That was the dream he had. The nightmare was less specific, only the apprehension which, long before the assassin tried his bedroom, he had been trying to communicate to Hanks and the rest of the office, that you couldn’t go on giving atevi bits and pieces of tech without accelerating the randomness in the process, meaning that atevi minds didn’t work the same as human minds, and that atevi cultural bias was going to view certain technological advances differently than humans did, and atevi inventiveness was going to put more and more items together into their own inventions, about which they didn’t consult the Mospheira Technology Commission.
Thank God so far the independent inventions hadn’t been ICBMs or atomic bombs. But he knew, as every paidhi before him had known, that, if someday the Treaty broke down, he’d be the first to know.
He watched the land pass under the wings, the farmland, the free ranges and forests… eventually a tide of cloud rolled under them, with the black, snow-capped peaks of the Bergid thrusting up like steep-sided islands—fascinating, to see the edge of his visible world go past, and exciting, in a disturbing way, to be seeing country humans never saw. Everything was new, hitherto forbidden.
But after a time, cloud closed in around the peaks, and while the sky remained blue, there was a sheet of wrinkled white under them, hiding the land.
Disappointing. This sort of thing set in over the strait and didn’t let up. Even the planet kept atevi secrets.
Which didn’t mean there wasn’t useful work he could do while he was being kidnapped. He’d rescued his computer from baggage. He set it up on the table and brought up his notes for the end of the quarter development conference, his arguments for creating a computer science center in Costain Bay, modem-linked to atevi students in Wingin.
If there is, he wrote now, one area of technological difficulty, it is ironically in mathematics, in which the different uses of mathematics by our separate cultures and languages have led to different expressions of mathematics at an operational level. While these different perceptions of math are a rich field for speculation by mathematicians and computer designers for the future, for the present, these foundational differences in concept remain an obstacle particularly to the beginning atevi computer student attempting to comprehend a logical machine which ignores certain of his expectations, which ignores the operational conveniences and shortcuts of his language, and which proceeds by a logical architecture adapted over centuries to the human mind.
The development of a computer architecture in agreement with atevi perceptions is both inevitable and desirable for the economic progress of the atevi associations, particularly in materials development, but the paidhi respectfully urges that many useful and lifesaving technologies are being delayed in development because of this difficulty.
While the paidhi recognizes the valid and true reasons for maintaining the doctrine of Separation in the Treaty of Mospheira, it seems that computer technology itself can become the means to link instructors on Mospheira with students on the mainland, so that atevi students may have the direct benefit of study with human masters of design and theory, to bring computers with all their advantages into common usage— while encouraging atevi students to devise interfacing software which may take advantage of atevi mathematical skills.
Such a study center may serve as a model program, moreover, for finding other areas in which atevi may, without harm to either culture, interface directly in the territory of empirical science and form working agreements which seem appropriate to both cultures.
I call to mind the specific language of the Treaty of Mospheira which calls for experimental contacts in science leading to agreements of definition and unequivocal terminology, with a view to future intercultural cooperations under the appointment of appropriate atevi officials.
This seems to me one of those areas in which cooperation could work to the benefit of atevi, widening inter-cultural understanding, fulfilling all provisions of the Treaty wherein…
Banichi dropped into the seat opposite.
“You’re so busy,” Banichi said.
“I was writing my text for the quarterly conference. I trust I’ll get back for it.”
“Your safety is of more concern. But if it should be that you can’t attend, certainly I’ll see that it reaches the conference.”
“There surely can’t be a question. The conference is four weeks away.”
“Truthfully, I don’t know.”
Don’t know, he thought in alarm. Don’t know— But Jago set a drink in front of Banichi, and sat down, herself, in the other seat facing his. “It’s a pleasant place,” Jago said. “You’ve never been there.”
“No. To Taiben. Not to Malguri.” Politeness, he could do on autopilot, while he was frantically trying to frame a euphemism for kidnapping. He saved his work down hard and folded up the computer. “But four weeks, nadi! I can’t do my work from halfway across the country.”
“It’s an opportunity,” Banichi said. “No human before you, nand’ paidhi, has made this trip. Don’t be so glum.”
“What of the aiji-dowager? Sharing accommodations with a member of the aiji’s family, with a woman I don’t know—has anyone told her I’m coming?”
Banichi drew back his lip from his teeth, a fierce amusement.
“You’re resourceful, paidhi-ji. Surely you can deal with her. She’d have beenthe aiji, for your predecessor, at least…”
“Except for the hasdrawad,” Jago said.
The hasdrawad had chosen her son, whom she’d wished aloud she’d aborted when she’d had the chance, as the story ran; then, adding insult to injury, the hasdrawad had passed over her a second time when her son was assassinated—ignoring her claims to the succession, in favor of her grandson, Tabini.
“She favorsTabini,” Banichi said. “Contrary to reports. She always has favored him.”
She’d fallen, riding in the hunt, at seventy-two. Broke her shoulder, broke her arm and four ribs, got up and rode through the rest of the course, until they’d caught the quarry.
Then she’d attacked the course manager with her riding crop, for the lost hide on her precious, high-bred Matiawa jumper—as the story went.
“Her reputation,” Bren said judiciously, “is not for patience.”
“Oh, very much it is,” Jago said “When she wants something that needs it.”
“Is it true, what people say about the succession?”
“That Tabini-aiji’s father died by assassination?” Banichi said. “Yes.”
“They never found the agency,” said Jago. “And very competent people searched.”
“Not a clue to be had—except in the dowager’s satisfaction,” said Banichi. “Which isn’t admissible evidence.—She wasn’t, of course, the only one so motivated. But her personal guard is no slight matter.”
“Licensed?” Bren asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Banichi.
“Most of her guard are old,” Jago said. “A bit behind the times.”
“Now,” said Banichi. “But I wouldn’t say they were, then.”
“And this is where Tabini-aiji sends me for safety?”
“The aiji-dowager does favor him,” Jago said. “Well, in most regards,” Banichi said.
The plane thumped onto the runway in a blinding downpour—other planes had been diverted out to the lowland airport. Banichi said so. But the aiji’s crew went right on through. Engines reversed thrust, brakes screeched on wet pavement, the plane veered into a controlled right turn and blazed a fast track to the small terminal.
Bren stared glumly at the weather, at guards and trucks hurrying out to the aiji’s plane—a more elaborate reception than he got at Mospheira. But, then, the people meeting him on Mospheira didn’t carry guns.
He unbelted, got up with his computer, and followed Banichi to the door as the pilot opened it, with Jago close in attendance.