“It would be apt,” Bren said. “I think it would be apt to use that word, Geigi-ji.”

Geigi laughed at that, and said, with a deprecating gesture, “One would hesitate to attempt the word love.”

Geigi was joking. And there was humor in it. Friendship without love involved was a peculiar thing. But this was an ateva who, like his aishid, would fight for him. His aishid would fling themselves between him and a bullet. They in fact had done so. Geigi, if he were so physically inclined, would still be a puzzle in that regard. Probably Geigi would not be so inclined. He was a leader among atevi, having come to that position not quite by instinct but by circumstance. He was not a leader as atevi usually defined the term—strongly instinctual, driven to be that. Not an autocrat, not inspiring a following. If Geigi had ever had to take the aijinate, it would have been a cold, calculated move, and he would have been very unhappy in the office, continually feeling out of place—as he evidently did not feel, on the station.

Geigi was what Geigi had had to be. And if an alien word defined part of what he had to be, and gave him some sense of co

“How would you define love,then, paidhi? Can you make it intelligible to me?”

“Close to man’chi,” he said.

“So they say,” Geigi said, and then they spent the next half hour concluding it was not, quite, that.

“Is it pleasant?” Geigi asked.

“More so when reciprocal,” Bren said. “Miserable, in fact, when not reciprocal.”

“Ah, we shall never define it.”

“No more than I wholly understand man’chi,” Bren said, “lacking the appropriate responses, myself.”

“Not lacking. But freeof them,” Geigi said. “At times it seems advantageous to choosethe persons one attaches to.”

“Yet we frequently choose so incorrectly,” Bren said. “Barb-daja was an incorrect choice. We were incorrect for each other. Yet she seems perfectly correct for Toby.”

“Tangled, tangled,” Geigi said in gentle amusement. “Man’chi is so much more direct—not needing to be reciprocal.”

“Yet equally unpredictable,” Bren said. “The machimi plays would never exist if it were predictable.”

“More predictable than this love,” Geigi said. “More logical.”

“One is hardly sure it is alwayslogical.”

“We are sure of nothing in our most basic feelings.” Geigi laughed. “And thatis what we have in common. I think we may have attained wisdom, Bren-ji.”

Wisdom it might be. But one still wished one entirely understood what was in the minds of the principals of the upcoming agreement. Man’chi—maybe. A face-to-face meeting could affect that.

And it was coming closer.

Jago came in, and he broke to receive her report that they were in contact with Machigi’s plane and that that plane was on approach to the airport. Lady Siadi was on her way to meet Machigi and escort him to the de facto embassy.

A veritable deluge of flowers had arrived at the Taisigi trade mission, Jago said, one offering from, of course, themselves, one from the dowager, one from Lord Tatiseigi—one was amazed to hear that and thought that Ilisidi had probably applied pressure. Not quite as amazing, there was one from Lord Dur, up in the northern Isles.

There was also, from the trade mission, reported receipt of a floral arrangement from, of all sources, the Kadagidi, who had certainly been behind the attempts on Machigi’s life. The Guild had informed Lady Siadi of its arrival and asked what to do, and Lady Siadi had ordered it rerouted to—one could only imagine the consternation—Lady Tiajo of the Dojisigi, with a note regarding its origin and route.

One could only appreciate the gesture, and one was sure Geigi would particularly appreciate it.

Tiajo, the replacement for her late uncle—holding her lordship over the Dojisigi with Guild at her elbow and around every corner—would not likely put that arrangement on display. Likely the unfortunate bouquet would meet an indecorous end, if the young lady knew how to read a threatening gesture and correctly interpret its message: Your clan’s co