Deliberations: A Foreigner Short Story by C. J. Cherryh

 
     
     
    Deliberations:
    A Foreigner Short Story
     
    by
     
    C. J. Cherryh
     
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    Closed Circle Publications
    Box 18656
    Spokane WA 99228
     
    Deliberations
    copyright © 2012 by C.J. Cherryh
    All rights reserved
     
     
    Closed Circle Publications
    Box 18656
    Spokane WA, 99228
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    This work is hand-edited and prepared by the author personally to present the best possible representation of the author's actual work. All proceeds from a Closed Circle publication go directly to the author(s). If you find yourself somehow in possession of an unauthorized file of this or any other of the author's works, the author will thank you if you drop by http://www.closed-circle.net and make a contribution to the author’s livelihood.
     
    Cover design: Jane Fancher
     
     
     
    Dedication
     

     
    for Jo Ann,
    who asked the question
     
     
     
    About the Author
    C.J. Cherryh, two-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel and once for Best Short Story, is the author of more than 60 novels. These include numerous independent novels in the Alliance-Union universe, as well as the Chanur books, the Foreigner series, and others, and fantasy books such as Faery Moon and the Fortress in the Eye of Time books.
     
    C.J. Cherryh is one third of Closed Circle Publications.
     
     
     
    Deliberations:
    A Foreigner Short Story
     
    by
     
    C.J. Cherryh
     
    The tiled rooftops of Shejidan glistened a dull pale red in the twilight, twisting rows of many-storied dwellings clustered in their ancient associations, the old heart of the oldest, greatest city on the continent. There were, one well knew, human cities on the Isle of Mospheira that never seemed to sleep— cities in square grids, blazing with lights once the sun went down; but Shejidan’s maze of streets went more softly into the night, content with the starlight and the moon.
    One might take the view below for peaceful...looking down on those roofs from a balcony high up in the hilltop fortress— the Bujavid, that both protected and ruled the massive continent.
    One might think, so quiet the city was, that the whole world was in good order, and that nothing disturbed the peace.
    But people had been quietly hoarding food for days, and the trains had seen an uncommon traffic of people outbound, leaving the capital and seeking the safer quiet of their clans elsewhere.
    Fear ran those twisted walkways.
    Tabini was infelicitous twenty-two— a number partly redeemed because it was only divisible by two moderately felicitous elevens. Tomorrow he would turn felicitous twenty-three, a number that struck fear into the world not for its sums and divisions, but because at twenty-three, Tabini, son of Valasi-aiji, grandson of the aiji-regent, would be legally of age to rule...and to claim his rights to the succession.
    Infelicitous eight was the number of years since Valasi-aiji had died— under circumstances some called suspicious. Valasi had died, and Valasi’s mother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, had become regent for his minor son— not to universal rejoicing.
    Tabini remembered vividly the moment he had heard the news of his father’s death— he remembered the sun on the wall opposite the old arrow-slit, in his retreat at Malguri. His grandmother’s bodyguard had come up to the ancient tower to tell him. He recalled the yellow stone, the crack in the ruined floor. Every detail came back to him. The precise words he would never forget: “Your father, young gentleman, has died. The causes are not clear.”
    Are Grandmother and I next? he had wondered. Fourteen was young to be assassinated, but it was not unheard of, in the world’s history.
    His grandmother had snatched him up in that hour, whisked him down from ancient Malguri and they had gone back to Shejidan, clear across the continent, by a mode of travel no aiji of the atevi had ever used before: they had flown, in a small, very cold plane— slow, by the standards of today’s fleet of jets, but faster than anyone