Precursor by C. J. Cherryh Page B

certain level I think we knew we’d become separate in our man’chi, so to speak. When he goes back—he’ll have no aiji but Ramirez. So we reminisced, and said good-bye.”
    Tabini listened soberly.
    “That’s very sad,” Damiri-daja said.
    “Do you have confidence in the President’s intentions?” Tabini asked. “And Ramirez?”
    Not—is the President of Mospheira lying?—which would be one question, but—do you have confidence in him; and in Tyers; and in the senior captain of the ship-humans?
    “Aiji-ma, it’s the same story: Mospheirans want to lead their lives and not worry. A leader who makes them worry isn’t popular. Right now, they remember that the Heritage Party nearly took them to war. Now ship-humans make them worry about the chance there are unfriendly aliens out there. They’d rather not think about it. So they won’t. All this mission learns will create a furor at first… then lose attention. All the President does and all the conservatives do about it will be quiet unless there’s a direct, imminent threat. There’s no energy for it, not so soon after the people kicked the conservatives out of office.”
    Tabini smiled. It was certainly the short version of the politics of Mospheira, but it compassed very similar emotions on the mainland: Bren knew it did.
Never
upset the midsection of the Association, never annoy uncle Tatiseigi… or Lord Geigi.
    “One day I should meet the President of Mospheira,” Tabini said, implying there would be no few frustrations in common with Hampton Durant. “So shall we proceed in tasteful silence through these machinations? Or shall we wake two populations from their sleep?”
    “Only to tell them both we’ve found a good solution, aiji-ma.”
    “Therefore I asked this mission to go with Jase. Time is ours now; perhaps not, if these remote aliens begin to dictate the schedule. Therefore, paidhi-ji, I’m sending you to the station.”
    My God, he thought.
    And: No. I can’t.
    It was the dream of his life, that the space program should have just gotten off the ground with him to witness it. That
Shai-shan
should turn out to be his creation… he’d stood on the side of the runway and watched its first flight half a year ago, watched the shuttle become a gleam in the sky, and a dot, and a memory and a hope. When, two weeks later, he had stood on that same runway and watched
Shai-shan
land as easily as any airliner—God, he’d wept.
    But go
up
there? That wasn’t for
him
.
    His face, he discovered, didn’t react, hadn’t reacted. Like his predecessor, Wilson, who’d forgotten how to deal with human emotion, he’d stopped reacting.
    “Aiji-ma,” he said quietly, accepting that this would happen, “on this flight?”
    “On this flight,” Tabini said. And one could not say: but my business, but my possessions, my duties, my staff. One listened. “To remain until you’ve understood them, and then to return to me. You can conduct your other duties by radio, can you not? And your staff is adept enough to carry on without you, at least the commercial aspects. Diplomatic matters with the Pilots’ Guild take precedence until there is an agreement regarding our station.”
    Our
station
. That was Tabini’s position. Humans had built it, Mospheira didn’t want it, didn’t want to lose it, either. Atevi weren’t historically happy about it being there, didn’t want Mospheirans to have it, and Tabini wanted it under his authority.
    He hadn’t thoroughly explained that position to Mospheira, but Jase knew.
    Get me the sun and the moon, paidhi-ji. Toss in the good will of the Pilots’ Guild for good measure.
    Everything was in motion. Everything had been in motion before his plane had set down on the runway. Everything had gotten into motion during his five days isolated and out of touch on Mospheira. Tabini started planning this the day the ship called Yolanda Mercheson home; they called Jason, the day before the shuttle launched, expecting a