PRECURSOR

Caroline J. Cherryh

the fourth in the Foreigner sequence

To Kira and Kasi

Chapter 1

The jet that waited these days was passenger-only, carrying no baggage but that which pertained to the paidhi and whatever diplomats happened to be traveling under his seal.

More, since a certain infelicitous crossing three years ago, the plane itself bore the colors, the house seal, and the personal seal of Tabini-aiji, which served as an advisement to any small craft that, anyone else’s personal numbers be damned, the paidhi’s jet had absolute right of way.

Diplomatic status on the island enclave of Mospheira, however, did not mean a luxurious lounge. It didn’t even mean access in the public terminal, where the island traffic came and went and delivered more or less happy families to holiday venues. No, diplomatic passengers embarked from the freight area. Security preferred that defensible seclusion. The State Department arranged a red carpet across the bare concrete, a small concession to appearances on a tight budget.

Bren preferred the seclusion, carpet or no carpet. A mission from Mospheira was already aboard, so security informed him, about five minutes ago… they’d not been waiting long, but they were all the same waiting, now, safe, their baggage aboard.

He carried his own computer, that was all, a machine with information certain agencies would kill for, and set it down to say his good-byes. Seclusion might mean family partings in a dingy, spartan warehouse, but it also meant he could indulge those partings in private: maternal tears, brotherly hugs, on a hasty Independence Day visit that had nothing to do with family obligations, rather four days occupied with official duties, then an overnight stay with his mother that ended one day before the official holiday.

On his way out of the human enclave, arriving by private car and not having to run the gauntlet of news cameras, he’d already changed his island casual knits for the calf-high boots and many-buttoned frock coat of atevi court style. He’d braided his hair unaided into a respectable single, tight plait, precisely—he hoped—between the shoulder blades, with his best effort at including the proper white ribbon of the paidhi’s rank. He had lost one cufflink into the heating duct of his mother’s guest room, or somewhere, this morning; he was relatively sure it was the heating duct, but he hadn’t had time to dismount the grate and retrieve it. His mother had regaled him with an elaborate, home-style mother-cooked breakfast—her substitute for the holiday—and what could he do but sit down and spend the little time he could spend with her?

He’d borrowed a straight pin to hold the cuff, which he now tried to avoid sticking into his brother’s shoulder as they embraced.

It was: “Take care” from his brother. And predictably, from his mother: “You could stay another day or two.”

“I can’t, Mom.”

“I wish you’d arrange another job.” This, straightening his collar. He was thirty years old, and probably the collar needed straightening. “I wish you’d talk to Tabini. At leastget a decent phone line.”

Tabini-aiji was only the leader of the civilized world, the most powerful leader on the planet and probably above it. A decent phone line in his mother’s reckoning meant one that would take calls in Mosphei’ instead of Ragi and let his mother through the atevi security system at any hour, day or night; that would suffice. The fact that there were four diplomats and a situation waiting aboard the plane was not in her diagram of the universe. Next it would be: Get a haircut.

“You have the pager, Mother.” It had been a birthday gift, last visit. “I showed you—”

“It’s not the same. What if I had an attack and couldn’t use the pager? I’m not getting any younger.”

“If you couldn’t use the pager, you couldn’t use the phone. Just talk to the thing. It’s all automatic, state of the art.”

“State of whose art, I’d like to know.”

“It’s Mospheiran. Bought right here on the island.”

“You don’t know where it goes. You don’t know who’s listening. And atevi made it. They make everything.”

“I know who’s listening,” he said, and attempted conciliation with a hug. She was stiff and resisting to his embrace.

“Shots in the night,” she muttered, not without justification. “Paint on my building.” That was years ago, but he couldn’t blame her for blaming him.

His brother moved in—a diversionary tactic. Toby put his hand on their mother’s shoulder, simultaneously offered Bren his right hand in a handshake, and gave him a clear passage to the red carpet.

“See you,” Toby said. “Go.”

It was smooth. It almost worked.

But a wild cry of: “Bren!” came from beyond the security station, and a woman in fluttering white came running across the concrete, in fragile yellow shoes not designed for athletic effort.

Barb—the ex-girlfriend he’d successfully evaded for the last four days, who’d sent him voicemails he’d deleted.

Barb—whom he’d almost married.

She’d not put in a personal appearance during this visit or the last or the one before that, though his mother on all his visits had talked of Barb—Barb did this, Barb did that; Barb did her shopping, ran her errands.

Barb, married, had all but adopted herself into his mother’s apartment, and yet didn’t manage to show up while he was there… not that he’d advertised his visit, or even given his mother advance notice of last night’s visit. Barb had tried to meet him, he was sure. He’d “just missed her” twice, this trip. He didn’t know what the sudden insistence was. He wondered if he should have deleted those voicemails.

And now she’d gotten into this departure area on her husband’s high-clearance security card, he’d damned well bet.

“Barbie,” his mother said lovingly.

“Go,” his brother urged him under his breath. Whatever was going on, Toby knew.

“Security window,” Bren said with a frozen smile. “Have to go. People waiting on the plane. Mum. Toby.—Barb.” He offered his hand. “Nice to see you. Glad you’re seeing to Mother. Kind of you to come.”

“Bren, dammit!” Barb flung herself into a hug. Bren could find no civil choice but to return it, however distantly. “I know” she murmured against his shirt, “I know you’re angry with me.”

“Not angry, Barb.” He did the most deliberately hateful thing he could think of, tipping up her tearful face and kissing her… on the cheek. “I’m glad for you. Glad you’re happy. Stay that way.”

“I’m not happy!” She seized his lapel, flung a hand behind his neck, and kissed him fiercely on the lips. Passive resistance didn’t do enough to resist it… at first: and then he found to his dim distress that he didn’t respond at all. Barb’s kisses were nothing foreign to him—longed-for, for years of his life. Her mouth wanted, tried, to warm his… but nothing happened.

He was disturbed. He turned from anger to feeling sorry for Barb and a little distressed about himself. For old times’ sake he tried to heal her embarrassment by returning the kiss, even passionately, tenderly… as much as he remembered how.

But still nothing happened between them—or, at least, nothing from his side.

Barb drew back with a stricken, troubled gaze. He gazed at her, wondering what she knew, or why his human body didn’t respond to another human being, why warmth didn’t flow, why reactions didn’t react. Pheromones were there; it was the old perfume, the very familiar smell of Barb and all Mospheira, to a nose acclimated to the mainland.

Interest wasn’t there. Couldn’t be resurrected. Too much water under the bridge. Too many “I’m sorrys.”

And for that one frozen moment he stood there staring into the face of the human woman he’d meant to marry just before the fracture… the human woman who, when the going had been rough, had fought his battles and risked her life—then married a quiet, high-clearance tech named Paul, opting to protect herself behind his security shield.