FOREIGNER: a novel of first contact by Caroline J. Cherryh

“Then I feel sorry for his instructors,” Bren said.

“So do I, nadi. They were mine.”

Dead stop, on that point. Banichi—and this unknown man—had a link of some kind? Fellow students?

“You know him?”

“We met frequently, socially.”

“In Shejidan?”

“A son of distinguished family.” Banichi took a sip and stared into the fire. “Jago is escorting the remains and the report to the Guild.”

Not a good day, Bren decided, having lost all appetite for supper. Banichi regarded him with a flat, dark stare that he couldn’t read—not Banichi’s opinion, nor what obligation Banichi had relative to Tabini versus his Guild or this man, nor where the man’chi lay, now.

“I’m very sorry,” was all he could think to say.

“You have a right to retaliate.”

“I don’t want to retaliate. I never wanted this quarrel, Banichi.”

“They have one now.”

“With you?” He grew desperate. His stomach was upset. His teeth ached. Sitting was painful. “Banichi, I don’t want you or Jago hurt. I don’t want anybody killed.”

“But they do, nadi. That’s abundantly clear. A professional agreed with them enough to disregard Guild law—for man’chi, nadi. That’s what we have to trace—to whom was his man’chi? That’s all that could motivate him.”

“And if yours is to Tabini?”

Banichi hesitated in his answer. Then, somberly: “That makes them highly unwise.”

“Can’t we arrest them? They’ve broken the law, Banichi. Don’t we have some recourse to stop this through the courts?”

“That,” Banichi said, “would be very dangerous.”

Because it wouldn’t restrain them. He understood that. It couldn’t legally stop them until there was a judgment in his favor.

“All they need claim is affront,” Banichi said, “or business interests. And how can you defend anything? No one understands your associations. The court hardly has a means to find them out.”

“And my word is worth nothing? My man’chi is to Tabini, the same as yours. They have to know that.”

“But they don’t know that,” Banichi said. “Even I don’t know that absolutely, nadi. I know only what you tell me.”

He felt quite cold, quite isolated. And angry. “I’m not a liar. I am not a liar, Banichi. I didn’t contest with the best my people have for fifteen years to come here to lie to you.”

“For fifteen years.”

“To be sent to Shejidan. To have the place I have. To interpret to atevi. I don’t lie, Banichi!”

Banichi looked at him a long, silent moment. “Never? I thought that was the paidhl’s job.”

“Not in this.”

“How selective dare we be? When do you lie?”

“Just find out who hired him.”

“No contract could compel his action.”

“What could?”

Banichi didn’t answer that question. Banichi only stared into the fire.

“What could, Banichi?”

“We don’t know a dead man’s thoughts. I could only wish Cenedi weren’t so accurate.”

“Cenedi shot him.” So Cenedi and Ilisidi’s loyalties at least were accounted for. He was relieved.

But Banichi didn’t seem wholly pleased with Cenedi. Or, at least, with the outcome. Banichi took a sip of the drink warming in his hands and never looked away from the fire.

“But you’re worried,” Bren said.

“I emphatically disapprove these delivery vehicles. This is an unwarrantable risk. The tourists at least have a person counting heads.”

“You think that’s how he got in?”

“Very possible.”

“They’re not going to continue the tours. Are they?”

“People have had their reservations for months. They’d be quite unhappy.”

Sometimes he ran straight up against atevi mindset in ways he didn’t understand. Or expect.

“Those people were in danger, Banichi!”

“Not from him or us.”

Finesse. Biichi-ji.

“There were children in that crowd. They saw a man shot.”

Banichi looked at him as if waiting for the concluding statement that would make sense. As if they had totally left the subject.

“It’s not right, Banichi. They thought it was a machimi! They thought it was television!”

“Then they were hardly offended. Were they?”

Before he could follow that line of reasoning, Djinana and Maigi arrived down the inner hall with the dinner cart.

With a selection of dishes, the seasonal and slices from the leftover joint. Banichi’s eyes brightened at the offering, as they seated themselves in the dining room and the covers came off the dishes. State of mourning or murderous intent, Banichi had no hesitation in loading his plate, and no diminution of appetite.

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