Create codes for the provinces, simply to facilitate computer sorting? Were thosenumbers auspicious, or was it some malevolent attempt of the aiji’s court in Shejidan to diminish their importance and their power?
Then, of course, there was the dire rumor that typing the names in stillproduced numbers in the computers, numbers of devious and doubtless malevolent intent on the part of the aiji, conspiring, of course, with the humans who had brought the insidious device to earth.
Not all that humans brought to earth was anathema, of course. Television was an addiction. Flight was an increasingly essential convenience, practiced as see-and-avoid by frighteningly determined provincials, although the aiji had laid down the law within his domains, requiring flight plans, after the famous Weinathi Bridge crash.
Thank the atevi gods Tabini-aiji was a completely irreligious man.
The matters before the aiji had one turn of the glass apiece—a summation, by the petitioner. Most were rural matters, some involved trade, a few regarded public works projects—highways and dams and bridges, harbors and hunting and fishing rights which involved the rights of the Associations united under the aiji’s influence. Originating projects and specific details of allocation and budget involved the two houses of the legislature, the hasdrawad and the tashrid—such bills were not the aiji’s to initiate, only to approve or disapprove. But so much, so incredibly much, still needed the aiji’s personal seal and personal hearing.
For chief example, there were the feuds to register, two in number, one a wife against an ex-husband, over illegal conversion of her property.
“It’s better to go to court,” Tabini said plainly. “You could get the money back, in installments, from his income.”
“I’d rather kill him,” the wife said, and Tabini said, “Record it,” waved his hand and went on to the next case.
That was whyhumans preferred their enclave on Mospheira. Mospheira was an island, it was under human administration, computers had undisputed numbers, and laws didn’t have bloodfeud as an alternative.
It did, however, mean that for all the sixty so-called provinces and conservatively three hundred million people under the aiji’s hand, there was a single jail, which generally held less than fifty individuals awaiting trial or hearing, who could not be released on their own recognizance. There were a number of mental hospitals for those who needed them. There were four labor-prisons, for the incorrigibly antisocial—the sort, for instance, who took the assassins’ function into their own hands, after refusal by a guild who did truly refuse unwarranted solicitation.
Sane, law-abiding atevi simply avoided argumentative people. One tried to have polite divorces. One tried not to antagonize or embarrass one’s natural opponents. Thank God atevi generally did prefer negotiation or, as a last reasonable resort before filing feud, a physical, unarmed confrontation—equally to be avoided. Tall, strong humans still stood more than a head shorter and massed a third less than the average atevi, male or female—the other reason humans preferred their own jurisdiction.
He’d clearly annoyed somebody who hadn’t followed the rules. His mind kept going back to that. No one had filed a feud. They had to notify him, that was one of the stringent requirements of the filing, but no one had even indicated casual irritation with him—and now Tabini was putting lethal defenses into his quarters.
The shock of the incident last night was still reverberating through his thinking, readjusting everything, until he had suddenly to realize he really wasn’t entirely safe walking the halls out there. Professional assassins avoided publicity and preferred their faces not to become famous—but there were instances of the knife appearing out of the faceless crowd, the push on the stairs.
And in no few of the lords’ staffs there were licensed assassins he daily rubbed shoulders with and never thought about it—until now.
An elderly gentleman brought the forty-sixth case, which regarded, in sum, a request for the aiji’s attendance at a regional conference on urban development. That went onto the stack, for archive.
One day, he’d told the aiji himself, and he knew his predecessors had said it, one day the archives would collapse under the weight of seats, ribbons, and paper, all ten stories of the block-long building going down in a billow of dust. But this had to be the last petition for the session. The secretary called no more names. The reception table looked empty.
But, no, not the last one. Tabini called the secretary, who brought an uncommonly elaborate paper, burdened with the red and black ribbons of high nobility.
“A filing of Intent,” Tabini said, rising, and startling the aides and assembled witnesses, and the secretary held up the document and read: “Tabini-aiji against persons unknown, who, without filing Intent, invaded the peace of my house and brought a threat of harm against the person of the paidhi-aiji, Bren Cameron. If harm results henceforth to any guest or person of my household by this agency or by any other agency intending harm to the paidhi-aiji, I personally declare Intent to file feud, because of the offense to the safety of my roof, with Banichi of Dajoshu township of Talidi province as my registered and licensed agent. I publish it and cause it to be published, and place it in public records with its seals and its signatures and sigils.”
Bren was thoroughly shocked. He felt altogether conspicuous in the turning heads and the murmur of comment and question that followed as Tabini-aiji left the dais and walked past him, with:
“Be prudent, nadi Bren.”
“Aiji-ma,” he murmured, and bowed a profound bow, to cover his confusion. The audience was over. Jago was quick to fall in with Tabini, along with a detachment of the household and personal guard, as Tabini cut a swath through the crowd on his way to the side doors and the inner halls.
Bren started away on his own, dreading the course through the halls, wondering if the attempted assassin or his employer was in the room and whether the police escort would still be waiting out there.
But Banichi turned up in his path, and fell in with him, escorting him through the Whispering Port and into the public halls.
“Tabini declared Intent,” he said to Banichi, wondering if Banichi had known in advance what Tabini had drafted.
“I’m not surprised,” Banichi said.
“I ought to take the next plane to Mospheira.”
“Highly foolish.”
“We have different laws. And on Mospheira an ateva stands out. Find me the assassin in this crowd.”
“You don’t even know it was one of us.”
“Then it was the broadest damn human I ever saw.—Forgive me.” One didn’t swear, if one was the paidhi-aiji, not, at least, in the public hall. “It wasn’t a human. I know that.”
“You know who came to your room. You don’t know, however, who might have hired him. There is some smuggling on Mospheira, as the paidhi is aware. Connections we don’t know exist are a very dangerous possibility.”
The language had common pronouns that didn’t specify gender. Him or her, that meant. And politicians and the aiji’s staff used that pronoun habitually.
“I know where I’m safer.”
“Tabini needs you here.”
“For what?” That the aiji was undertaking anything but routine business was news to him. He hadn’t heard. Banichi was telling him something no one else had.
And a handful of weeks ago Tabini had found unprecedented whimsy in arming him and giving him two hours of personal instruction at his personal retreat. They had joked, and shot melons on poles, and had supper together, and Tabini had had all the time he could possibly want to warn him if something was coming up besides the routine councils and committee meetings that involved the paidhi.