Precursor by C. J. Cherryh Page A

“And I’m going… where, aiji-ma?” To Ilisidi’s estate at Malguri, perhaps. Perhaps that was the connection with Ilisidi’s invitation, and this—he was needed somewhere, maybe another insurgency, some further difficulty with the anti-space conservatives. Twice before, he’d found himself moved out to regions of political stress under extreme security and with little notice.
    “Do you approve, paidhi-ji, this mission of representatives to the station? Are these acceptable persons?”
    “Two translators from the Foreign Office, Feldman and Shugart, belong to Shawn Tyers; or Podesta. She’s department head now. They’re advisors, very junior. I don’t know the other two. One is from Commerce. Anyone from that department is a concern to me. That’s George Barrulin’s old power base.”
    “Translators of Ragi,” Tabini mused. “To go to the space station.”
    “Awareness of nuance and context makes them valuable observers. I understand why Tyers sends them… I know why they formed the team as they did.”
Four. Infelicitous four
, he thought. It was not a good number. He’d been functioning with the Mospheiran side of his brain not to see that at the outset.
    But Jase was going. Set of five.
    “What does Jase fear?” Tabini asked. “He expressed no fears to me.”
    “He wouldn’t,” Bren said. “He respects you. He knows he has no recourse. And I
still
ask, aiji-ma, that you not send him yet. The next flight. Not this one. They’ll understand… they won’t
expect
you to grant their request. A human would delay.”
    Tabini had a wry expression. “Delay, with these aliens coming.”
    “It’s human, aiji-ma. And I need him. They won’t argue. They won’t take offense.”
    “In this additional time… what would you gain?”
    “Questions. More questions.”
    “And three years have not sufficed?”
    It was a very good question… one he couldn’t outright answer, except they weren’t either of them ready for this.
    “Jase wants to see his ship again; and he knows, in the economy of things, he’s become a valuable advisor to them.”
    “As to you.”
    “As he is to me,” Bren acknowledged.
    “He will go, advise his people, then return.”
    “Not likely. They’ve no reason to let him come back.”
    “I shall place a personal request for his return.”
    “I fear your request won’t get him back, aiji-ma. Not from the Guild.”
    “Will Jase remain well-disposed to us? Will he wish, then, what he wishes now?”
    “He’ll feel emotional attachment. He’ll fall into old associations.”
    “And this mission from the island? Will they find things familiar? Will
they
obey the Pilots’ Guild? Or oppose them?”
    “I don’t know. There’ll be an emotional context for them. The sites of history have their impact.”
    “
Naojai-tu
,” Damiri said quietly, “nand’ paidhi.”
    “Like that,” Bren said. The
machimi
plays were the collected wisdom of atevi history, the culture of the Western Association. In
Naojai-tu
, a cynical woman came face to face with relics she had thought remote and unimportant… and in the impact they had, in the context, she turned on her lover. Indeed, he knew the play, and its conclusion.
    Unguessed association, unguessed emotional reaction, unguessed affiliations devastatingly realized.
    And when one came down to analyzing the emotional impact of the human team seeing the station their ancestors had come from—or the feelings Jason would have face to face with his relatives again—yes, atevi could indeed comprehend that. Sometimes humans jumped the same direction atevi jumped when startled.
    But you didn’t take for granted it was the same reason for the reaction. Or the same outcome. “And what was Jason’s reaction to the mission?” Tabini asked.
    “He didn’t meet with them immediately. He had a short time to see me; he chose that. We met, we talked, and I forgot to ask him questions I should have asked. He didn’t ask me, either. On a