“You,” his mother said, “keep your grandmother at bay. Thank her. And tell her, tell her my reasons.”
“I shall—. Gods. Is that channel still open?”
A whisper of drapery, maybe a sleeve. Something bumped the other unit. “Son of mine?”
“Honored Mother.”
“Speak to your father.”
“Yes,” he said, and a moment later, his father’s voice, clear and strong:
“Son.”
“Yes, Honored Father.”
“I trust you understand the risk there. You have a considerable armed force for your protection. Do not separate it, do not attempt to direct it. Listen to it. Rely on your mother’s judgment. Do not let her quarrel with your great-uncle. But if she wishes to File on your great-aunt in her own name, back her.”
Father might be making a joke. But he was not at all sure at the moment. It was far too serious. “One would understand that, Honored Father.” He knew something, something serious his father might not have heard, because he’d said it to his mother. “Three people are missing on the grounds, Honored Father. Possibly they just left. But Uncle is taking it very seriously.”
A slight pause. “As he should. But your bodyguard will tell you—it is not always the ones you know to look for who pose the threat. Everyone not of your association is a threat in this situation. We do not know why these people are missing or who they might be afraid of. Stay with your senior aishid. Stay close to them at all times—for the sake of your younger one, among other considerations.”
Father was right. He had been thinking about the missing people. But beyond the sixty-three they knew about, three of which they could not find, there was all of Ajuri somewhere beyond the hedge, just over the horizon.
“Trust your great-uncle. He is no fool. Neither is your mother. Remember who of the great lords survived the Troubles intact. And remember who was with me, while we were sleeping in hedgerows and being hunted by the Shadow Guild.”
Lord Tatiseigi. And Mother.
“Remember there is a public perception of this situation, and there is the situation itself. Listen to your bodyguard. And be proper.”
“I shall. I do, Honored Father. I am doing my best.”
“I trust my son. You may tell your great-uncle your mother is coming,” Father said. “I do not want to trust that message to the phones. She will not want to surprise your great-uncle. But she will want, I think, to surprise this person claiming to be her cousin. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I rely on it,” Father said, and cut the connection.
• • •
There was the call from downstairs security, certainly. Bren picked up the phone, gave a, “Yes, let them through.”
And two men from downstairs security escorted the visitors up.
Three collegiates, all male, in—Bren had to be a little impressed—their best coats, if slightly out of fashion, nicely turned out, terribly earnest. That shone through in the moment Tano and Jago let them in. Two pale faces, one dark, registered his presence; three heads ducked in a very nice bow. Hair was pulled back to napes, not the fashion on Mospheira.
“Nandi,” the dark young man said.
Well. Enterprising lads. “Nadiin,” he said, and in Ragi, indicating a sufficiency of chairs: “Welcome. Please sit.”
They moved, trying ever so hard not to stare at his bodyguard. They came to the chairs and remained standing until he sat.
Nice.
They stayed absolutely silent, taking in the room, the furnishings—his bodyguard, his staff, who by prior arrangement were quietly making atevi-style tea.
“Your names, nadiin.”
“Karl Barnes, nandi.” This from the lanky, dark-skinned youth, foremost of the group. “Lyle Fredericks.” That was the sunburned fellow with fiery red hair. And from the fairly plump pale lad with thick glasses: “Evan Child.”
Appreciation of Ragi manners was not the only thing one noted in these three. Long hair, braided, braids tucked under collars. Identical white turtleneck sweaters. Three dress jackets, however out of style. And boots, polished to a high gloss.
Narani and Jeladi quietly served tea. Bren took a cup, waited, as the three young men waited, watching him intently, eyes following his every move, darting now and again to Jeladi and Narani. Bren took a sip. They did.
“So,” Bren asked, deciding on small talk, in Ragi, “one understands you are senior students.”
“Yes, nandi,” Karl said.
“One trusts you are happy in your choice of disciplines.”
“Very happy, nandi.”
“You live in Port Jackson?”
“My family home is on the North Shore,” Karl said, and then said, “Lyle, Evan? You can talk.”
“Bretano,” Lyle said. “I come from Bretano.”
“Carswell,” Evan said. “A very small place.”
“I know Carswell,” Bren said. “Up in the mountains, is it not?”
“Yes, nandi.”
Lyle had blushed a brilliant red, and mostly gazed at his tea. Evan’s hands shook and he clutched his cup between his palms, while Karl tried to maintain a casual demeanor.
“You are all three in the foreign service track?” Foreign service meant only one thing, that they were on track to replace him should he meet some untoward accident. They knew something about custom. They had grown the braids. He hadn’t had time, when the appointment as paidhi had unexpectedly come his way. Perhaps, he thought, they had decided to be ready, should he suddenly demise. Lately that had been quite possible.
“Documents, nandi,” Karl said. “All three of us are in Documents.”
Translators of invoices and occasionally of broadcasts. Librarians and accountants—not in his track.
“Your accent is really quite good.” Bren took another sip of tea.
“One is profoundly grateful,” Karl said, studying his teacup. “Grateful, nandi.” With an improved, courtly pronunciation.
“We are very honored to meet you,” Evan said. “Most sincerely.” And Lyle nodded, adding, “We are honored, nandi.”
It was an absolute conundrum. “They teach a much better accent in Documents these days,” Bren said. “One is impressed. Is everyone in Documents this fluent?”
Again, blushes, intense study of the cups in hand, and Lyle said, very quietly. “One is flattered, nandi. No. We study.”
“Who is your instructor?” he asked.
“Murdock, nandi. Murdock-nadi.”
A little correction of protocol, respect for a scholar. An impeccable courtly accent that came and went with a little hint of Mosphei’ in the vowels. And a deference he was not used to.
Beyond that, he had never heard of Murdock.
He set his cup down. Immediately, with no extra sip, three other cups went onto side tables.
“We are an infelicitous number,” Bren said. “With what presence would you improve it, with my major domo Narani, or with my Guild-senior, Banichi?”
Karl said, “With the Guild-senior, nandi.”
Correct in protocol. “Banichi-ji,” Bren said, and Banichi silently took the empty chair, while the others stood about, listening, and a hundred thoughts sailed past—not least among them, that the atmosphere and the program had changed massively in Documents, or these three might be part of a very different kind of study program, one aimed at information-gathering. It might be a program initiated during the Troubles, when the Mospheiran military and no few plain citizens and volunteer groups had helped the Guild holdouts on the continent, and needed some dealing in the spoken language. Likewise the Mospheiran President had had to find ways to communicate with Lord Geigi up on the station. So maybe there were changes afoot, even in the halls of Linguistics.
“What is your course of study?” Bren asked sharply
, on business, now that the teacups were set down. “Are you part of an official program?”
“Documents, nandi.” Karl maintained his story. “We are all in Documents. Nothing official. We did help—we were volunteers during the—during the bad period. We translated. Everybody translated who could.”
“You learned court Ragi from that?”
Downcast eyes and a furious blush. The manners. The shyness. The hair, particularly Karl’s, which, tending to very tight curls, had been fought to a smooth braid.
Any normal collegiate would have shown up even for an important interview in a team jacket and canvas runners, not a years-old dress jacket.
“Why do you want to work with the Reunioner children?”
A long pause. Then Evan said, “Nandi, it is so much better than Documents.”
That was understandable.
“Do you like children?”
“I have three brothers,” Lyle said.
“Sister,” Karl said. Evan ducked his head and said nothing.
“Has any other person engaged you to approach the paidhi-aiji?” Banichi asked, in that deep voice that made its own silence.
“No. No, nandi.” From Karl. Emphatically and with the correct honorific.
“Why, then, were you moved to accost Lund-nandi on the public walk? Could you not have sent a letter?”
Silence answered that question. But the obvious answer was . . .
“You have no official standing,” Bren said. “Is that correct?”
More silence, and much less happiness.
“I remain curious,” Bren said, “as to how you perfected your accent.”
“Machimi, nandi. We study the machimi.”
“Is that a course?”
“No,” Evan said. “No, nandi. An association. A club.” Evan used the Mosphei’ word. “We study them.”
The machimi plays were not in Documents. They were in Literature, an excruciatingly badly translated collection, as he knew them. Nobody accessed atevi drama, except Atevi Studies, which was a branch of Anthropology, and entirely divorced from the Department of Linguistics.
“A club.” He used the Mospheiran word himself. “Tell me more about this club, nadiin. One is intrigued.”
“We have copies,” Kurt said. “We made copies.”
“We translated them,” Evan said.
“We show them,” Lyle said, and lapsed into Mosphei’. “With subtitles.”
Subtitles. On a form of Ragi the University deemed untranslatable, with a web of double meanings and subtleties of gesture and manner on which Anthropology wrote papers, plays which atevi themselves regarded as classics, immortal, capable of speaking to generation after generation in a psychology buried deep in atevi instincts. One did not understand machimi without understanding something of what went on in atevi minds.
“Which is your favorite?” Bren asked.
That provoked a little stir, one looking at the other. “Athami he Anati,” Karl said, naming one of the north coast classics. “Likewise,” Evan said. But Lyle said, “Notija Andoi.”
One depended on man’chi, the other on a truly arcane sense of obligation conveyed by a mysterious artifact. Neither was transparent.
“Subtitles,” he said in Mosphei’.
“Yes, sir,” Kurt said. They looked, despite their age, like three kids apprehensive of a chastisement.
The long hair—he’d had to hide his during his visits home, or expect stares on the bus. A knowledge of court Ragi, the language of the classics. A club, for God’s sake.
“Your work?”
“We had a sponsor. Professor Short, over in—”
“Anthropology.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he still your sponsor?”
“He died three years ago. We’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Short had been a rebel spirit himself, wildly eccentric: he remembered a plump old man with outlandish wisps of white hair, an affinity for plaids, and sandals no matter the weather. “God. Dr. Short. I’m amazed the Linguistics Department approved.”
“They knew,” Karl said in Mosphei’, “and they didn’t approve us meeting after Dr. Short died. But we’re just in Documents. There’s a few over in the Foreign Service track, but they keep it quiet, don’t attend the meetings.”
“How many are you, do you know?”
“Fifty-two. Maybe.” Lyle looked uneasy.
“Fifty-three if you count Thea,” Evan followed up quickly, and Karl shot him a warning glance.
“She’s four.”
“But she never misses a machimi,” Evan persisted. “She’s Lyle’s sister. She watches when we’re at Lyle’s house, she sits and doesn’t even fidget.”
“She speaks a little,” Lyle said, “but I can’t say my mother approves.”
“Fifty-three is, however, a more felicitous number,” Bren said solemnly, but amused, and the young men all relaxed a degree. “It is not a bad thing. What, exactly, does this club do when you meet?”
“We hold meetings. We translate the machimi. We have parties. Dinners. We show the plays.”
“And speak Ragi to each other.”
“As much as we can, nandi.”
“One hesitates to ask. Do you also maintain the jahaji?” That was the predecessor to the Assassins’ Guild, enshrined in the machimi.
“A few of us.” Evan’s voice was very quiet.
Banichi gave a soft laugh. From the Guild on business, that was an officially amused reaction.
“Where do you meet?”
“In apartments, nandi,” Kurt said.
“And how does the University regard this activity?”
There was a solemn, down-hearted silence. Then, in Mosphei’, “They’ve never really said anything,” Kurt said.
“Yet,” Lyle said glumly.
“How will they regard your seeking out Lund-nadi?”
The look the three exchanged said it all.
“You could greatly damage your future prospects. You know that.”
“Yes, nandi.”
“I will tell you,” Bren said, in Mosphei’, to be sure they understood, “if you go into this on a trial basis, and you commit any indiscretion that brings a problem to these children or their parents—who do accompany them—there will be no mercy. No second chance. Their lives will be difficult enough, with inevitable public attention, and considering their connection with the aiji’s court, there must never be anything to bring the program into disrepute. I cannot quarrel with the braids. But no outright demonstration of your particular passion, nothing else that makes you look different than any corporate employee or attracts the notice of the news—who will be watching you. Business style and discreet communication—no speaking Ragi in any public venue, in the hearing of anyone but the children and their parents. Tell me why I say this.”
“We can’t be weird,” Evan said. “We can’t have it reflect on the kids.”
“That’s pretty well it,” Bren said. “You have to look like University people. You can’t do or say anything that makes people think you’re in any wise different.”
Hope dawned on three faces. “Do we get a trial?” Kurt asked.
“You will get a trial,” Bren said. “And I have to warn you, you’ll be mothered by the woman I still hope will agree to be in direct charge of the children, and you’ll walk in mortal fear of the woman who will be overseeing the project. Dr. Kate Shugart has a sense of humor, but you have to earn admission to it.”
“Sir,” Kurt said, “we will be so much on good behavior.”
“You’ll also make close acquaintance with the State Department. And you will not expose the children to this club of yours without direct clearance from me. Understood? The children’s doings will be secret, their lives will be classified, and everything we let t
he public see or hear about them has to fit how children ought to act in nice little ordinary neighborhoods. Do you understand why? I’d think, with the braids tucked under collars, that you might understand.”
A pause. “Yes, sir. I think we do.”
“You’ll have one other complication: these children can speak kyo.”
“Kyo. The aliens?”
“The aliens, yes. They speak it, never mind how, though likely they’ll tell you in time, but wherein they do speak it, you should speak it. I won’t give you my notes at this point, but what they know, you should record, and learn—if you don’t, I’m quite sure they’ll be speaking in it to get something past you. They are kids. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be their teachers for math, history, geography, science—all that. You’ll live on site, in Heyden Court, and you won’t leave it without notifying Dr. Shugart. You can go where you like and meet with friends and family, you can have your club and you can socialize as you please—but no negative attention, no scandal can result from it. I take it you may have an interest in girls . . .”
Nervous laughter, glances aside.
“No scandal. Absolutely none. Manage that aspect of your lives carefully, conscious that it can impact your futures and affect the children in your care. And understand that in the political climate that may develop once five thousand more Reunioners land on Mospheira, there may be people looking for any fault they can find . . . even in three young kids, or their associations. There is a stirring of political opposition, and it may touch off unstable people. There may be some politically motivated individuals who will use any means whatsoever to get to you. Including getting to your social contacts. Politics. Serious, dangerous politics that may turn your lives in ways you can’t predict. That’s what I’ve met. It’s what you could meet. You will have to live under security the rest of your lives. It can affect your relationships, it can upset your life, it can affect everything. Nobody warned me. I’m warning you. Either you’re committed to this—or not. You can back out of this. You should back out if you want to take any different track.”