“You know who came to your room. You don’t know, however, who might have hired him. There is some smuggling on Mospheira, as the paidhi is aware. Connections we don’t know exist are a very dangerous possibility.”
The language had common pronouns that didn’t specify gender. Him or her, that meant. And politicians and the aiji’s staff used that pronoun habitually.
“I know where I’m safer.”
“Tabini needs you here.”
“For what?” That the aiji was undertaking anything but routine business was news to him. He hadn’t heard. Banichi was telling him something no one else had.
And a handful of weeks ago Tabini had found unprecedented whimsy in arming him and giving him two hours of personal instruction at his personal retreat. They had joked, and shot melons on poles, and had supper together, and Tabini had had all the time he could possibly want to warn him if something was coming up besides the routine councils and committee meetings that involved the paidhi.
They turned the corner. Banichi, he did not fail to note, hadn’t noticed his question. They walked out onto the colonnade, with the walls of the ancient Bu-javid pale and regular beyond them, the traffic flow on the steps reversed, now, downward bound. Atevi who had filed for hearing had their numbers, and the aiji would receive them in their established order.
But when they walked into the untrafficked hall that led toward the garden apartments, Banichi gave him two keys. “These are the only valid ones,” Banichi said. “Kindly don’t mix them up with your old ones. The old ones work. They just don’t turn off the wires.”
He gave Banichi a disturbed stare—which, also, Banichi didn’t seem to notice. “Can’t you just shock the bastard? Scare him? He’s not a professional. There’s been no notice…”
“I’m within my license,” Banichi said. “The Intent is filed. Didn’t you say so? The intruder would be very foolish to try again.”
A queasy feeling was in his stomach. “Banichi, damn it… ”
“I’ve advised the servants. Honest and wise servants, capable of serving in this house, will request admission henceforth. Your apartment is no different than mine, now. Or Jago’s. I change my own sheets.”
As well as he knew Jago and Banichi, he had had no idea of such hazards in their quarters. It made sense in their case or in Tabini’s. It didn’t, in his.
“I trust,” Banichi said, “you’ve no duplicate keys circulating. No ladies. No—hem—other connections. You’ve not been gambling, have you?”
“No!” Banichi knew him, too, knew he had female connections on Mospheira, one and two not averse to what Banichi would call a one-candle night. The paidhi-aiji hadn’t time for a social life, otherwise. Or for long romantic maneuverings or hurt feelings, lingering hellos or good-byes—most of all, not for the peddling of influence or attempts to push this or that point on him. His friends didn’t ask questions. Or want more than a bouquet of flowers, a phone call, and a night at the theater.
“Just mind, if you’ve given any keys away.”
“I’m not such a fool.”
“Fools of that kind abound in the Bu-javid. I’ve spoken severely to the aiji.”
Give atevi a piece of tech and sometimes they put it together in ways humans hadn’t, in their own history—inventors, out of their own social framework, connected ideas in ways you didn’t expect, and never intended, either in social consequence, or in technical ramifications. The wire was one. Figure that atevi had a propensity for inventions regarding personal protection, figure that atevi law didn’t forbid lethal devices, and ask how far they’d taken other items and to what uses they didn’t advertise.
The paidhi tried to keep ahead of it. The paidhi tried to keep abreast of every technology and every piece of vocabulary in the known universe, but bits and tags perpetually got away and it was accelerating—the escape of knowledge, the recombination of items into things utterly out of human control.
Most of all, atevi weren’t incapable of making technological discoveries completely on their own… and had no trouble keeping them prudently under wraps. They were not a communicative people.
They reached the door. He used the key Banichi had given him. The door opened. Neither the mat nor the wire was in evidence.