Intruder (24 page)

“We have advised his staff,” Tano said, “and we are in discussion on that point.”

Through Guild channels, that was. It was being managed, one trusted, in some way that would not rouse Tatiseigi’s jealousy or damage the uneasy truce between those two.

The sandwich went away with Tano, discreetly, and the paidhi-aiji got down to writing letters, with a sure timetable now for having his full staff. His hard-working crew was due a little rest. And more staff meant a chance for that.

But he had no timetable yet for having Ilisidi at hand to manage Tatiseigi
and
Geigi.

It was the porcelain, the imagination of benefits, and all the other arguments, that so far stood a chance of keeping Tatiseigi on their side of the political balance.

C
ajeiri was bored. Bored. Bored. And one
so
wished one could think of another reason to visit nand’ Bren, or visit
anyone
outside the apartment walls today. Cajeiri even thought of asking Uncle Tatiseigi for an invitation.

No windows. No harbor. There was no garden in the Bujavid that
he
could go to—despite his aishid’s discouragement, he did officially ask his father for permission to visit the little one he had heard lay off the Kitchen Court.

No, was the answer. He could not go outside. The garden was too public, access too general. He could not go there.

“Might I go to the library, then, honored Father? Just to the library. One promises, to no other place.”

“No, son of mine. You can send to the library, and the library will send up whatever you want.”

“How shall I know what I want? I cannot see the books!”

“They will send you a selection of titles on any topic. Or a list. You might have a list of all the books in the library, if you ask.”

He sighed, deeply, and looked at the floor, just disgusted. Nobody was letting him have any freedom.

“Things are unsettled,” his father said. “Until business this session is settled, son, things will remain uneasy. There will be no few measures put forward in the legislature provocative of action from unstable persons, not to mention there may be enemies lurking about that the Guild may not have laid hands on.”

“How long,” he ventured to ask, “do you think it will take for it to be safe, honored Father? To the end of the session?”

His father started to answer him and then sighed and said, “One believes you know, son of mine, that there is no easy answer to that. So cease asking like a child. One knows you are wiser than that. It will take as long as it takes.”

He was only eight. But nearly nine. He was
not
wiser than that, inside, where being locked up without windows made him want to break things.

But, honored Father! he would have cried, even a few months ago.

And of course that would have gotten him nothing but his father’s ill regard.

He had learned a lot in the sole company of grownups, especially in Najida. He had learned that busy people tended to have unusually bad tempers and that one never gained anything by pushing them until that temper surfaced. He had come on his father in the midst of writing letters, probably letters to people who annoyed him, or letters that were going to make people unhappy.

He also learned not to think over and over on things he could not fix. The fact that a baby that lay in a crib and cared nothing about windows was going to have the only view in the apartment made him mad. But he could not fix that. If he ordered his sitting room wall knocked down, all he would have was a view of the Bujavid hallway—which might be interesting, but it would upset Security. There was no question of that.

So he calmed his temper and sat there looking at his father, without a sigh or a protest, until his father grew annoyed with the silence and suspicious. It was exactly what mani did. She had the best tricks of anyone he knew, and those tricks very often worked extremely well on his father.

“How are your lessons, son of mine?” his father asked, then—it was always the topic when his father had run out of topics. “One has had no complaints yet from this tutor. Or, what is more remarkable,
about
him.”

“He wished to teach me about the East, honored Father. But he has never been there. I told him I have. So he said he would make a list of questions and find out what I know. But if he tells me anything I do not think is right, I think it would be prudent of me to ask mani if that is true.”

His father frowned, maybe just a little annoyed. “Possibly you should ask
me
if your tutor tells you any fact you think deserves further question.”

“One will do so, then, honored Father.”

“Go,” his father said peevishly.

“Honored Father.” He stood up, bowed, and left, going back to his suite.

He had made himself a project. He had his sketchbook, and he had his little office, in which he sat and worked on his drawings and maps of Najida—he thought them rather good, and his aishid, all of whom were very good observers, could tell him details he had never noticed but that he remembered when they mentioned them.

He had something to do while he was shut in, the way he had learned what he had to do when he was cut off from his associates from the ship and when no one would let him go back to space. He was making his records. He would
not
forget the ship. He would not forget his associates aboard it. He would not forget the space station, little as he had gotten to see it.

And now he resolved not to forget the way Najida was. Nand’ Bren was changing it, adding another wing, and that would be very fine. But he wanted to remember it just the way it had been when he had arrived there. And then when he did get to visit again, he would compare things and make new sketches. He saved everything. He had a drawer in his office bureau exclusively for his sketches. And he had another for his maps, and the great map on the wall showed him the whole world. Except for Mospheira. He wanted a map of Mospheira, but he had not gotten one yet. And he wanted a map of the north pole and the south. And maps of the major isles. He wanted all of it. He had seen
the world from space. And it was not just lines on paper. It had clouds. It turned. The moon had mountains. Mountains so high that they would have snow if they were on the earth. There was so much, so very much, that most people never even thought about. People had windows and never even looked out them. Of all things in the world he could not understand, he could not understand that.

His tutor came to meet him in his parents’ sitting room, bringing his list of questions about the East. He answered, and his tutor would check him about a detail, and check him on a detail within the detail, and on very boring things about the neighbors. He knew everything so well he quickly had his tutor nodding thoughtfully and saying he must have heard certain things from his great-grandmother.

“Nadi, one spent two years on the starship, and mani had nothing at all to do except to instruct us every day. One has learned genealogies, man’chi, ancestral obligation, protocols, history, geography, geology, animals, plants, herbs, and the traditions of the East. Also one has been instructed in security procedures and tactics by very high-up Guild. One has also recently learned the history, the geology, and the traditions of the West Coast, including the Edi people; and also of the middle lands. One was instructed by Lord Tatiseigi and by my great-grandmother in proper deportment, penmanship, and courteous address. The ship-aijiin instructed me in the history of the ship and in astronomy, besides emergency procedures in space. One has the acquaintance of the Astronomer Emeritus. One has heard about the ocean and navigation and ocean fishes from nand’ Toby of Port Jackson, and one has been on Mospheira, and one has flown twice in the space shuttle. One understands and writes ship-speak and one understands and writes Mosphei’, which is very little different. We have met aliens, and we can speak to them in their language, and nand’ Bren has explained their protocols so far as anybody in the world knows what they think.” He drew breath. He had worked himself into a temper, which
he settled, because he had had far worse tutors. “And I have had an
infelicitous
number of tutors, one after the other, who have insisted on
boring
lessons about laws and protocols and writing letters. One understands that writing letters is important, nadi, but is there not
something
new that will be more useful?”

“Perhaps,” Dasi-nadi said, looking a little taken aback, “you should tell me in the greatest possible detail what you do know, young gentleman, and how and from whom you learned it, just as you have. Start at the beginning.”

That was at least a new approach. “At the
very
beginning?”

“One would be most interested to understand the things you do know, young gentleman. One would never ask that you mention anything classified, but one would be interested, and it is very possible you shall teach me things I do not myself know. You surely have had an uncommon background. I shall ask you questions, but they will only be for clarification, not as a challenge to your accuracy.”

He was astonished. Suspicious. “Where shall I start?”

“As early as you wish. You were born in the Bujavid.”

He nodded, jaw still set. “One does not
remember
that, nadi.”

“What
is
your first memory, young gentleman?”

He thought. “The big stairway in Uncle Tatiseigi’s house.” A pause. Tutors pounced on such inexactitudes and carried on for an hour. “He is my great-uncle, but one has always called him uncle, the way I call my great-grandmother mani.”

“One certainly understands. One would do the same, in all courtesy. And your second memory, nandi?”

“The mechieta pen. The stables. I remember something earlier, but it was about the foyer with the lilies and uncle telling me not to go to the stables. And I was bored, so I did anyway. I was not a very obedient nephew. I watched. I climbed up on the fence to see—I was very short, then—and there was a mechieta waiting there, all saddled. And it looked so easy—he was very near
the fence. I climbed on. He broke his rein and broke the gate latch and went right across uncle’s new driveway. It was new concrete. And they had to wash the mechieta’s feet and they had to break up the concrete that had set and pour new, because it was a mess.” He ought to be sorry about it, he was sure, but he really never had been. It had been exciting, and he was proud of himself for having stayed on.

Except that mani had been inconvenienced. That was never good.

“So what do you know about concrete?”

“It gets warm when it sets,” he said. And it takes days to do it.”

“Interesting,” Dasi-nadi said. “Do you know why it gets warm?”

“No, nadi. One has no idea.”

Dasi-nadi told him, and sketched on his slate, and it was interesting but short. So they went on, and he talked about coming back to the Bujavid and meeting his parents and not really remembering them. And the first time he remembered nand’ Bren.

And he talked about the big hall of the Bujavid and the paintings.

“Do you know which paintings are always in the hall?” Dasi-nadi asked him. “Four change, but three are always there. Which three?”

He had no idea. So he learned something else, very quick and actually interesting, that he could be smug about if anyone asked him.

And he learned a third thing. That he was not bored. He could bend the lesson any direction he wanted to go, and if there was an answer he knew, he could give it, and if he had no idea, Dasi, who seemed very smart, could tell him.

“You were
not
boring, nadi,” he said with a little bow when they were done. “You teach like nand’ Bren. You may come back!”

“One is flattered, young gentleman,” Dasi-nadi said, smiling. “One is quite flattered.”

It really was the first time he had ever
enjoyed
a tutor’s lessons. He enjoyed it so much he asked himself whether it really had been a lesson, or whether Dasi-nadi was just trying to get the better of him. He had almost been tempted to tell Dasi how much he liked maps.

But he had stopped short of that, because whatever true thing one told somebody else, that person could use it for power, and would, and he trusted nobody who came into the apartment trying to teach him things. He had had far too many experiences and
far
too many people trying to threaten him into good behavior. Those were easy to spot, and he knew immediately how to get them in trouble. The ones that came in trying to win him over because they wanted to get his favor in the future or his father’s favor now—those were a little harder to spot, because they were good at being polite.

And he really, truly hoped Dasi-nadi was not one of those. He would be truly disappointed if he were.

But he was not going to say a thing about maps for a long, long while, and if Dasi-nadi turned out to be one of those people just after his father’s approval—

Well, it was just going to be harder to figure out, and he was going to be very mad if Dasi-nadi was trying to trick him.

He would never, ever forgive it, in fact.

The thought put him in a glum mood within five steps down the hallway toward his own apartment, and he was feeling entirely glum by the time he walked through his own doorway.

Glum, upset about the new baby having
his
mother and having all the windows. He was glum about not having a beautiful bay and a boat just down the hill, because he had no boat, Shejidan had no bay. Downhill from the Bujavid there was just a hotel and a lot of businesses all crowding close about the Bujavid and his father in hopes of getting rich.

Damn, he said to himself, and felt as if he had sunk into one of those black holes nand’ Bren had told him about, where everything flowed in, and nothing, not even light, could ever get out. That was the Bujavid, so far as he was concerned.

He had slammed the hall door as he came in—not too hard, not to have his father’s security come knocking at the door and wondering what the thump was. As it was, they could guess, knowing his tutor had just left.