“Many of us think many more things,” Ilisidi said, “nand’ paidhi. What do you suppose they’re saying… this supposed ship… and your people across the strait? Do you suppose we figure in these conversations at all?”
He shivered and looked at the sky again, thinking, It’s impossible—
And looked at Ilisidi, a darkness in the dawn, except only the silver in her hair and the liquid anger in her eyes.
“Aiji-mai, I don’t understand. I didn’t know this was happening. No one expected it. No one told me.”
“Oh, this is a little incredible, paidhi-ji, that no one knew, that this appearance in our skies is so totally, utterly a surprise to you.”
“Please.” His legs were going. The blood was cut off to his hands. For what he knew, the dowager would have the guards pitch him off the edge from here, a gesture of atevi defiance, in a war the world couldn’t win, a war the paidhiin were supposed to prevent. “Nand’ dowager, I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t expect this. But I know why they’re here. I know the things you want to know.”
“Do you, now. And the paidhiin are only interpreters.”
“And human, aiji-mai. I know what’s going on up there, the way I know what humans did in the past and what they want for the future—nothing in their plans is to your detriment.”
“As the station wasn’t. As your coming here wasn’t. As your interference in our affairs wasn’t, and your domination of our trade, our invention, our governance of ourselves wasn’t. You led us to the technology you wanted, you lent us the industry you needed, you perverted our needs to your programs, you pushed us into a future of television and computers and satellites, all of which we grow to love, oh, to rely on—and forget every aspect of our own past, our own laws, our own course that we would have followed to use our own resources. We are not so stupid, nand’ paidhi, not so stupid as to have destroyed ourselves as you kept counseling us we would do without your lordly help, we are not so stupid as to believe we weren’t supplying you with materials for which you had your own uses, in an agenda we hadn’t set. Tabini placed great confidence in you—too damned much confidence in you. When he knew what had happened he sent you to me, as someone with her wits still about her, someone who hasn’t spent her life in Shejidan watching television and growing complacent. So tell me your truth, nand’ paidhi! Give me your assurances! Tell me why all the other lies are justified and why the truth in our skies this morning is good for us!”
The blasts of wind came no colder than Ilisidi’s anger. It was the truth, all of it, all justified, he knew that the way he’d known the unspoken truth of his dealings with atevi—that the paidhiin were doing the best they could do in a bad bargain, keeping a peace that wasn’t viable between ordinary people of their two species, saving what they’d almost entirely destroyed, things like this reality around him, the ancient stones, the lake, the order of life in an atevi fortress, remote from the sky and the stars he couldn’t reach from here. He looked up at that truth and the lights blurred in his eyes. The wind gave him no direction, whether up or down, whether he was falling into the sky or standing on stones he couldn’t feel. He was afraid—terrified as atevi must be of that human presence up there—and didn’t comprehend why.
“Aiji-mai, I can’t say it’s good that it’s there, it’s just there, it’s just what’s happened, and if you kill me, it won’t make anything any better than it is. Mospheira didn’t plan this. Yes, we’ve guided your technology—we wanted to get back into space, aiji-mai, we didn’t have the resources ourselves, our equipment was half-destroyed, and we didn’t think the ship still existed. We took a chance coming down here—it was a disaster for us and for you. Two hundred years we’ve worked to get back up there, and we never wanted to destroy the atevi—only to give you the same freedom we want for ourselves.”