Visitor: A Foreigner Novel (20 page)

Images of an atevi potter working. Images of the stunning porcelains that resulted. A man, atevi, cooking at a stove. Another over a campfire. A woman, human, holding a bottle, feeding a baby, and after a moment’s consideration, the same woman, breast-feeding.

Hundreds of images—some useful for an action, some for an item, or material that could be organized around a concept. Or a core sound like
ai
, that turned up in most words involving power, control . . . responsibility, aishid, aishidi’tat, aiji, and a dozen others . . . the backbone on which many useful words were built
.

In Ragi. The oldest, most widespread language of a people biologically keyed to man’chi.

He hoped to find similar core sounds within the kyo language. It was possible that could give him at least some keys to the way the kyo organized the universe.

It was a dictionary of images designed to elicit critical words and organize them around concepts and relationships, organized with the intent to approach abstracts. Specific enough, he hoped, not to go off in unintended directions, flexible enough to reorganize on the fly, should the kyo prove, as likely they would, to organize concepts differently.

And, oh, wouldn’t that system comparison function be useful for tracking that?

Feeling left his right foot. He moved it, flexed it, flexed his shoulders—and thought of a sequence that would illustrate parity, and satisfaction. He searched up more pictures.

He began accumulating a subset of specifically scientific images, geological and astronomical images. Volcanos, sunspots, novae . . . and their corresponding mathematical graphs showing energy readouts of the sort a starfaring people would almost certainly comprehend. Simple mathematics using blocks. Geometry. Images of architecture, arches, and right angles. Trigonometry. A child on a slide. An arrow shot into the air. Images with the associated mathematical formulae superimposed.

One never knew what pathway understanding might take.

Ambiguous images: he set into a separate category, which
might
show up kyo interpretation of critical items.

Patterns designed to get words of connection. Words of direction. With. Without. In. On. To.

He sorted, categorized, linked, and cross-linked. Action. Substance. Quality. He began to recall details of their meetings two years ago, questions he had retained that were still questions, nuances of sound. Body language. Questions and more questions.

Dinner, Jago came to say. He didn’t break off. He asked that a tray come to his office, with a pot of tea. And dessert. Definitely dessert.

Jago said she would relay that. He was assigning a set of tabs to a sequence of pictures, illustrating a process at that moment, and he murmured yes, and just kept going.

• • •

The kyo were definitely coming now, really truly coming . . . so mani said it was time for Irene to go stay in Lord Geigi’s household, because at least that way she would be with associates and she would still get information and be taken care of.

Irene understood. Cajeiri had been a little worried she would be upset to be sent away, but Irene had understood entirely, had expected it, once everybody was busy dealing with the kyo. The others might need her, too, because she
was
the best at Ragi, and she would, she said, be all right.

She was a little worried, maybe. Everybody would be. But he promised her that things would turn out all right with the kyo, though she was not stupid, and very well knew that things might not.

But it was a polite promise. And it let them talk about it, and how and when she would go back.

“One does not want parents,” she said, which seemed a concern to her. “Parents say ‘do this. Do that.’ I have no parents. I
have
no man’chi.”

For an atevi to say that was upsetting. But he also knew it was not true.

“You have man’chi to me.”

“Yes,” she said. “Not to Bjorn’s father. Not to Bjorn’s mother. Not to Artur’s father and mother.”

She left out Gene’s mother. But Gene’s mother never asked for anything and never gave orders, and always pretended to be happy despite the circumstance. One well understood why Irene excepted her: she never gave Irene orders. So he understood what Irene was trying to say—that most of the parents tried to tell her what to do, and Irene was not willing to be told.

“You do not have man’chi to the parents,” he said. “I say
protect Gene and his mother. Protect Artur. Listen to Lord Geigi and his staff. Report any problem to them.”

“Yes,” she said. He did not mention Bjorn. But that seemed to have settled one point to her satisfaction.

So he informed mani’s bodyguard, at least in the person of Casimi, who was on duty at the doors, and who would surely tell Nawari and Cenedi, who probably already knew that mani was sending Irene back. He directly told the major domo, too, because they had to send over Irene’s clothes and all. She intended to put them in a blanket and carry them, but that was hardly the way mani would have a guest leave her hospitality.

And if mani would not have her go down the hall carrying her clothes in a bag, he was equally convinced mani would not have her walk down the hall alone, as if she had been dismissed in disgrace.

“Staff will bring your clothes for you,” Cajeiri said, when they had had their lunch alone in the little breakfast room, and added: “And I shall walk with you.”

“Is that all right?” she asked, looking worried.

“Of course,” he said, which was actually true. He did have standing permission to be in the corridor, on his promise not to go beyond it . . . though that had, admittedly, come before the kyo were so close as they were now, and before things had begun to get truly, truly scary. “Lord Geigi’s staff will be expecting you. But I shall be sure they understand everything.”

There was a silence then.

“One hopes you will be safe with the kyo.”

“I shall be. And, Reni-ji, you will definitely be safe here. Lord Geigi will be sure to tell you how things are going. And you can translate what he says, so the others understand. You will
not
be obliged to listen to Bjorn’s parents, or any of the others. In Lord Geigi’s household, Lord Geigi is in charge, and
he
will not give you stupid orders. So you listen to staff and Lord Geigi.”

“Yes,” she said, like Guild on an assignment.

Irene’s belongings from the wardrobe case went first, quietly, so as not to disturb Great-grandmother, who was resting in her suite. Mani having strongly suggested that Irene should leave today, it was perfectly understandable that mani would not come out to witness it or offer polite expressions to a person who was his guest by
his
invitation. That sort of attention would make Irene
her
guest, which had serious implications. He was sure mani would not want that.

He had a certain reputation for breaking the rules, though if he had not broken them, he never would have met Irene and the rest, or Prakuyo an Tep, for that matter. So he was not sorry for his rule-breaking. But this time mani had trusted him to manage things, and he certainly did not want to upset mani. They would be entirely proper. Irene was his associate to deal with. She had not come to this apartment alone and she should not be set out alone.

If he went, his aishid would be with them, and they would advise mani’s bodyguard when he was leaving, and where they were, line of sight all the way.

So he arranged things, he sent the baggage in good order.

And he could not just drop Irene into the care of Lord Geigi’s servants, as if she were a delivery of groceries. No. There should be some demonstration that she now had connections; and he owed a visit, too, to Gene and Artur and Bjorn—at least a short visit, considering he had paid so much special attention to Irene.

So he had his aishid advise Lord Geigi’s major domo, who had already understood Irene was returning, to set up everything to work smoothly—all the
proper
way to do things.

Because he was his father’s heir now, young aiji. And people knew that. When they
did
show up at Lord Geigi’s door, the major d’ met them as if they were important visitors, and showed them immediately to the guest quarters.

Everybody was in the sitting room, watching television, or a sort of television—a big screen which could be pulled down,
quite a marvelous thing. It happened to be showing a video he remembered, from the Archive, with swords, and horses, all in black and white. It touched memory—oh, such memories.

Then it was gone, turned off. The servants had likely done it.

And everybody looked their way, and after a heartbeat, began to stand up. Artur first, everybody else following. Like a wave.

Everybody except Bjorn’s parents. Bjorn had been sitting down. Now he stood up, too, casting a worried look toward his mother and father.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said. He was used to waiting for
someone
to choose a chair, but now he was in charge of the moment. He chose his own chair, one with a vacant chair by it, for Irene. He sat down, with everybody watching, and Irene very quietly sat down, and the others, with a glance at Artur, sat down as well.

“Tea,” he said to the major d’, and servants who had attended them went to the buffet, where the samovar had water hot, as of course it would, in a well-used sitting room.

“So what’s happening?” Bjorn’s father asked, quite loudly. “What’s going on with the kyo?”

Mani certainly would not answer a tone like that. Or tolerate such an assumption of authority. The servants paused in their preparations, shocked.

“Everything’s going fine,” Irene said.

Bjorn’s father scowled and said, “I asked
him
.”

That was quite rude. His aishid, armed and at his back, would not understand the question, but they were surely not happy.

Irene said something very sharp to Bjorn’s father, then. And Bjorn’s father said something angry and loud.

“Nadiin!” Cajeiri said, and sharply, in ship-speak: “Stop!”

That drew looks. He wasn’t as loud as Bjorn’s father, but his fair imitation of mani’s tone was far more effective.

“So he does speak,” Bjorn’s father said.

“Bjorn,” Irene said, and something else involving
manners
, then: “
Talk
to him.”

Bjorn did look at his father, but his father made an angry gesture, thrust himself out of the chair, turned, and walked back toward the guest bedrooms. Bjorn’s mother, clearly worried, went after him.

Artur’s father, and Artur’s mother, then Artur stood up. Gene did, and his mother last of all. Cajeiri sat where he was, with his bodyguard at his back.

“I’m sorry,” Bjorn said earnestly, and then went after his parents.

There was a moment of heavy silence, so deep that Bjorn’s retreating steps sounded very loud. The servants waited. Everybody waited.

“Artur,” Irene said softly, and, “Gene,” and with a glance her way, Artur and Gene sat down, and the parents did.

“Tea,” Cajeiri said again, in the restored quiet, and the servants reprised their preparations.

Then one heard Bjorn’s father’s voice, loud, and angry, beyond the closed door, and the others looked uneasy. The shouting ceased.

“You are all right,” Cajeiri said quietly in Mosphei’. “Kyo will come. Kyo will go. Everybody is safe.”

“Tell him,” Artur’s mother said faintly, “we’re glad to be here. We’re sorry.”

“I understand,” he said, in that strange, naked way Mosphei’ put it—if there was a polite impersonal, he had never heard it. He hoped he had used a proper form, speaking to adults.

Artur said, in Ragi, “Mr. Andressen is scared. One regrets, Jeri-ji.”

Bjorn was trying to manage things quietly, but it was difficult, and his father was not calm: voices still escaped that room.

Bjorn’s father had kept Bjorn apart even before Gene and Artur and Irene had gone down to the world. They had, they said, used the station tunnels, and established contact with him early in the year. But after Gene had gotten in trouble with the station aijiin, Bjorn’s parents had strictly forbidden Bjorn to see
any of them. And when the invitation had come to go down to the planet, they had tried again to contact him, but it was clear Bjorn’s father had not wanted Bjorn associated with them in any way, let alone a trip down to the planet.

It was all, they had thought, because Gene had gotten arrested, even if station authorities had let him off, and even if it was an official invitation.

That was what they had thought until they had lived with Andressen-nadi in Lord Geigi’s place. Bjorn’s father had kept his household better off than most Reunioners, and there were papers Bjorn’s father was using that he was somehow not supposed to have, though if they had been left on Reunion, they would have been destroyed.

Was that all the reason Bjorn’s father acted as he did? Nand’ Bren had strictly warned him not to assume humans reacted the same to problems, but it was clear that Bjorn’s father had tried hard to help Bjorn have his tutor, and he had managed better for his family than most Reunioners had been able to do. Now he was sure people were stealing his belongings and possibly the papers, which if he was not supposed to have them, maybe he was afraid station security would take away from him.

It was all confusing. Irene said he was upset about being on the atevi side of the wall, and he asked over and over to go to his job—but his job had never sent asking about him, not that they had heard.

Mani said that he seemed suspicious in his associations, and that he
might
have been important to Braddock, which was not the sort of importance anyone should want right now. He had wanted to say that was not so, but certainly there were things Andressen-nadi had done that made him constantly upset.

The racket died down, at least. His outbursts upset Gene’s mother, and made Artur’s parents uneasy. Quiet let everyone draw easier breaths, and in that quiet, the servants took the opportunity to serve tea all around. Cajeiri drank a sip for
politeness, though he had drunk all the tea he wanted this morning.

Gene and Irene and Artur all did exactly the same, and so did their parents.