He was perplexed suddenly. He found he had no Ragi word for service access. He thought, sometimes, in a mishmash of Ragi and ship-speak. “Panels where you can reach wires and pipes.”

“Entry plates, nandi,” Jegari supplied.

“We have to know where all those are. Those should be on the maps. I know how to wire things.” He was very proud of that. “And I know about—the things you turn like faucets, to shut water offc what do you call the things that shut off pipes?”

“Valves,” Antaro said.

That was still a Mosphei’ word, by the sound of it. Ragi had borrowed a great many words from Mosphei’, so nand’ Bren had told him, even for things like plumbing, which atevi had had a long time before humans dropped down to the world. His head was stuffed with new information: he met strangeness on every hand, all the hours of the day, and he was determined not to forget his lessons from shipboard. He was determined, now that he thought of it, to draw every passage on the ship, from memory, with all the accesses they had used, he and Gene, and Artur, when grown-ups tried in vain to find them. And then he intended to do the same for the Bu-javid.

There were bullet-holes in the hallways here in the Bu-javid.

People had died out there, and his father’s staff had been murdered in his apartment without even a chance. Here the back ways could very clearly be important. If he knew them, he said to himself, he could get himself and Great-grandmother to safety. So anything was justified, so long as he was careful, and kept his notes secret.

“And we need to get into communications,” he said. “If it were the ship, we could just listen in. We need to learn how the phones work, so if we want to know something, we can learn it.”

“Security will surely catch us at that, nandi,” Antaro said with a frown. “They can tell if we tap a line.”

“How?”

“One by no means knows how, nandi, but they will know.”

“We need to know how they know. One could ask our security that. One could find a clever way. Or one might find a manual. Is there a library, do you think, nadiin-ji?” He had no idea if there was a computer library here in the Bu-javid, the way one could call up files on the ship, but it seemed reasonable that people would want some sort of reference near, and the Bu-javid certainly had every other amenity. Downstairs, when they came in, there had been records strewn across the floor. Those had to sit somewherec records of all sorts. Books. Maps. Charts. Diagrams.

“There is a library,” Jegari said. “There is a great library, nandi.”

“A very famous one,” Antaro said. “But one has no idea where in the building it may be.”

“I can find out,” Cajeiri said in every confidence, “and they will lend books to me. My father will approve my study. Study always looks innocent.”

“Can one be certain,” Jegari asked carefully, “that this inquiry will not bring trouble on you, nandi?”

“I have no such fear,” he said, and indeed, had none at all, and quickly changed the subject. A servant had just come in. It was that woman who always smiled at him and made smiling look like a chore. Pahien was her name. She belonged to the staff here. And he detested her. “Eat the eggs, nadiin-ji. Quickly, before I have to.”

The servant had brought a message cylinder, a silver filigree one, proffering it in a small silver bowl. It was, Cajeiri saw, Great-grandmother’s personal message cylinder. And he did not think it portended anything good. Great-grandmother rarely sent him messages, and they were usually social, but often a reprimand, sometimes a very scathing reprimand. He was prepared to control his face, and hoped to the depth of his heart they had not just been overheard in what was a very important scheme.

There was, the message read, a party tonight.

And he was invited. His heart leaped up.

But it was a dinner party for lords out of the Eastern Association.

Well, that was not good news. It was no one he knew. Probably nobody in all the world he knew would be there, except Great-grandmother and Cenedi and his men, and security would be on strictest duty, which meant Jegari and Antaro had to eat later and stand behind his chair. He would have to dress in starched lace and sit on display, like a porcelain on a pedestal, and be perfect and still while people stared at him.

It was just gruesome. It was not at all what he called a party.

Everyone would talk past him, or expect him to perform, or ask him cleverly worded questions about things Great-grandmother would not want him to talk about and then smirk if he proved too clever for them.

“I shall answer, nadi,” he said to the maidservant, who took the cylinder and the bowl away and would return with his own plain message cylinder and appropriately sized paper and pen. And then she would stand by and stare at him while he wrote.

On the ship he could have called Gene on com and asked whether they might have pizza.

But even on the ship, he would have answered Great-grandmother with a carefully written message, and that message would say, inescapably, in very proper script, “One will be extremely honored to attend the formal dinner this evening at sunset, esteemed Great-grandmother. One is gratified by the invitation.”

2

The paidhi’s quarters within the dowager’s apartments were, indeed, a little cramped for the burgeoning piles of documents and letters which had been pouring into the paidhi’s nonexistent office since their arrival in the Bu-javid. Citizens had complaints, felicitations, and earnest queries as to whether, for instance, the station was the agency which had sent down the mysterious capsules that had been rumored landed in the remote north.

Probably they had done so, was the short answer. But Bren had no personal idea what these mysterious landings portended, whether such packages were dangerous, or observational, or just what the station might have had in mind. One could note that they had been landed during Murini’s takeover, when the station had every reason to mistrust the situation. But the station had neglected to mention the existence of such things when they had passed through—admittedly in haste— and he had no information for the recipients of such landings. He could not say whether they were dangerous to approach, and now everyone was looking for such items in their bean patches and hunting areas. It was hard to tell a farmer just to be patient, with an unknown thing sitting in one’s orchard, with a parachute draped over the fruit treesc that was one photo he had received, and yes, if he were the orchard-keeper, he would be understandably perturbed.

He had those inquiries—and letters from a handful of persons seeking appointment. He had a dinner invitation for five days from now from the Lord of Dur, who wished, with the mayors of several coastal towns and villages, to host a celebratory banquet in the paidhi’s honor. Even five days from now was still early for too provocative celebrations of the defeat of certain powerful interests—the relatives of whom were still at court. Human influence at court was a touchy topic in many quarters, and it was a delicate matter to accept or refuse the honor, not least because he owed Dur considerably, and might be expected to reciprocate with some signal favor to that district that he could bestow in turn. And he had no way to swing that influence, nor ought he to tryc not being atevi. That was one thing riding the back of his mind.

For another matter, he was reluctant to bring Dur in as egregiously supporting the paidhi before he was entirely sure the paidhi had a future in his present post. Politics might yet have him replaced, at least as related to his current status as the aiji’s personal interpreter. Tabini-aiji still favored him, and Tabini’s word was ordinarily law, but there was contrary pressure from a number of disgruntled southerners (granted that, as the source of the recent coup, they had limited expectations of being heard, and some of them were lucky to be alive), but there was, in fact, an alternative.