Invitations
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Date: 2013-08-09T04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Cherryh; Foreigner; Bren Cameron; C.J. Cherryh
Description: Every story has a beginning. Every friendship has a meeting. Every job has a first day. This is Bren's.

Invitations: a Foreigner Short Story

by

C. J. Cherryh

Closed Circle Publications

Box 18656

Spokane WA 99228

Invitations: a Foreigner short story © 2013 by C.J. Cherryh.

Closed Circle Publications
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Table of Contents

Title Page

Signature Page

Section 1: The Background

Section 2: Invitations

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Section 9

Section 10

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Invitations: a Foreigner Short Story

by

C.J. Cherryh

Section 1: The Background

The Earth of the atevi is an inhabited planet on which a strayed colony of humans landed, lost and desperate, 200 years ago.

Humans, few in number, lost the War of the Landing. The Treaty which saved their lives obliges their descendants to remain on their island, avoid contact with the atevi of the mainland, and, as a sort of rent on their land, surrender their technology to the atevi at a rate that will not destabilize the world and lead to war. This also means that humans themselves cannot use more advanced tech... and except for the University’s access to records, the old tech is as unknown to most humans as to the atevi. The two species speak only through the human paidhi (translator,) who lives in the atevi court— and it is part of his job to understand the implications of a technological advance and understand what changes it may bring.

When humans first arrived, the atevi had a steam-driven railroad. Now, after two hundred years, atevi and humans have television and jets. And an increasing population.

Bren is the new paidhi, working for the Department of State on the island enclave of Mospheira. The old paidhi, Wilson, has been sent home to retirement by the new aiji (ruler.)

Bren arrived on the mainland by plane, was met by the aiji’s guard, (Assassins’ Guild, as most guards are,) and was escorted to his assigned area within the Bujavid, the ancient governmental center that caps a high hill at the edge of the capital, the city of Shejidan.

He has survived the first day in his new job: he has acquired a cubby of an office and a very small apartment.

Section 2: Invitations

The alarm went off. Bren shot out a hand and killed it.

He wasn’t on Mospheira.

No. He wasn’t in a human place. He wasn’t under human laws, human expectations— and he couldn’t expect easy human ways. Wilson’s schedule said the office opened at a certain hour. He didn’t intend to be late. And the floor was farther down from the edge of the mattress than he was used to.

The accommodation, as the atevi called it, was across the hall, next to the small bath, and that was his first destination.

Was he supposed to dress, however? It was a residential area, but that was a public hall out there. He had a bathrobe, part of his official wardrobe, everything on Wilson’s recommendations. But he had no instruction on how one crossed a hall he shared with neighbors to reach a facility he was glad he did not share— his escort yesterday had explained that the accommodation and bath directly across from his room, at this bag end of the hall was his alone, and he should not use those further up the hall.

Dressing to reach it seemed safest. He pulled on at least the minimum, shirt and trousers.

Boots? Probably, to be safe. Hair? He couldn’t find the damned hair clip. But probably people didn’t wear their ribbons to bathe.

He grabbed his brand new bathrobe off the hanger and made the crossing, taking his key with him and locking the door to his room— he was very careful about that. There was a sink, the accommodation itself— and a tub deep enough to float in, if fairly narrow. He drew only a shallow bath in the interests of haste, realized he’d left the soap in his room, and decided against going after it. He had a soapless bath, and used the bathrobe for a towel.

Then he dressed again, put the boots on bare, damp feet, dutifully mopped up spilled water— he was determined not to do anything to cause talk among the staff— and went out into the hall.

Two doors away, two atevi neighbors, black-skinned, inky black hair flowing well over their shoulders, were standing in bathrobes, having a conversation in front of the next bathroom. They paused to glance his direction— likely thinking, Do humans ordinarily dress to bathe?

He quickly unlocked his own door, went in and put on clean clothes— shirt, trousers, vest, boots—and located the missing white-ribboned bow and hair clip, the only way to gather his short fair hair into the requisite ribbon— in the chest of drawers, where he’d meant to keep it safe. Wilson’s retirement hadn’t had a lot of warning. He hadn’t had time to grow his hair even enough to hold the clip securely.

He hoped he lasted long enough in office to grow a queue.

He hoped, if he did last, to get another table. A mirror. A mirror would be a great help.

Nobody had repainted the apartment or changed the carpet since Wilson had left. There were little scars on the moldings, little worn spots in the carpet. It was a three room apartment, with a closet, but two of the rooms were barely large enough for a single bed— and there was no furniture in them. The main room of his apartment had only his bed, the tall chest of drawers, and a tiny light table that passed for a nightstand. Lighting was an afterthought: the wiring was painted over.

Wilson had lived in this room for, what, forty-odd years— and had no other furniture? Wilson had made absolutely no impression on his environment but a few nicks in the very tired paint?

That was fairly sad.

This main room had a large curtain, a filmy white curtain that was a little cranky on its track, and that curtain covered, for his opinion, the room’s very best feature— a sliding glass door that let out into a pretty little garden— and admitted daylight, when the sun was up. If he got up early enough tomorrow, he thought, he might venture out there, if no one else was out— and if it would not offend his neighbors.

It was entirely unexpected, that garden. He wondered if his neighbors ever walked there, gathered there. He had been in the room at the edge of twilight and seen no one.

He wondered if Wilson had been inclined to walk out there.

Wilson would have spoken to no one, that was certain. Wilson was not good on pronunciation. But the truth, Bren suspected, ran far deeper: Wilson was one of those linguists who wasn’t good at math. And in speaking Ragi, above the children’s language, one needed math with every sentence. One had to keep the numbers felicitous. One had to add modifiers constantly to adjust the felicity.

Wilson had solved that problem by writing everything except certain rote phrases.

He— himself— could translate far faster, and had no need to write it down.

He’d met Wilson. Wilson had cautioned him to keep things in writing, and said he’d sail right into political traps if he didn’t— that he was, Wilson’s words to his supervisor, too damned cocky. He’d tried, on a second meeting, to assure Wilson otherwise.

Wilson had gone as far as to write to the head of Linguistics that same day, calling him unfit, too young and far too reckless to be in the candidate pool.

He hadn’t warmed to Wilson, either. Wilson was a dry, scowling man with a soft voice that sounded rusty— disuse, one supposed. And he was sure Wilson had tried everything possible to prevent him being assigned.

And here he stood, heir to Wilson’s notes, his apartment in the Bujavid, his special bathroom— without soap— and a nice little garden. He’d like to sleep tonight with the door open. He hadn’t been sure enough, last night. But there was a screen.

Perhaps he would take an outing himself, free, under the sky of the continent. He’d very much like a breeze.

Take his computer with him to the office today? He wasn’t sure of that, either. The computer was secured against meddling— and his room was far more secure than his first day’s schedule. He didn’t know what next hours might bring, or whether he could rely on security in his office if he became distracted.

It was just better not to risk it yet, not for the sake of his notes and a solitaire game. He didn’t need the notes. He hoped he wouldn’t need them.

And he wondered, should he meet a neighbor out in the hall, whether he should try to wish a good morning.

Nod, at least, he decided. He was, as paidhi-aiji, at least a court official. He shared the hall, Wilson’s notes said, with the aiji’s master cook, with high-ranking accountants, and with a number of office supervisors. They were his social level.

Humility, Wilson’s notes added, was not a requisite, nor advised: atevi put you in the social order at whatever rank your behavior indicated, pending further information, and the ribbon in your braid and the style of your dress was part of that information. The paidhi-aiji was advised not to defer to certain ranks, like the Bujavid servants, but he was expected to deliver measured courtesy if confronted by others. God, he’d digested books of material on how to tell rank and who was who in court— some of it in the computer notes. None of that helped you if you made a wrong move with someone in a bathrobe.

Never argue with a black uniform. He had that instruction down pat. Black uniform meant the Assassins’ Guild. That was law enforcement. Or somebody of consequence’s bodyguard, which was also not to trifle with.

He drew a deep breath, patted his pocket to be sure he had his room key and his office key— he had no wish to start his career by locking himself out.

So out it was, into a world where a tallish human was about the stature of a ten-year-old, and where every chair was a bit too high, every step a little far, every table a little inconveniently tall, and where he stood about shoulder-high to an average ateva. He’d experienced the size difference on the way from the airport, where his atevi escort had kept on either side of him, blocking his view, where, walking with them, he’d felt child-sized.

That part of the experience wasn’t something you could get used to over on Mospheira, not in all the training. It was a mental adjustment. It was remembering, on stairs, not to forget the difference in scale; and, this morning, getting out of bed, that the floor was not going to meet your feet as soon as you expected.

He was on his own now. One human. The only human allowed on the continent.

Wilson had coped with it for decades.

Had Wilson started his career the same, sane, with a normal voice, and human expressions, and generosity in his heart?

He had no idea.

Section 3

Atevi streets often curved. The residence hall itself was straight, but side halls down at this level of the Bujavid followed the geometry of the hill itself, and bent.

So must some rooms. He had seen that in his own office, which had one wall at a strange angle.

Getting to that office meant walking as far as the residence hall led, turn left at the lopsided and angled T, second turn to the right, about a 60 degree angle, then straight on until the third left— he’d had to wander a bit to find his way back yesterday, when his escort, having shown him his quarters and his office, had left him to his own devices.

Supper had been a problem. He’d been told about the food counter. He hadn’t found it. He’d gotten lost in the maze of hallways in the attempt, and had finally found a landmark, a door with a carved lintel, which he remembered as near his office.

He’d gotten home at twilight. He’d packed a few food bars in his luggage, and there’d been water to drink, so the supper had been no great hardship, but the very first thing on the agenda this morning was finding that hall and getting breakfast. He’d looked it up in the orientation notes on the computer last night, and he was relatively certain where he’d taken the wrong turn.

He reached his office and kept going. This morning, unlike yesterday, was clearly the right time to be looking for the food service counter: people coming his direction were carrying little white cloth-wrapped packages in the hallway, wafting up a very savory smell. In rising confidence he tracked those package-bearers upstream to their origin, just a couple of halls over, a little half-door that, had it been closed yesterday, he could well have missed. He stood back and observed. People lined up there, talked to the attendant, and immediately took away a meal without any payment—

That was as he was assured in his general instructions. There was no coin in the Bujavid: the whole Bujavid system worked on being recognized. One’s office ran a tab, and whatever he wanted, he could be assured would find its way to the paidhi’s tab.

He waited for a clear spot, then walked up to the little counter, wondering whether he should give his name or try to make small talk— his fair hair and light skin and stature making it ridiculously obvious to anyone who he was,

The young man at the counter looked at him, gave a frosty little nod, glanced over packages on the shelves behind him, then went to the counter beyond and advised someone that the new paidhi was here, that his breakfast was not on the shelf. The person inside said they had received no word about the paidhi.

“It was obvious, nadi,” the man said, “that if the paidhi came for his supper last night, he would be in residence this morning.”

“Then it was the supper staff at fault. I had no word. He requested nothing.”

“Serve him what Wilson-paidhi always had. That should be safe. Hurry.”

There was some little to-do, a little shouting back in the kitchen which he could not make out. By now there were three people in line behind him, and he stepped over a bit, bowed and said, “Pardon me. My breakfast apparently poses a problem, nadiin. Please go ahead.”

He drew startled and perturbed looks, but the three behind him and then a fourth arrival went on and collected their packets at the counter.

The young man eventually came up with another white packet.

“This is exactly what Wilson-paidhi ordered, paidhi.”

“Excellent.” He was glad to hear it. It was a point of caution, not to eat anything one couldn’t identify— some things atevi ate were poisonous to humans. “Thank you very much.” He bowed, and took his prize back to his windowless office, unlocked it, turned on the light, set the packet down and carefully untied the large napkin that wrapped it.

There was, within a box, a carafe with a lid— the lid was, one suspected, intended to be a cup for hot tea— and a thick piece of coarse dry toast.

Well, it was not exactly what he would have ordered. But it was a breakfast, and it was better than another cereal bar. He wondered what Wilson usually had for lunch and supper.

He let the door stand open. He listened to traffic in the hall, trying to make out words, accustoming his ear to the accent, and trying to gather news, even gossip. Nobody bothered him. The office was fairly well stripped, bare shelves, old paint— no dust, at least.

He wondered how much Wilson had packed, and how much atevi authorities, wanting to know things the Treaty did not let them know, had gone over every scrap Wilson had left.

He poured a second cup of tea— it was a two-cup carafe— chose a pen from the desk and pulled a clean sheet of paper down from the stack on the shelf. Then he sat down, uncapped the inkwell, and began to write a letter to his mother, his first not-quite-official duty.

I’m here. I’m safe and doing fine. They picked me up at the airport, showed me my room and my office, and I’m pretty well on my own. I had supper from my briefcase—”

He was forbidden, in any but an official debriefing, to give even mundane details of his life, like how one got food, or not having a bathroom in his apartment, or how he had gotten to his room in the first place. He had to stick to generalities.

And I had a decent breakfast this morning. Certainly enough toast. The slices are quite thick.

In point of fact, his feet were not quite reaching the floor and the desk was a little higher than human standard. There being no one around to note the fact, he hooked his toes, childlike, around the chair legs, for stability as he wrote.

I have a nice view from my room, which I had not expected.

He couldn’t say it was a garden. He could, on debrief, to human authorities: he could give any detail he could remember, but not to his mother, who lacked a security clearance, no matter what. State Department policy.

Every little thing I do is a new procedure, but I’m figuring it out and getting along very well. Everyone is being very polite and helpful.

One recalled the shouting in the kitchen, which he was sure had involved vocabulary not in his dictionary.

In some ways it’s a lot like being in the University. I have my little office, looking exactly like the University...

She hadn’t seen that cubbyhole either, but she could at least be reassured her son was important enough for an office of his own.

Nothing for me to do yet, but I’m sure there will be. I’ll write often. Please share my letters with Toby. Stay well. I love you.

His mother hadn’t been happy with him entering Linguistics. She definitely hadn’t been happy when he entered the pool of eligibles for the paidhi’s office. She’d cried when he’d gotten the appointment, and that had hurt.

But then she’d never been happy he wasn’t a banker or an accountant.

“Are they paying you enough?” she’d asked him when he made his last visit home.

“Quite well, actually,” he’d said. “And the atevi government provides all my food and lodging and transport. And clothing. I’ll just put the pay in the bank. I’ve set up an account. You won’t have to worry about anything.”

“And what are you going to do when you get a wife?” she’d asked him. “Will those people let her move in? And you can’t bring kids up there. And how often will you be here? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

Conversations with his mother usually got to two points, her health and the potential for grandchildren.

As if his brother Toby weren’t working on that problem.

But he still got the old question... when are you and that girl getting married?

He was seeing someone... three someones, as happened, none of them a person his mother approved, naturally... but girls who appreciated a good time, one of the three likely to be free whenever he called and none of the three having any trouble filling the weeks between. Linguistics was like that: you studied until your brain ached, you wrote papers, you wrote proposals, and then when you’d all but given up, they’d pass your paper and give you three whole days of leave from the program.

He was probably going to feel the same way after a few months of a cubbyhole of an office. Most of his job involved reading the newspapers, reading magazines, collecting a word or two to send off to Linguistics along with a paper explaining the usage as he believed it to be... which might clear it into the official dictionary, and might give some Linguistics student material for a paper. The other part was staying current with atevi society, picking up the gossip and the rumors, and figuring what tech would be a good thing to ease into atevi culture.

By such steps atevi-human relations advanced.

He thought about starting his initial report to State. He didn’t think he should leave his office and walk around. Since the paidhi-aiji had an office, probably atevi expected the paidhi-aiji to be in it. Eventually either some letter from State would come in for him, or one from the aiji might come to him on its way to State, simply telling Mospheira he had gotten here. When it did, he would translate it and attach notes.

That was his job.

And if State decided it was time to release a technology, he was supposed to write up an impact statement, and translate it for the aiji— and veto it if he didn’t think it was a good idea. That was his one great power in office, and it was absolute— his objection could stop an item being released on the mainland.

Besides that, he was set up to attend atevi legislative committee meetings where it regarded technology, and write more reports, to go either direction across the straits— one copy in Mosphei’, the human language, and one copy in Ragi, the atevi language.

He finished the tea. He had no idea what to do with the empty saucer and carafe, the box, or the napkin. He folded the napkin and set the box with the carafe on a vacant shelf, thinking he could take it back to the kitchens.

Or he could take it when he went out to get lunch: that seemed more sensible.

Section 4

Half an hour later, with people passing in the hall outside, and no one stopping— a young person arrived at his door, bowed, and before he could get up, set a small bundle of newspapers on his desk and left. Work had arrived— not unwelcomely so.

He unrolled the first one to read the headlines— and became aware of another shadow in the doorway.

Two more individuals arrived and bowed.

He stood up and bowed, that seeming the appropriate thing to do.

“My name is Taigi,” one said. “Moni,” said the other, and both bowed. “We are assigned to provide service, paidhi.”

“Indeed,” he said. His notes from Wilson had contained nothing about them or any staff. “What office sent you?”

“We are assigned here, paidhi,” Moni said, “to come at whatever time you need, to assist you with whatever you need— care of wardrobe, meals, laundry, any need at all, paidhi.”

He was surprised. And he had not had an answer. “One is gratified. But on whose order, nadi?”

“We will of course make charges to the paidhi’s account.”

He was new, but he was not a fool: he had just tried two routes, accurately pronounced, to get the same information, and had not gotten an answer. That rang alarm bells.

“Who sent you, nadi?”

That seemed to get through. “Ah.” Taigi said. “The Director of Bujavid Staff Services, paidhi.”

“Did Wilson have such helpers from the Office of Bujavid Staff Services?”

“No, paidhi,” Taigi said, lacing his fingers and looking down. “But Wilson-paidhi was in great disfavor.”

That— was interesting. Relations had always been shaky. A paidhi spent his entire career trying not to let the world go suddenly to hell over a mistaken verb usage. Wilson, who had served three administrations, had known some very dicey moments.

So was Wilson’s replacement getting a clean slate, old arguments forgotten?

“Don’t go in wide-eyed and full of idealism,” Wilson had said.

So it was his first day, and he’d been assigned servants Wilson hadn’t had, servants whose affiliation he couldn’t determine, in a court full of factions, and whose assignment hadn’t come with any paperwork— the atevi court ran on paper, seals, and ribbon— and with nobody’s seal of approval, servants were going to bring his food and have access to his room.

The Director of Bujavid Staff Services. An origin he couldn’t probe.

“Well,” he said, and cast a glance at the dishes on the shelf. “Please be so kind as to return the dishes, nadiin. One assumes they should go back to the kitchen. And might there be more tea?”

The two repressed gentle smiles. ‘Dishes in a used condition’ sounded a great deal like ‘potsherds’ and he feared he had not quite mastered the d-p distinction. He amused them. But he was apparently going to have their services— if they could get him a cup of tea.

“Yes, paidhi,” they said, took the dishes, and both left.

And if they could get him a cup of tea, should he drink it?

He sat down and glanced at the newspaper he’d been reading, thinking, well, if someone was going to poison him, they would do it, and that would embarrass the atevi government— who, if they were bent on doing him in, need not have gone to all the trouble of inviting him in the first place— need they have? So he probably could rely on them.

He thought about it. And thought. Their getting a cup of tea didn’t give him that long a time to figure things out.

He had no desire to start off offending whoever might have tried to start off with better relations.

But he couldn’t take things at face value, either. He didn’t know if these two knew what humans could and couldn’t drink.

And most of all— they’d brought no paperwork, no seal, no ribbon to indicate what person or what office was sending them.

No. It wasn’t right. It was dangerously not right.

He got up, left his office, and walked down the hall to the office nearest his—a larger office the function of which he had not yet figured.

The man at the front desk looked up, eyes widened, and the man rose in haste.

“Would you be so kind as to call Bujavid Security, nadi?” Bren asked. “Two persons have come to my office. They say they are assigned as my servants, but one does not know how to verify this statement and they brought no paper. One needs to ask Security.”

“Indeed.” In some consternation the man went back to a small office. A cluster of clerical workers gathered at a doorway to stare at him, pretending to be in conference. He pretended not to notice, and wondered whether he should have just asked to contact the Office of Bujavid Staff Services and ask.

A woman from an inner office emerged with a very concerned expression, approached him at the counter and said, “Security is on its way, nadi.”

Indeed they were. He heard a commotion in the hall, and hardly had turned to see before two armed, black-uniformed Assassins’ Guild arrived in the office, fixed him with unflinching looks while towering above him, and asked,

“Where is the threat, paidhi-nadi?”

Section 5

It was something he did not care to write home about— the fact that within hours of officially taking up his office, he had rung down a security alert, locking doors in one entire wing of the Bujavid— and gotten his two innocent servants arrested.

Yes, the Director of Bujavid Staff Services had indeed sent them, at the request of the Director of Bujavid Personnel, on a request from the Office of Court Operations. One doubted it had gone any higher than that... or that it possibly could go any higher than that. They were servants: they came, apparently, newly attached to the room, as every Bujavid residence had servants assigned to keep public property in good order. Wilson had rejected any assistance. But there they were.

“One profoundly apologizes, nadiin,” he was obliged to tell his servants, when they were finally released to report to his office, and profoundly embarrassed did not begin to cover it.

Moni and Taigi were graciously able to laugh about it. And they had, after all that had happened to them, brought the requested tea, and were able to serve it to him. They were, they said, well-informed on human sensitivities to some teas and spices.

They offered to shop for him, and find him items he needed. They could go down into the city streets, at the foot of the Bujavid, which he could not do. They could run errands, check for mail, advise him of menu items, certainly take dishes to and fro. They could serve him supper in his apartment. They were amply compensated by Bujavid Staff Services: service in the government center was a very good job, and they were delighted he would accept their service: working as personal staff for a court official was even better than serving one of the historic rooms.

And they could talk to him. They would talk— especially Taigi, who could leap from one topic to the next with very informative chains of thought. And they told him things— what businesses were down in the Hotel District, and what they could get. They were very happy to tell him about their village, and where that was, and how long they had been in Shejidan. They could tell him what was going on in the wing, and in the whole Bujavid, and the city if he had time to hear it.

And they could tell him how to deal with Accounting and how to deal with Customs, and get things from Mospheira that he might want.

They were beyond an asset. They were a godsend.

He did write a personal apology to the Office of the Director of Bujavid Staff Services, to the Office of the Director of Bujavid Personnel, and to the Office of the Director of Court Operations— not forgetting the Office of the Director of Bujavid Security, which was linked to the Assassins’ Guild.

And he wrote a thank you to the Director of the Office of Procurement, which was the office that had called security for him.

That meant he had written two more letters than he had message cylinders to contain.

That was no problem at all, Moni said: they could get plain ones from the mail office.

But perhaps, Taigi said, he should have several more, white ones, which was the color of his office, or any other person who was trying for some reason to be neutral. They could get those down in the city, very nice ones, because nice cylinders with proper colors got faster attention.

If he wished, they could order them printed in gold with Office of the Paidhi-aiji blazoned on it.

And was there anything else they should get for him, while they were about it?

Section 6

It was very pleasant to have a real dinner in his quarters. Moni and Taigi assured him the sauces were safe, and they were, and it smelled good: seasonal fish and a grain dish with savory oil. Moni and Taigi didn’t want to join him at dinner— they had ordered their own, and they would pick theirs up when they went home to their own apartment in another wing. They served him his dinner, and stood propped against the wall, chattering away about food from their district he should try.

And then, in preparation for the coming day, they took inventory in his closet, where he had two coats and three shirts and three pair of trousers.

They were distressed. “We can of course work late every night to have the paidhi’s wardrobe ready,” Taigi said, “but it would be so much easier if there were more. The paidhi can order anything needful.”

“One expects to order paper and pens,” Bren said. “But clothing—”

“A coat, of course. The paidhi must have a coat. Could he possibly bring any sort of a proper coat from Mospheira?” Taigi assumed a pained expression. “These are simply not in fashion, paidhi. They are last year’s, being generous. These clothes, however, fit, do they not, paidhi-nadi?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then let us take them to a tailor. He can take measurements from these.”

“But this expense? One does not wish to be excessive.”

“Indeed.” Taigi bowed deeply, seeming pleased. “One has absolutely no doubts. Rely on us, paidhi.”

One hoped the Accounting office was not about to get a surprise.

Section 7

He was unprepared the following evening, as he shed his coat, and as Taigi opened the fairly large closet, to find it full of clothes.

“Nadiin,” he began, turning to find both of them looking smug.

“You now have a proper choice,” Taigi said. Taigi had been absent all day, as he said, shopping. He had come back from one shopping expedition in a city where ready-to-wear in adult styles came only in significantly larger sizes... and his purchases had filled the closet.

Beige and white predominated— the paidhi’s official color was white— with a darker brown in one case, which he was glad to see, for comfort’s sake; but one coat was beige and white brocade, full-on court dress, outdoing by several orders of magnificence the beige coat he had thought would serve, worn with the requisite lace-cuffed shirt—

It glittered with gold thread.

What was the form for excessive though of course fortunate and very tasteful, and thank you for the effort?

God.

He did not plan to be that conspicuous at court. Ever. Plain beige and brown seemed quite enough, dressed up with a little lace.

And, was it six?— six completely new three-piece suits?

How? occurred to him to ask. And he was sure he would eventually get the story. Taigi undoubtedly wanted to tell him.

But there was more to see.

The room had acquired, besides, a small side table, a cloisonne bowl for messages, should any come to the residence, a little tea service, a bottle of brandy with three glasses— were they hoping to be asked to share a brandy, he wondered. Or was it simply that glassware on the mainland came in threes?

He had not even commented on that, yet. He was astounded. Everything on the continent tended to be hand-worked in some fashion. Cloth came from a mill— but furniture stores generally had, Wilson reported, a display window where artists carved and painted and varnished their work for the entertainment of passers-by.

“How did you do it?” he asked, and they laughed.

“We know tailors,” they said, and finally Moni said, “Several tailors. Once one knows the numbers, one can take them anywhere.”

Section 8

It was not a restful night. He kept thinking about the sudden invasion of his closet, the sudden widening of his world... and he worried about the bill. He was new in an office he’d worked for years to reach. He’d done it on no patronage. He’d risen through Linguistics on his scores, not his connections. He’d risen so fast, so far that he had constant misgivings about what he might have missed learning.

When it was clear, a year ago, that Tabini was going to take the aijinate, everybody had thought, well, Wilson’s done.

And he’d thought, regarding his hopes of getting into the selection pool, well, that’s it for me. Just the wrong timing—

Because he wasn’t there yet.

But when Wilson had outlasted Tabini-aiji’s accession to the aijinate— everybody in State had drawn a deep breath and said, Well, we’ve still got Wilson.

And those in the very small selection pool had drawn an even deeper one and said— not for years yet. Wilson will die in office.

He’d made it into the pool this winter. He was the juniormost, still scrambling to brief himself.

Then Wilson was out.

And he was in. How he was in was a question. Why he was in was a mystery. He’d heard a hint the aiji himself had refused two appointees.

And taken him... maybe figuring the youngest candidate would be a pushover.

Certainly several of the other candidates had not too graciously expressed that thought. One political power had objected; but State said the appointment was the appointment, and couldn’t be undone at this point.

If he had to go back, now, if he got tossed out of the appointment from this end—

He didn’t know what he’d do. Survive, he supposed. But hell if he wanted to go out in some financial scandal Moni and Taigi had created.

He could put plead inexperience. He could pay for it out of his salary. That was what he would have to say.

Damn. He had to talk to the pair about that. They had to consult him before doing something like this.

Section 9

Morning arrived and he had slept, uneasily and in fits and snatches.

And the knock at the door was Moni and Taigi bringing in breakfast, setting it up on the little side table...

Which meant he should have his bath and face the day and think how he was going to broach the matter of budget.

And when he returned, in his bathrobe and barefoot, they had his clothing laid out, insistent on helping him dress before breakfast.

Their help was a convenience, at least when it came to the shirt and coat: there was lace to cope with, cuffs that had to be gotten through the sleeves.

Then there was the problem of eating, keeping his cuffs out of the plate, trying not to drop anything on his new clothes, with the two of them standing by and watching the performance. At one point Moni darted forward to prevent an accident with the cuff—it was a problem, and one he was going to have to solve.

And maybe he should learn how to wear the clothes in his closet. He was going to live here. He was going, one day, to need to know these things. Wilson had lived here— in this one room with tired blue paint, had no staff, just read newspapers and collected words to add to the dictionary...

Maybe Wilson hadn’t started that way; but he’d ended that way. The evidence of it, despite Wilson’s return to a University teaching post— was all around him. Was Wilson’s state of affairs at the end— the state of affairs in which he was going to spend his career?

He hoped for things. He hoped for more than Wilson had done. He had a vision he wanted to bring. He didn’t want to jeopardize it by challenging any rules.

Or by tucking in and tucking down too low, too snug.

Moni and Taigi left him, taking the breakfast dishes. And in his own time, he walked to his office, settled in to read one of the newspapers, which shed ink on his hands— there was a need to be careful of that. He laid out a sheet of paper for note-taking— and realized a lace cuff sweeping across a still-damp note in ink was a great deal worse than a tea-stain. He started to lay down a second sheet of paper as a guard, then wondered about the use of a small polished stick he had taken for a paperweight, that lay atop the stack of paper.

Resting his wrist on that while he wrote kept his fingers and cuffs safe. It set his hand at an awkward angle. But one could get used to it.

Moni and Taigi arrived with tea— a surprise— and they brought several mail cylinders, two in his own cylinders, which was how one got back one’s own— they were replies. He guessed that.

But one was red and black. Ragi heraldry. That got attention.

The seal was not a Bujavid department.

It was the aiji’s. Tabini’s.

He carefully pried loose the seal, extracted the letter and unrolled it.

God, had the bill hit Accounting?

Or was it the security alert yesterday?

Tabini aiji of the aishidi’tat
to Bren paidhi-aiji.

Your presence is required immediately in the Blue Hall.

What had he fallen into?

What else could he do?

Moni and Taigi were waiting. Expecting an outcome. An instruction.

Well, he said to himself, he simply had to do as the order said, and go find out whether there was a problem, whether he was going to be on the next plane headed for Mospheira, or whether— if there was a problem, if he didn’t panic— he might manage to talk his way out of it.

First was figuring out where he was supposed to go.

“Can you guide me to the Blue Hall, nadiin?”

“Yes,” Taigi said. “Is there a problem, paidhi?”

“I shall find out,” he said. He checked his cuffs. They were, thank God, innocent of ink. He drew a deep breath, felt his pocket for the keys, and said, resolutely: “Please show me the way, nadiin.”

Section 10

His wing of the Bujavid was, Bren had already figured, one of those places where the mass of the upper building extended wings like roots along the ridges of the hill. The upper building, the part of the building that showed to the world, was a massive block of pale brown stonework, dwarfing its occasional windows, and, from its center, extending one incredibly long run of steps and landings down to the city. He had seen the Bujavid from the outside as his plane was coming in— but that had been in the distance, too far for detail. There were very few photographs of it, most gleaned from atevi publications. There were diagrams, maps Wilson had made.

And even in the larger sub-corridors— straight lines and right-angle intersections were still not necessarily the rule. Halls bent, curved, and intersected at angles. But with Moni and Taigi’s guidance, they came to three lifts with brasswork doors, in a very large, dimly lighted hallway.

They boarded the first, Moni pushed a button— there were only three— and it ascended two floors to another hall.

Ornate did not begin to describe it. It was a straight hall. A huge one. There were porcelain vases the size of a man, and others on marble plinths. Marble floors and gilt-edged, painted ceilings, ornate carpet runners that one knew were handwork— and this was just the side hall, where there was a bank of lifts.

He was on, he guessed, the main, public floor of the Bujavid, and if that was so, he had a clear notion where he was. The intersecting hallway where the light came in— that was the location of the great Audience Hall, and just beyond it were the massive doors that led to the grand stairway and the city.

Across from the Audience Hall was the Bujavid Museum— he hoped to be able to see that someday.

And to the right of that intersection were the legislative halls, the committee rooms— he would see those, once the legislature went into session.

“This way, paidhi,” Taigi said, and directed him across the hall from the lifts, where, a short walk up the carpeted hallway, were doors guarded by black-uniformed and armed Guild security. This, apparently, was their destination: this would be the Blue Hall.

“Paidhi-nadi,” one of the guards said, expressionless, and opened the door immediately. “You are expected.”

It was a huge room. Pale blue, baroque molding on a huge scale— carpets and wall hangings, a very little furniture. Another pair of guards stood just inside.

And across the room, in an area of light, a desk. A man. Ateva— of course.

The man looked up. Beckoned, in the atevi way, with one motion, and pushed his chair back.

Bren walked forward, across carpet, across bare marble— sorting in his head everything he’d studied about meeting a superior. Prescribed distance. Manners. He stopped about four meters away, immediately gave a deep bow, held it three seconds, straightened.

Tabini-aiji. Young— twenty-three; athletic build; taller than most. Eyes paler gold than most. Cold, Wilson had described that stare. Red and black brocade, black lace far finer and more abundant than what he’d had trouble keeping out of the ink.

A little head-tilt, impatient, as good as, “Say something, fool. My time is valuable.”

“Bren Cameron, nand’ aiji. You requested my presence.”

A brow lifted. A second head-tilt, this one seeming ironic surprise.

“You talk.”

Wilson had written everything.

“I came immediately as I had your message, nand’ aiji. I apologize: I have not yet written my first report. But I shall. Immediately.”

“Shall you?” Tabini shoved his chair around, fully facing him. “Are you satisfied with your office? With your rooms?”

Bow. Whenever a superior asked you a polite question, bow slightly before answering. “Yes, nand’ aiji.”

“Your accent is quite good.”

Bow. When a superior paid you a compliment, bow slightly and avoid babbling.

“Thank you, nand’ aiji.”

“You approve your servants. Are they suitable?”

One could go on bowing all day. Three was the fortunate limit. Watch the numbers. Never end up with even numbers of anything. “Yes, nand’ aiji.”

“You had them arrested.”

That was when one wanted to bow, duck one’s head and avoid that question. But he was out of bows, and embarrassment made it time to go into the modest dissociative mode. “One deeply apologizes, nand’ aiji. One received no papers. One was alarmed. One had no idea who to ask.” Three. Stop at three reasons. “Nand’ aiji.”

“Your alarm paralyzed an entire wing of the Bujavid.”

Now one bowed. “Nand’ aiji, one deeply regrets it.”

Tabini extended his legs, ankles crossed, clasped his hands across his lap— looked at him and gave the ghost of a wry smile. “Wilson would not have accepted them had they come with a recommendation. You expected papers. You called security. You did the correct thing.”

That was a relief. But one did not assume anything, where it regarded this man.

“What is your age, paidhi?”

“Twenty-three, nand’ aiji.”

“The same as my years,” Tabini said. “But one suspects you already knew that.”

“Everyone knows that, nand’ aiji.”

Tabini gave a short, dubious laugh. “Everyone on Mospheira?”

“Everyone in the Department of Linguistics, nand’ aiji, in the University of Mospheira. Everyone in the Department of State, one is certain.” Damn, that was two, and he hadn’t inserted the modifier that changed it. It was too late. “And the paidhi-aiji should of course know.”

The wry smile grew. “Was Wilson-paidhi actually this fluent, Bren-paidhi?”

“No, nand’ aiji. Wilson-paidhi is not as good at mathematics.”

“He cannot count to three?”

“He—” He had launched that answer without thinking where it was going. “He can certainly count to three, nand’ aiji, but he might get into deeper waters than he could manage.”

“And you believe you can.”

“One hopes to avoid infelicity, nand’ aiji, although mistakes are possible.”

“Ha.” Tabini suddenly uncrossed his ankles and sat up, hands on the arms of his chair. “Are you married?”

“Married, nand’ aiji?” He was not sure he had the right word. “I have no wife.”

“Father?”

Deep breath. “Dissociated, nand’ aiji.” It was a trap. Atevi family relationships were not the same. There was no friendship. Marriage was rare. There was no love, even parental love, though there was certainly care— fierce care. There was, holding one ateva to another, man’chi, and the paidhi-aiji was strictly advised not to go near that quagmire, not to use the human word for emotional bond, or the atevi one.

“Your mother?”

“I maintain a relationship with her, nand’ aiji.”

“Is it a close relationship?”

“Yes, nand’ aiji. Although I have been at the University the last five years.”

“Indeed. So much study.”

“Yes, nand’ aiji. A great deal of study.”

“Is Wilson a relative?”

“No, nand’ aiji.”

“Have you man’chi— to Wilson-paidhi?”

Trap. He greatly feared he was getting into one. “I talked with Wilson-paidhi only once., nand’ aiji. I had no feeling. I do not believe he had a feeling either.”

Surprisingly— silent laughter. And a grin. “That is the best description of Wilson-paidhi I have ever heard. Excellent, paidhi! Excellent. —How do you estimate your servants?”

Deep breath. “They teach me.”

“Teach you.”

“I can ask them questions. I can talk to them. Little things, nand’ aiji.” He was off the edge into delicate territory. And he still didn’t know whether he’d run his office into debt. “I worry, nand’ aiji. One went to the shops. There was expense.”

A casual wave of the hand. “They reported. They were instructed.” A second wave, seeming to include his entire person. “Tell them to engage a tailor. This can be improved.”

A tailor. God. He had an office the size of his closet and his work was to sit in that office, read newspapers and write letters to his mother. But—once the legislature did convene—

“Thank you, nand’ aiji.”

“A new paidhi brings a new relationship, a better relationship, perhaps an expanded relationship. Perhaps... you have arrived with things already in mind.”

Right off the edge of the cliff.

What is your policy? What is your attitude? What are your intentions? Have you an agenda? Has the State Department an agenda?

And... what can we get from you?

Wilson had overdone it at a certain point— back when Valasi was aiji. He’d brought in jet aircraft, food preservation for export, and television. That had stirred a hell of a storm, and some in the department thought, led to Wilson’s increasing isolation, years of no innovation, no dialogue, precious little information.

But... in point of fact... he had thought about next technological steps. He had prepared a paper about that and, he’d been privately informed, that paper was one of the factors that had gotten someone in State to push him to the top of the pool, in spite of his junior status, in spite of what some more conservative voices called his reckless delusions of fluency.

A little bow. And a pleasant expression. “I have some notion, nand’ aiji.”

“What, precisely, are you prepared to suggest?”

“A technology, nand’ aiji, with several uses, including accurate weather prediction.”

“Is this regarding that balloon that intruded on the mainland?”

Current events. “One is aware a weather instrument came well over the mainland last year.”

“And landed, unwelcomely, on Dur.”

“It was, nand’ aiji, and we are prepared to offer the technology—”

“We already have it.”

A nod. His heart sped. He reached for useful, non-controversial words, and it all was spiralling out of presentation order, an exchange veering off at angles. He couldn’t have that.

“An area of cooperation, nand’ aiji. That is my proposal. And what I propose does touch on weather. And coastal security.”

“What? More balloons?”

“More than that, nand’ aiji. Radar. Radar is a device that can see at great distance, what crosses the straits, and how it moves. The operator uses a screen, like television. But a signal goes out, and part bounces back off an object, making a dot on that screen. The signal goes out again. The dot moves. That is an airplane, having taken off from Port Jackson, bound for Shejidan. You will constantly know where it is, how fast it travels, and what path it takes.”

Tabini had begun to frown, and the frown deepened the longer he went. It seemed time to stop, prudently.

“You know,” Tabini said, “that we are working on this technology.”

“No,” he said. No was the absolute, upsetting truth. “Mospheira does not know.” And by Tabini’s expression, Tabini did not believe him. Tabini’s suspicion was not the way to start a relationship.

“It,” he began again, “is a next step. Fast planes are increasing in number: they will grow far more numerous and the Mospheiran coast is getting more populous. Radar is necessary. It will prevent collisions in the air. It will prevent misunderstandings. It will see rain and storms. Operators on the ground can see and direct pilots who are blinded by bad weather. The Department of State has already approved its release. Mospheira will install it. And if the aishidi’tat also installs it— we will be mutually assured what is and is not in the skies. One can establish paths in the sky which planes can safely observe, and you can be sure where they are. We have a system of assigning such paths. It would be part of the program.”

The frown persisted. “And was that balloon connected to this radar?”

“No, nand’ aiji, not directly. It was measuring air.” The word for pressure was close to one for railroad — and that was not an misunderstanding he dared risk.

“Measuring air.”

“Thickness,” he said. “Air thickness. And temperature. Weather, nand’ aiji. The radar says there is or is not rain. The instruments with the balloon are things like air thickness and temperature. It should have deflated and sunk in the strait when it went astray: its mechanism malfunctioned and it mistakenly crossed into your sky.”

Tabini just stared at him. “You will deliver this radar information. And your paths in the air. And you will provide information on the balloon instruments, their purpose and function.”

“That will be no difficulty at all, nand’ aiji. The hope is that, since we are trading by air—” He had made his trip over in a plane that ordinarily carried fresh fruit and came back with flour and dried seaweed. “—ordinary persons can communicate more freely, with an expanded set of codes and language for aircraft, which it will not require the paidhi’s office to mediate.”

“You envision this communication from both sides.”

It was not the time to back up. Do or go down in a diplomatic disaster that might threaten the entire concept of his office. He set his jaw.

“My government has already cleared this notion. Whether or not they suspect atevi are already working on radar, I am not informed nor am I likely to be, in my office, nand’ aiji. It is technologically logical, and certainly a next step after the felicitous introduction of faster aircraft. You have some small, old planes still flying. You have two jets. They fly only in good weather, which is a problem to schedules. They advise airports when they are coming. They land once the airports have advised small planes to make way. Radar, nand’ aiji, can ascertain exactly where a plane is, no matter where the pilot thinks it is, and do it when the sky is clouded. It can enable a person on the ground to assist the pilot and bring the plane in safely. “

Was that a triumphant smile that tweaked the corner of Tabini’s mouth. Or was it pleasantness, or satisfaction? Atevi could go stone-faced, totally expressionless when upset. Tabini had, all along, been showing him a range of expressions...

Ending with, yes, finally, mild amusement. He was sure of it.

“You will provide this offer as a written report.”

He bowed. “Nand’ aiji.”

“Has your staff provided you a good coat?”

Suspicion flashed through his mind, on that question, that it was not the Director of the Office of Bujavid Services who had decided to send him staff. Had Wilson had that offer?

Or was the offer, and their actions, the aiji’s idea?

“Tea,” Tabini said. “Tomorrow afternoon, just after lunch, upstairs, in our apartment. And you will bring the proposals in writing.”

“Nand’ aiji.” Yet another bow.

Tabini waved his hand, the opposite of the summoning motion. And that was that.

Bren backed a couple of steps— one did, when there was that great a difference in rank. Then he turned and walked quietly toward the doors. The guards opened them, the outside guards turned to frame his exit, and he found himself out in the ornate hall, walking away... because if he stopped, if he momentarily stopped to think— he was going to have the aiji’s bodyguards staring at his back, and reporting that the paidhi seemed upset.

Upset. Shaken. He thought he’d gotten out creditably. Tomorrow...

Tea, for God’s sake.

Moni and Taigi had gone back downstairs. He headed for the specific lift that had brought him, he pushed the button for the lowermost floor, where he had started. It took him down, opened...

No Moni. No Taigi. Nobody.

He looked down the hall. It had been a lengthy set of twists and turns getting to the lifts.

And he didn’t half remember them.

He was effectively lost. Or damned close to it. And there were no offices in this section, no open doors, no foot traffic to stop and ask, only a couple of people as they were walking here— and none at all now.

He made his best guess. He turned right and walked, and took the second left.

Not the turn he should have taken. He ended up in a hallway of small numbered rooms. Retracing his path brought him back to his starting point, and he tried a left turn a little farther on.

That led him, by two wrong turns, to the kitchens, but from the wrong side, nothing like the counter outlet near his office.

He had to do this route again tomorrow. He had to find his way not to the main hall, but to the aiji’s own apartment. He had to do it flawlessly and on time, and he could not gain a reputation for confusion and look like a fool.

Hell, no, he was not going to ask the kitchen staff to guide him back to his office.

He certainly was not going to call Bujavid security for help.

It took him most of another hour to get to the other side of the kitchens. But he remembered the halls better this time. He had a section of them mapped in his mind, and to be sure, he walked all the way back within view of the lifts, then took the other corridor, and mapped the halls that branched off that.

One led him to the mail room and the counter... where there was traffic. And offices.

That included his office, and that included, in his office, Moni and Taigi— who, instead of sensibly waiting for him upstairs, in the hall, or where the lift let out, had left him stranded.

Moni was sitting in his chair, and Taigi on the edge of his desk, the two in mid-conversation.

They got up, immediately sober, and bowed.

He walked in, walked past them. His immediate inclination was to frown and stand staring at them. But he didn’t. On an instant’s impulse, he made his face completely expressionless, as atevi did when they were not going to negotiate, and often when they were not in the least happy. He stood. He stared.

And he said absolutely nothing, thinking, now that they had not waited at all. No. They had gone right back down, right back to the office, and left him to sort it out.

Someone was testing him, and it wasn’t, in fact, Moni and Taigi who most wanted to know how he would react.

He’d just met the man who would want to know that.

Would he lose his temper— as well as his bearings? Would he find his way— or have to be led? Or would he call security? Raise another alarm? Panic? Throw a tantrum once he found his servants?

Instinct wanted to say, to Moni and Taigi, I see the game. I know you’re not responsible.

But he wasn’t on Mospheira. He wasn’t dealing with humans. He was, for the rest of his life, with occasional trips home, assigned to be here, dealing with Tabini-aiji, turning over enough human technology to keep the world advancing at a comfortable rate, and not enough to destabilize the arrangement they had. Radar wasn’t the only thing in the proposal he’d sent to State. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere if he didn’t figure how to react, and when not to react, and just let the opposition figure.

Meanwhile— his servants were not his friends. Atevi didn’t form friendships. They had their own reasons, and orders from their central office were definitely part of those reasons. He was relatively sure now who was calling the shots.

Tabini-aiji wanted one answer— are you Wilson? Do you solve problems like Wilson?

He said, eventually, to his servants: “One is requested to be at tea with the aiji tomorrow, just after the lunch hour. Will the brocade be too much?”

Taigi said, very quietly: “It will do very well, paidhi.”

They’d had orders in the clothing purchase, too, he strongly suspected.

Tea with Tabini wasn’t going to be a walkover, either. He’d prepared himself with facts, programs, the ability to ask and answer. He’d thought Wilson’s policy of dealing only in writing was inability to cope with the mathematics.

He’d thought he was fast enough, fluent enough, to talk to Tabini-aiji. That it would avoid misunderstandings.

If that were all— yes. He could.

That smile. That expression. That amusement— not really at his expense, he had that sense— but because Tabini-aiji was actively enjoying himself.

Deep, slow breath. He had to admit it— so, in fact, had he been enjoying the give and take. And he hadn’t lost his way or let Tabini bluff him into retreat. Tabini had force on his side— Tabini always had force, and guns: that went with who he was— the man ran nine tenths of the planet— but that wasn’t how Tabini had approached business with the new paidhi, either.

Are you Wilson?

Or what are you, paidhi? How do you react? Do you get angry? How do you treat your subordinates?

Mutual curiosity, nand’ aiji. Will you try threats, next, or can we get past that?

I’m not Wilson. You’ve figured that.

And you admit you’re working on science beyond what we’ve officially turned over to you. You had no trouble at all grasping the technology I offered. You’re no technophobe. Some atevi are. You aren’t.

We can steer the world, Tabini-aiji, we can steer the whole world onto a productive track, or a bad one. And I have a report already written, already translated. It’s ready.

Has your staff provided you a good coat?

He gave a very little laugh. His servants looked at him, worried.

“Lunch, nadiin-ji,” he said. He added, deliberately, that little particle that was the closest safe expression of attachment, and smiled slightly, pleasantly, letting them wonder— whether he was upset, how much he knew, and what he was going to do about it.

Dear Moni. Dear Taigi. I’m going to need that wardrobe.

Go to tea tomorrow, was what he was going to do about it. Tea was for light conversation, pleasant conversation— before anyone could get down to real business. That was the way atevi did things.

Tea brought him one rung up a long ladder, that was what. Tea would be another test, this time of his manners, his understanding of atevi gesture, symbol, and custom.

Keeping his cuffs clean would be a good start.

More from Closed Circle

Books we offer

Science Fiction:

C.J. Cherryh: Heavy Time, Hellburner, part of the Alliance-Union universe. Deliberations: a Foreigner Short Story. Coming soon: Rimrunners, a major companion piece to Downbelow Station and Cyteen.

Jane S. Fancher: ’NetWalkers series: a star-spanning regime threatened with meltdown—at the hands of a dead woman, a rebel, and a young man who’s gotten far too mentally connected to the subspace network for his own sanity.

Fantasy:

C.J. Cherryh: Faery Moon: if a man’s only friend is a pooka and he’s broken elvish rules, his future is in doubt.

The Rusalka trilogy: involving a dead girl and her living lover, a young wizard, and all the magic of old Russia.

Jane S. Fancher: Ringdancers: steam-driven fantasy, a dynastic struggle, magic and the delightful Mother and Dancer: Ring of Lightning, Ring of Intrigue, Ring of Change, and Alizant.

Blood Red Moon: urban fantasy, vampires, and, well, cats.

Lynn Abbey: Orion’s Children: urban fantasy, time travel and curses—with her inimitable grasp of history, here and otherwhere.

Daughter of the Bright Moon: a daughter of the steppes refuses to die with her tribe. The Wooden Sword, the beginning of the Walensor Chronicles, a prince of a magical realm born under the unluckiest of omens.

Nonfiction:

C.J. Cherryh: The Writing Life: a blow-by-blow diary account of a new domicile in the great northwest, two writers, faithful cats, and what really goes on in the head of a writer.

Reefs and Marine Fish Tanks: How To — one of C.J.’s other passions: years of experience, greatly condensed.

With more books likely to show up at any given moment. We stick to no schedule. We’re writers first. Always!

Find us at http://www.closed-circle.net —remember dot-net and that hyphen! It’s tricky.

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Bonus Sneak Peak

’NetWalkers
by J.S. Fancher

A Ride on the Wild Side

One look at Marani’s Stinger explained Smith’s abrupt turnaround.

With star-strewn space waiting overhead and the station’s hull beneath him, Jean-Phillippe could only look on in envy as Smith settled into the Stinger’s sleek saddle and adjusted the straps. Smith’s hopper, the one behind whose dash he sat, was a good machine. State of the art, as he’d expect from Smith, but the gleaming red and gold Stinger was a custom job, and from the way Rani’s gloved fingers deftly adjusted the main engine settings, he could guess who the customizing mechanic had been.

“You be careful, Smith.” Her voice, coming over the suit’s speaker, held the tone of an over-protective mother sending her only child out on a first date.“Hear me?”

Smith’s gloved hands caressed the handlebars. “TLC, darlin.’” The helmeted head turned toward him and in the suit’s internal light, he saw the gleam of excitement on Smith’s face. “You set, JP?”

“Ready when you are.”

Marani tapped off Smith’s leg and shot over to the third hopper they’d extracted from the hangar, a virtual carbon copy of the one he straddled, save for color. His was red and gold, hers blue and silver. While she strapped herself in, he inserted the key card in Smith’s machine, and checked the thrusters. Once assured of all systems, he set the thrusters to idle, tapped the mooring pin with his boot to release the tie-down clamps, and gave a slight shove with both feet, setting the hopper in a conservative, non-powered launch.

Once free of the station’s hull, he eased power into the thrusters, testing balance and maneuverability. It was, as he suspected, a hotter vehicle of its type than he’d ever ridden, but not (he rapidly determined) beyond his ability to handle.

“How’s it feel?” Smith’s voice asked in his ear.

“Sweet,” he answered. “Very sweet indeed.”

“Take a bow, Rani.”

“Bow, shmow, you just watch my fenders!”

The distinctive vibration of a powered launch as heard from inside a pressure suit answered her. The Stinger lifted free in a high, arcing loop, clearing the hull and achieving free space in a heartbeat, where a series of thruster puffs set it spinning wildly, chaotically.

“Goddammit—” Marani’s hopper shot after, slowed just outside of the wild orbit as laughter rang out through their localized com bubble. Three quick puffs, and the Stinger came out in a gentle, easy glide toward her, coming to a precise halt just short of her position.

“Showoff.” Jean-Phillippe tapped the main thrusters, set the homing guide to their position and let the onboard computer determine the decel. As a child back on MStatBeta, he’d ridden hoppers daily, but those days were long gone. He’d had occasion to use the small single-passenger transports over the intervening years, but only for practical moving about between ships, stations, and, for a handful of horrifying months, on one of Antonia’s missions, between asteroids. He had none of his companions’ easy facility with the controls and wasn’t about to risk Smith’s hopper or his neck trying to prove otherwise.

Fortunately, unlike the Stinger’s swivel thrusters, a complex, delicately balanced system that allowed for those fancy arcs and spirals, his hopper was limited to conventional straight-line maneuvering, and the feel for those simple controls rapidly returned. As he relaxed, the joy of being outside the station, floating among the stars as freely as mankind could, soon caught him up and he found himself following the other two in a rapid-paced scamper between stations, riding high above the commercial flight plane, exchanging waves with other, similarly independent-minded people with expensive hobbies.

Planet to one side of that plane of stations, primary moon to the other. Everywhere else there were stars or stellar lookalikes. Solar panels formed a gridwork about the stations, generating power, storing it in a localized, subspace bubble that everything within that gridwork, from his computer to the hopper he rode, tapped. It was yet one more manifestation, as were the hyperspace drives of starships, their inter-suit communications, and the Nexus Space ComNet itself, of SS&W’s cracking of the multidimentional energy-state matrix.

Their random path led them toward ComNet Authority Station. Smith, not content with their conservative vectors, literally rode circles around him and Rani.

“Evidently not as incapacitated as he claimed,” he said on the smallest com-bubble setting, excluding Smith.

She grinned across at him, her teeth a flash of white in the mostly clear helmet. “Knew it would do him good.” Her face turned back to Smith as he spun his vehicle through a particularly complex spiral. “Bastard. I’ll probably have to let him borrow it again—or give the damn thing to him.” She faced him again, but the smile was gone. “You know, the hell of it is, I can build it, but I can’t make it do that. First time at the controls, and he’s making it dance.”

“Maybe you’re just not crazy enough.”

Her laughter rang in his ears as Smith squeezed into formation between them, demanding to be let in on the joke.

“Never. If you’re going to leave the party, you have to accept the consequences. —So, how do you like her?”

“Like her? I’m in positive lust. The AG/CG is phenomenal.”

“Do I get an explanation?”

“I put a small grav-field generator in the seat and linked the directional thrusters to its input.”

“Gives the unit a functional center of gravity,” Smith’s voice explained. “Turn it on and all I have to do is shift my butt, and she turns on a dime. Further you shift, the more she turns.”

“Energy hungry as hell.” Marani said. “You’re paying my VEM bill for today, Smith.”

“Worth every penny, love.” Smith’s gloved hands stroked the handlebars. “She’s a beauty.”

A tiny sigh reached his ear. He couldn’t see her past Smith, but something told him Marani had just given her pride and joy up for adoption.

Smith, clueless as a newborn, took off, packing, one would extrapolate, as much into his two-hour test-drive as he could. His swinging, spiraling, rhythmic course took him to the apex side of ComNet Authority Station where he puffed to a relativistic halt, hovering above the third ring, waiting for them to catch up.

Every station in Vandereaux, likely every other human built station in the galaxy, employed standard rotational artificial-gravity in a half-dozen different basic designs to keep coffee in the inhabitants’ mugs. CNAS was no exception. The smooth lines of the outer shell, looking rather like the earliest of UFO images, hid seven independently controlled rings.

However CNAS, unique among all stations, did not rely exclusively on centripetal force for its artificial gravity. Its central core rose in elegant, glittering planetary-city-like spires, full of offices and conference rooms, consuming energy ruthlessly in a large, expensive, and oft-times cranky version of that grav-field generator that gave Rani’s Stinger its high performance.

The first-born child of the Second Construction Wave, CNAS embodied all the ComNet Alliance had hoped to prove to the universe at large—in architecture as well as in spirit and in substance. It had been designed as a showcase station, a promise of things to come, but the reality was spinning floors, in whatever form, were simply more practical— not to mention economic and reliable— and so the CNAS towers remained a unique jewel in the art of station construction, a must-see landmark of the system, source of a major local industry, from tours to t-shirts to keychains, and therefore, taxpayers had decided, worth the cost of maintaining.

Somewhere below them, in the smooth lines of the conventional centripetal rings, were his real quarters, a student cell differing from his student cell in Vandereaux only in square footage and quality of neighbors. He’d be back there soon, would be back there now, if his initial assignment had remained unchanged. Instead, he was coasting, carefree and happy, above the labs where he should be working.

His life could be worse.

Smith was leaning forward, elbows hooked around the handlebars, staring at the station. Rani, seeing him safely delivered to Smith’s side, took off for a bit of her own free-wheeling.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll contribute a milicred toward that VEM bill.”

Smith leaned back in the straps.

“She’s just inside there,” Smith’s voice murmured across the local com-bubble. “See that service entrance? Go in there, up the ladders and to your left. No locks, no questions, no rules. So close and yet so far...”

“And what’s keeping you from going in?”

Laughter, infectious, yet holding a touch of bitterness. “You have to get through the service lock first.”

“Oh.”

“That about covers it.” More laughter. This time free and easy. Too free. “Wait here.”

“Wesley, —wait!”

Too late. He was off. Full speed, headed straight for the spires.

“Wesley!”

Marani shot past him, only to come to a spinning, barely controlled stop when it became clear Wesley wasn’t listening.

The Stinger, a bright glittering jewel among the lights of the towers, dodged and darted among them, weaving a complex, random path, disappearing from view for long, heart-stopping moments, only to return, skipping and dancing as if without a care in the universe.

“Damn him,” Marani whispered. “He’s going to get me—”

A general cease and desist rang in their helmets on a band no legal receiver could ignore. Smith had to hear, had to know he was pissing off CNAS traffic control, had to know the fine was building every moment he continued his manic defiance of that order.

Just as the controller was threatening to launch a team to corral him, Smith made a full speed run straight at the tower, flipping at the last moment to use full reverse thrust, creating what had to be mind-numbing grav pressing him into the padded seat-back, coming at last to a spinning halt directly in front of the observation tower.

Upside-down. Relativistically speaking. The spin slowed, and stopped, the Stinger face to the window.

Over that same open band, Smith’s voice said cheerfully:

“Wesley Smith, at your service.”

“Your ID, sir?”

“Aw, shucks, laddie, ask your boss. She knows. Tell her ‘Hi’ for me, will you?”

And with that, he was off again, a high curve that let him wave to the tower before heading off full speed on a direct line for Academy Station.

“Damn.” The soft curse pretty much summed up his own feelings.

“What the hell got into him?”

“How would I know?” Panic touched her voice.

“I think maybe I should call—” He almost said Rycoff, substituted quickly: “—Danislav. Ask him to talk to the controller.”

“He’d never forgive you.” She shook her head slowly, cursing softly and profoundly. “—Nothing for it. Let’s try and catch him up.”

Small chance of that. The Stinger was parked and covered by the time they got back to the stalls. Silently as the trip back, they secured their vehicles among the service hoppers and emergency pods and passed together through the air-lock and rotational-sync into the gravity of AcStat.

Smith was not in sight.

“Moving fast,” he observed. “Guilt.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Marani, angry as he’d never seen her, strode off toward Smith’s room, pressure suit and all.

“Rani, wait.” He had to run to catch up. “Don’t—”

She wheeled to face him.

“Don’t what? That was my fucking hopper he used to pull that stunt. It’s my fucking neck he’s put on the line, and if they confiscate my Stinger, I’m going to fucking kill him!”

She was off down the hall before he could think of any argument that might cool her down. Possibly because there was no excuse and her heat was fully justified. He hurried to catch her, then just held to her flank.

At Smith’s door, she didn’t bother to announce herself, but walked in, the locks yielding to her bios.

Inside the room, Smith was on vid-phone... with CNAS tower.

He was laughing.

The controller on the screen was laughing.

The controller sobered first, his eyes moving past Smith to the woman seething beside Jean-Phillippe.

“You’d best look out, Smith. She might have a gun.”

Wesley turned, held up both hands. “Wait, Rani. I can explain—”

“I take it you’re the hopper-queen Smith told me about.”

Marani froze in her slow stalk of Smith.

“It was my machine, sir. I take full responsibility for allowing him—”

“He’s explained everything, Ms Moharrad. I must admit, I’d have had a hard time not putting it through its paces myself. —Next time, Smith, take it to the commercial course. Damned if I’ll try to explain this twice.”

“Honestly, Bill, just send me the ticket.”

“Hell, no. I’ll have lunch off this one for a week. Just don’t repeat, hear me?”

“I hear you, Bill. And thanks. I owe you a drink.”

“That, I’ll collect.”

Smith signed off. His back heaved and with an audible sigh he turned to face them.

“Rani, believe me. I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what got into me. I just... saw those towers and had to go.”

Marani shook her head. “And got away with it, you slick-tongued bastard. Any normal human would have been diced, fried and served up on a platter to ’NetAt security.”

“Helps being a Smith, I imagine,” Jean-Phillippe observed drily, and regretted the statement in the next breath as both Smith and Marani turned on him, frowning. “I appear to have committed a major faux pax. Smith, I—”

“I’ll tell you this once, Beaubien,” Smith said slowly. “I never have and never will use Seneca to whitewash my own stupidity. I called the tower to clear Marani of all responsibility. I lucked out that Bill just happens to be a hopper racer in his spare time. He asked about the Stinger’s unusual maneuverability and I explained. That’s it. That’s all. I’m embarrassed as hell about the whole thing and wish he’d send me the ticket I deserve, but he’s not going to and the important thing is, Marani’s out of it, except—” He turned to Marani with a grimacing smile. “I gave him your e-addy, love. He wants the specs on the AG/CG.”

“I should kill you anyway.”

“And maybe now you’ll get that paperwork in like I told you to.”

“Bastard.”

“I know.” He leaned to kiss her, and Jean-Phillippe had to wonder if he felt her melt under that casual caress. Probably not, from the easy way he released her. “Thanks, love.” A look of wonder filled his eyes, and he gave a bone-popping stretch. “I’m healed!”

She gave a reluctant laugh. “Fuck you, Smith,” she murmured softly, then aloud: “That’s it. I’m outta here.”

“You’ll be back, though. You promised.”

“You’re healed. I’m superfluous now.”

A shadow crossed his face. “Never, love. Come warm me up.”

“You’re too warm already.”

“Please?”

“Bat your lashes at someone who gives a...” Another visible yielding. “Yeah, scum, I’ll be back.”

She headed for the door.

“Rani?” Smith pulled the keys to the Stinger out of his pocket. “Catch.”

She caught the keys and in one smooth continuous motion tossed them back. “Keep ’em.”

“Rani, you can’t—”

“Happy birthday, scum. —JP?”

“Mind if I stay here?”

“Only if you promise to remind him at least three times what an idiot I am for what I just did.”

“Promise.”

She paused half in and half outside the door, her shoulder against the frame preventing its closing, staring back at them.

“Rani?” Smith asked.

She didn’t answer. She simply shrugged herself free of the frame, smiled and left.

Smith watched her go, then turned a puzzled gaze on him. “Do you know what that was all about?”

“Other than the fact she still loves you?”

Smith’s eye’s dropped. “I know. I wish...” He shrugged. “Well, can’t change how I feel. She realized before I did. But realistically, once she decided...” A quick glance, up and away. “I love her, too, just not... enough somehow.” He headed for the kitchen. “Iced tea?”

“Hot would be better for your aching system.”

“Hot it is.”

He waited until they were both ensconced on the couch to ask: “You going to tell me what really happened out there?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Smith poured the tea into two large mugs and handed one across the length of the couch, all without meeting his eyes.

“One minute you were fantasizing about breaking in to visit Seneca, the next you’re off running suicidal rings around the ’NetAt.”

“You know, your ‘insights’ could become seriously...” Smith paused, staring down into the steaming cup, sighed and continued quietly, “It was that or blast that lock. Seeing it just... brings it all home, don’t you see? Seneca and I... we had plans. We were working on... things that need doing. And it’s all on hold now. For years and years. Possibly forev—” He broke off, stared up and around the room. “I think, sometimes, I’ll go crazy, waiting.”

“You can’t work on those ‘things’ in your spare time?”

“Like the piano?” Smith laughed, a small, rather morose sound. “I... don’t think so.”

“And because you can’t work on them, you just—what? Snapped out there?”

Smith’s mouth compressed into a hard line. “Something like. Look, I really think I should go soak in the hot tub for a while before practice. Unless you care to join me... ?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got work to do.” In actual fact, he had a meeting with Danislav. Danislav’s request, not his, but he didn’t want to bring that up to Smith. “Been playing truant long enough.”

Something like pain flickered across Smith’s face, gone in an instant.

“Are you all right?”

Eyebrows raised. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Why not, indeed. Never mind he’d narrowly averted the wrath of CNAS traffic control, an incident that might well have black-balled him from CNAS for life. Talk about fuel for Antonia’s... vendetta.

There was no denying Smith had his own ways. While he doubted Smith’s contention that the Smith name played no part in his avoidance of consequences, Smith’s own irrepressible humor might well carry the moment more often than not.

Made him wonder if he had in fact helped, intervening with Madwick, or simply made things more difficult.

In many ways, Smith could be as naïvely charming as Francesca, a similarity that gave an insight to a childhood unlike anything a core-rat could even imagine. A childhood where youth and innocence were treasured, possibly even nurtured, a childhood where personal safety was a theoretical issue, not a matter of life and death.

The man won more than he ought to, and not just in the name of universal balance. It wasn’t healthy. People needed to lose, needed to know life had real consequences.

They needed boundaries.

The snap out there— that had scared hell out of him. He’d thought he was watching a total meltdown. It wasn’t, this time, but it could well be, next time. He was watching a man in crisis. Someday, if something in Wesley’s life didn’t change, he’d snap the wrong way at the wrong time around the wrong person. Jean-Phillippe didn’t want to be around to see it— certainly didn’t want to be part of it.

A prudent man would call an end to this mission and avoid the risk to his career. Tell Rycoff and Hanford that Smith was beyond salvage and settle for a life of field work under Hanford’s orders.

A gambler would stick around and try to get through to the man. Try to stop the inward spiral before it hit the event horizon, then claim credit for a minor miracle.

No one had ever accused Jean-Phillippe Beaubien of being particularly prudent.

“Are we still on for Saturday, after the game?”

Smith’s eyes danced with a light he hadn’t realized was missing until it returned. “Still willing to be seen with me?”

Not pain he’d seen, just now: concern. Smith had been worried. Worried about his SL’s opinion of him...

...Or was he? Recalling that impression of isolation in a crowd he’d gotten from Smith early on, he realized it wasn’t his SL’s good opinion he craved, hell with that—no, it was his friend’s. He somehow doubted there were more than half a dozen people in the Alliance with the power to rouse that expression in Smith.

The stakes on the gamble doubled.

But somehow, suddenly, the game no longer seemed quite so important.

“I think my reputation can handle the strain. Provided, of course, you win.”

A shout of laughter, his... friend’s laughter... followed him out of the room.