Protector: Foreigner #14 (28 page)

Algini rarely gave anyone a straight and level look. He did now, arms folded, voice quiet: “We have known much of this since the affair on the coast, Bren-ji. Information we sifted out of the Marid confirmed what we increasingly suspected: that Murini was no more than a figurehead. Convenient, capable of some management, yes, but he was at all times only nominally in charge. He appeared. He gave orders. But there were individuals who pressed a more organized agenda on him. That agenda involved isolating the aishidi’tat from the station—which they accomplished, as you know, by grounding all but one shuttle. Once isolated, they intended to put a completely new power structure in place in the Bujavid, and, once the aishidi’tat was secure under their rule, to restore contact with Mospheira and the station. Geigi would be removed in some fashion, with the specific goal of putting the atevi side of the station—and its capabilities—under their control.”

Bren pressed his lips on a burning question and Algini said: “Ask, Bren-ji.”

“
Is
the station compromised?
Have
they agents up there?”

“No.”

Bren took a slow, deep breath, greatly relieved. Without firsthand knowledge of the station, any hope of threatening it as outsiders was sheer fantasy. Atevi in general simply had no idea what Geigi could do from his post in the heavens.

“Needless to say, this goal was kept very quiet. Murini’s
public
stance was
against
the new technology, which touched on conservative aims, and led certain individuals to accept Murini as backing traditionalist views. Tatiseigi was safe, despite the Atageini feud with the Kadagidi, because the last thing the powers in charge wanted was to antagonize the Conservative Party by assassinating an elderly man and a head of the conservatives. Tatiseigi at no time supported Murini. He remained an uneasy neighbor of Murini’s clan, even a defiant one. But he remained, as they thought, harmless and useful.”

And hadn’t
that
assessment backfired, once Tabini returned?

“As to the means by which the coup was organized, Bren-ji, and this leads to information the Guild does not discuss, regarding its internal workings—there are Guild offices traditionally reserved for members from the smallest clans. For centuries, this has been the case, so as not to allow an overwhelming power to gather in the hands of the greater ones.”

That was not something humans had ever known.

“The Office of Assignments,” Algini said, “is such a post. It is a clerical office, with what would seem a minor bit of power. It does two things. One: it keeps records of missions and Guild membership. And two: it makes recommendations for assignment based on skills, specialization, clan—there are in fact a number of factors involved in designing a team for a mission, or a lasting assignment.”

Algini relaxed a degree and leaned against the buffet edge.

“Historically, and this is taught to every child, the same document that organized the aishidi’tat centuries ago also reorganized the guilds—at least in the center and north of the continent—insisting that the Office of Assignments of all Guild personnel should attempt to find out-clan units to assign within the clans, rather than permitting the clans to admit only their own. Theoretically, this would place the whole structure of the Guild under the man’chi of the aiji in Shejidan. The theory worked to make the guilds far more effective, to spread information, to stabilize regional associations, to unify the aishidi’tat in a way impossible as long as clan man’chi and kinships overpowered man’chi to one’s guild. Without that—the whole continent would not have flourished as it has. The East and the Marid declined to accept the out-clan rule, and these regions have remained locked in regional feuds, exactly as it was before the aishidi’tat, to their economic and social detriment. The aiji-dowager has made some inroads into the tradition in the East—one need not say—and the new legislation is bringing change to the Marid.”

A pause. A deep breath.

“Historically, then—the out-clan provision has worked. And—for much of the history of the aishidi’tat, the Office of Assignments of the Assassins’ Guild has done its part well. It has kept its records, formed teams, and sent its recommendations to other offices to be stamped and approved by the Guild Council. There are so many of these assignments across the continent . . . it
is
routine. The stamp is automatic. One cannot remember there ever being a debate on them. Most often the local authority accepts, at its end, and the assignment is recorded. Understand, the Office of Assignments is a little place, smaller than this room, except its records-room. It is
not
computerized. The current Director of the Office of Assignments has been running that office for forty-two years. He has his own system, and he has resisted any technological change. He refuses to wear a locator, he will not accept a communications unit. The wits have it that he would have resisted electric light, except it had been installed the day before he took the office. It was not quite that long ago, but modernity does not set foot there. His name is Shishoji. And he is Ajuri.”

God. His administrator with the chessboard. A fusty little old man in a clerical office. A little old man who happened to be Ajuri.

“One had begun to suspect,” Bren said, “that this might involve some individual with an agenda.”

Algini nodded. “On the surface, it seems a little power, but placed in the hands of a person with an agenda, it is a
considerable
power—to know all the history of a team, and their man’chi, and to make assignments the Council traditionally approves without a second glance, before it gets down to its daily business.”

A system grown up over time. A man sitting in that office for four decades, moving Guild personnel here and there by a process that had no check and was a matter entirely of personal judgment. . . .

It was a terrifying amount of power, in the hands of someone who saw how to use it.

“How can the Guild have been so careless?” Algini asked, rhetorical question. “Senior members have known him for years. He is quiet. Efficient. The wits find him amusing. He has become an institution. His assistants—he makes
those
assignments, too—do things exactly as he likes them done. A minor officeholder may also do a few favors for his own clan, and one would not call it improper. Careful selection of Guild members, to support a lord of Ajuri—or Damiri-daja—who could question it?”

Oh, my
God.

“This is terrifying, Gini-ji.”

“Less so, now that we know where to look. —Damiri-daja may or may not know the situation. It is within Tabini-aiji’s discretion to tell her. —We have been, for the last while, reviewing our own associations within our Guild, personally informing those we know are reliable, and trying
not
to make a mistake in that process that would alert Shishoji-nadi that we are targeting him.”

“Do you think he set up the mechanism that supported Murini?”

“Very likely.”

“And the last two assassinations within Ajuri . . . were they at his direction?”

“Difficult to say—this man is exceedingly deft—but we suspect so, yes. Shishoji had, in the prior lord of Ajuri, a man who would support Murini. When Murini fell, and the Ajuri lord decided to change sides and take advantage of his kinship to Damiri-daja, we suspect Shishoji feared the man would tell Tabini-aiji everything once Tabini’s return to power was certain. That lord died quite unexpectedly. Komaji immediately stepped in, then began to behave peculiarly. He attached himself as closely as he could to the aiji’s household, did not spend much time in Ajuri, was trying to find a residence in Shejidan.”

“Possibly he understood his situation. Possibly he did
not
participate in the prior lord’s assassination.”

“It is entirely possible. Komaji may have known from the start that he had information that could, if he dared use it, place him in Tabini-aiji’s favor—if he was absolutely sure Tabini was going to survive in office. Unfortunately for him, Damiri-daja had staff that were not only a threat to Tabini-aiji—they were watching Komaji. We suspect he was trying to gather the courage to make a definitive move toward Tabini-aiji. And when the Marid mess broke wide open, and the aiji seemed apt to make an agreement with Machigi that might bring the aiji-dowager more prominence—Komaji decided it was the time. Possibly he feared the aiji-dowager’s closeness to Tatiseigi. He was
not
invited to the signing of the agreement with Machigi precisely because Tatiseigi
was—
and it was the aiji-dowager’s choice. This upset him—possibly because he saw his opportunity to break free of Shishoji was rapidly dwindling, and he feared he was under Shishoji’s eye. He went upstairs to the aiji’s apartment. He was refused admittance. And at this refusal, in high panic and absolute conviction Tatiseigi and the dowager meant to separate him from the aiji and from his grandson, he broke down in the hallway. His nerve failed him, he no longer trusted his own bodyguards, and when the aiji, beyond banning him from court, sent Damiri-daja’s bodyguards back to Ajuri along with him, Komaji had nowhere to go
but
Ajuri. Once there, he remained non-communicative, secretive, and ate only the plainest food, prepared by one staff member. Then he made his last move, toward Atageini lands, with a handful of Ajuri’s guards,
not
his own bodyguard. —Did anyone of that company survive, Jago-ji?”

“They are, all of them, dead, short of Atageini land.”

Algini nodded slightly, acknowledging that. “Not surprising.”

“Where was he going?” Bren asked. “What was he trying to do? Do we know?”

“We surmise that in the failure of all other options,” Banichi said, “he may have been seeking refuge here, in the house of his old enemy Tatiseigi, whose staff might get a message to the aiji-dowager, to his daughter, or to Tabini-aiji himself, offering what he had to trade. Likely he hoped that one of them would sweep him up and keep him alive in exchange for the information he had. He was not a brilliant tactician.”

One could almost find pity for the man. Almost.

“Nadiin-ji. How long has this . . . dissidence in the Guild been around? Did this Shishoji organize it?”

No one answered for a moment. Then Algini said:

“That is a very good question, Bren-ji. How long—and with what purpose? It began, we think, in opposition to the Treaty of the Landing.”

“Two hundred
years
ago?”

“We think it was, at first,” Banichi said, “an organization within the newly formed Guild, a handful who were opposed to the surrender of land to humans. Originally they may have hoped to lay hands on stores of human weapons and simply to wipe every human off the earth. There were such groups in various places, and there was that sort of talk abroad. It did not happen, of course. No one found any such resource. Then, as we all know, the paidhiin were instituted. They were set up to be gatekeepers, to provide peaceful technology, not weapons. It is, perhaps, poetic, that you, of all officers of the court, have been such a personal inconvenience to the modern organization, Bren-ji. The paidhiin were, from the first human to hold the office, the primary damper on such conspiracies.”

“One rather fears that I have become their greatest hope,” Bren said, feeling a leaden weight about his heart, “and a great
convenience
to them—in bringing atevi into space and putting the shuttles exclusively under atevi control . . . if their aim truly was to take the station.”

“No,” Jago said.

“In the station program, Bren-ji,” Algini said, “you have linked atevi with humans, economically, politically—even socially. You
are
their worst enemy.
You
brought reality home to Shishoji, we firmly believe it. You negotiated the means to put humans and atevi into association, which his philosophy called impossible.
You
negotiated the agreement that put Geigi in control of weapons they are only just beginning to appreciate. The Shadow Guild planned, naively, to get into the atevi section, convince atevi living up there to wipe out all humans, overcome the armament of the station and the ship, and seize control of the world, using the station. This is, demonstrably, not going to happen. It would not have happened, even had Murini succeeded in getting teams onto the station. Shishoji knows, now, that amid all the technology the humans have given us, their most powerful weapons remain under the control of one
incorruptible
ateva, in the person of Lord Geigi. They could not succeed. Not on the station. Down here . . . Down here is another matter.” Algini glanced in Banichi’s direction. “I have asked myself, Nichi-ji, whether we could have seen it coming, and I do not think we could. Shishoji found changes proliferating and the world changing faster than he could adapt. He found himself in danger of irrelevancy. But there was also unease, in ordinary people both wanting and opposing the space program, at a time when there was considerable doubt as to human intentions—especially given the interim paidhi.”

Yolanda Mercheson. A disaster, who had
not
been able to convert her linguistic study into an understanding of atevi. She had tried. But she had not gotten past her own distrust of Mospheirans, let alone atevi.

Jase
, meanwhile, had been with the ship.

God. Twenty/twenty hindsight . . .

“Tabini-aiji’s popularity was slipping. Lords were maneuvering to get a share of the new industry, even as public doubts arose regarding whether humans on earth or in the heavens had any intention of keeping their agreements. The conservatives and the traditionalists were gathering momentum in the aishidi’tat. And when a crisis came in the heavens, and it seemed humans might have lied to us, every pressure on the aijinate was redoubled. Tabini-aiji escaped assassination, but his bodyguards were dead, his staff was dead, Taiben had suffered losses and the Atageini were too weak to help. His attempt to reach the Guild met a second attempt on his life, and within hours it was announced Tabini-aiji was dead, that the majority of the shuttles had been grounded to protect the aishidi’tat from invasion from orbit—”