C. J. Cherryh - Foreigner 8 - Pretender

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PRETENDER

C.J.Cherryh

the second book of

the third Foreigner sequence

8th of the series

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

Contents

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11

DAW Titles by C. J. CHERRYH

THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE

FOREIGNER

DEFENDER

INVADER

EXPLORER

PRECURSOR

INHERITOR

DESTROYER

PRETENDER

THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

DOWNBELOW STATION

MERCHANTER’S LUCK

FORTY THOUSAND IN GEHENNA

SERPENT’S REACH

AT THE EDGE OF SPACE Omnibus:

Brothers of Earth | Hunter of Worlds

THE FADED SUN Omnibus:

Kesrith | Shon’jir | Kutath

THE CHANUR NOVELS

THE CHANUR SAGA Omnibus:

The Pride of Chanur | Chanur’s Venture | The Kif

Strike Back

CHANUR’S HOMECOMING

CHANUR’S LEGACY

THE MORGAINE CYCLE

THE MORGAINE SAGA Omnibus:

Gate of Ivrel | Well of Shiuan | Fires of Azeroth

EXILE’S GATE

OTHER WORKS

THE DREAMING TREE OMNIBUS:

The Tree of Swords and Jewels | The Dreamstone

ALTERNATE REALITIES Omnibus:

Port Eternity | Wave Without a Shore | Voyager in

Night

THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF C.J.

CHERRYH

ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

CUCKOO’S EGG

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER

375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

SHEILA E. GILBERT

PUBLISHERS

http://www.dawbooks.com

Jacket art by Donato.

DAW Books Collectors No. 1355.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA)

Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book

via the Internet or any other means without the

permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by

law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions,

and do not participate in or encourage the electronic

piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the

author’s rights is appreciated.

First Printing, March 2006. 123456789 10

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

—MARCA REGISTRADA

HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

For Sharon and Steve,

who have walked us off cliffs

and helped us move books.

The room had suffered, not from the attackers, but from the

defenders of the house, who had taken no pains at all about

recovering ejected shells—the detritus of combat was scattered

about the floor, a few items lying on the rumpled coverlet of the

bed, on the table. One, an apparent ricochet, having landed on the

floor around the corner, in the large bath. Damage from the

attempted intrusion of the enemy, numerous holes pocked the walls

and woodwork. At some point during the battle for the house,

someone among the room’s defenders had shot an exit hole through

the door, complementing the several inbound rounds that had taken

out the door lock and lodged in an opposing wall… without, one

hoped, catching any of the house’s defenders along the way. The

door had been kicked open after that, evident by the scuff marks on

the paint near the shattered lock, as the invaders rushed the room.

But the foremost intruder from the hall had hit a chest-high wire at

that point, and Bren was very glad the staff had cleared away the

evidence.

He was, considering all the other scars of war, overwhelmingly

glad to find his computer where he had left it, hidden behind a

stack of spare towels on the bottom shelf of the linen press…

neither defenders nor invaders having had an inclination to open

the storage cupboard of spare towels and bed-sheets. No stray shot

had hit it, nothing had damaged it, and, on his knees, having

extricated the precious machine and its accompanying security

modem from their hiding spot, Bren sat on the floor in front of the

cabinet with both on his lap, too exhausted, mentally and morally,

to struggle up again.

“Is something wrong, Bren-ji?” Jago appeared by him, and he

tucked the computer case under his arm, clenched the modem in his

hand, and made the effort to get up. Jago helped with a hand under

his elbow, lifting him to his full height—which, for a tall human,

was about equal to her black-clad shoulder. Even Jago appeared the

worse for wear at this hour, her Guild leathers and her ebony skin

alike streaked with pale dust from the road and the shattering of

plaster, her usually immaculate pigtail a little wind-frayed from a

wild ride and a wilder night. Bren’s own pale hands showed bloody

scrapes. He had dirt under his nails, which would have been a

scandal to his domestic staff if they had been here and not up on

the station. They were all of them, himself and his atevi bodyguard,

candidates for a good long soaking bath. He smelled of human

sweat, Jago of that slightly petroleum scent, but a bath seemed out

of the question at the moment. There seemed too much to do to

contemplate such a luxury this afternoon, there was no domestic

staff at hand to take care of the cleanup: It was all up to them,- and

he was sure that once he sank into warm water, he would be

completely lost.

“Tired, Jago-ji,” he murmured, inserting the modem into a case

pocket. “Simply tired.” He heaved the precious computer’s

carrying-strap up to his shoulder, not sure what else to do with the

computer, wondering whether he should go on using the same

hiding place and being too exhausted to be confident in his logical

choices at this point. He hadn’t so much as taken his coat off since

their arrival in the room, and his clothing bore mud, soot, and the

scrapes of hedge branches, not to mention mecheita-spit and bloody

rips in cloth he had taken riding through a gap in the estate’s wire

fence. “But one dares not lie down yet.”

“Let us check the bed,” Jago said, and left him in order to do that

check, electronically, with one of the little handhelds her Guild

used.

Checking for bugs. For booby traps. Her partner, Banichi, was

over by the windows, likewise engaged, and Tano and Algini, the

other pair of his bodyguards, were in the bath, also looking for bugs

and explosives, one surmised. All of them were gathering up shell

casings.

“Is the chair safe?” he asked, meaning the fragile

green-and-white-striped and doubtless pricelessly historical item in

the corner.

Fragile from the atevi viewpoint: For a human, child-sized on an

atevi scale, the chair was more substantial, even well-padded, and

he was glad when Jago came back, surveyed it, and pronounced it

safe for him to sit in.

Lord Tatiseigi, lord of the estate, had had his domestic and

security staff make the first sweep of the premises, and they had

cleaned up the bodies, blood, and broken items before they declared

the room fit for occupancy. In any event, these rooms had fared

better than the suite next door, where Kadagidi clan Assassins had

made their actual entry into the house, and possibly left gifts that

made one just a little anxious at the moment about standing near

the north wall. Bren had less confidence in his host’s staff than in

his own—Tatiseigi’s staff were competent at their

work—competent, if woefully under-equipped in communications

and electronics—but he felt much safer knowing his own staff was

giving it their own close inspection, with more skill, recent practice,

and far better equipment.

Water started running in the bath, a thunderous flood in that

huge, atevi-scale bathtub. It was a seductive sound, and more than

a testing of the plumbing, since it went on. Tano and Algini had

made an executive decision and started drawing hot water for the

household.

And Bren looked at his hands, at the grime, the cuts, the stray

mecheita-hair and mecheita-sweat that had gotten all over his

sleeves and trousers, reconsidering the bath question and the

question of letting the adrenaline run down.

The unpleasant fact was the day was well advanced and they still

weren’t assured the Kadagidi weren’t coming back tonight.

Or, worst of all thoughts, and one that had been at least a

passing topic of discussion downstairs, their victory—and the

knowledge Tabini was on the premises—might drive the Kadagidi

to more desperate measures, even before dark: They might be

desperate enough to attempt an air strike, in which case there was

no safety and no time to settle in here as if there were. True, the

Assassins’ Guild had passed a formal resolution condemning attack

by air as anathema in clan warfare, and in that resolution declared

that the Guild would exercise severe and automatic sanctions

against violators. But the Guild as a whole had not turned a hand

to prevent the overthrow of Tabini-aiji, had it? It had not bestirred

itself to condemn the Kadagidi lord, Murini, for setting himself up

as aiji in Tabini’s place, had it, then? The Guild had not leapt in to

protect Tabini’s grandmother and his heir when they, innocent

parties in any dispute between the two clans, returned from space.

The Guild had not intervened last night to prevent the Kadagidi

from attacking them here in a neutral clan’s province. So there was

a little justifiable suspicion downstairs that the Guild had not

supported Tabini-aiji as whole-heartedly as they ought before his

downfall, and that their lack of response in preventing a third clan

being attacked had allowed some already questionable moves, all on

one side of the equation.

Still, a man in the position of Lord Murini of the Kadagidi, who

had gotten the Guild to take this dubious position of neutrality,

letting him stage a bloody coup in the capital and declare himself

ruler of the Western Association—which was to say, the whole

continent—still had to worry about one potent force in atevi

politics, and that force was public opinion. The various clans only

recently united, had a long history of independent thought and

independent and regional action. There associations within the

Association which were historically much stronger than any modern

ties, and Murini was already risking his neck by proclaiming

himself aiji before the blood of household staff was dry on the

carpet.

More, granted he had gotten the Assassins’ Guild to stay out of

action, he was beholden to someone for that favor. He dared not go

violating publicized Guild resolutions, creating a scandal for Guild

leadership, and worse, contravening the Guild’s established

principles of politics in his new-minted claim to power.

So there were three powers, all teetering out of equilibrium: the

people, the Guild, and the man who called himself (with his clan)

the new authority. And if any one of the former two tipped away

from him, Lord Murini, so-named Murini-aiji, stood to lose all his

advantage. It would be calamitous for his authority if the Assassins’

Guild decided suddenly to take the side of Tabini-aiji, who was not

dead, and who was, in fact, currently lodged four rooms down, his

staff going through much the same precautionary cleanup of

premises. It was very clear that Tabini would accept Guild

neutrality, but hold a grudge for its inaction in preventing his

overthrow, and might forgive that grudge if the Guild now budged

toward his side.

So the last twenty-odd hours had brought a very delicate time for

both claimants to the aijinate: Murini, the upstart would-be aiji,

with ancient ambitions of an ethnically different clan, had relied on

popular discontent under Tabini-aiji’s authority to seize power;

Tabini, overthrown, but now with allies— themselves—newly

returned from space, now had records and testimony that might

change public opinion. In a few days, Murini’s unchallenged

supremacy had slid a few degrees, and now the whole thing had

headed downhill gathering calamity like a snowball provoking

avalanche. Step one: the dowager’s party, including Tabini’s young

son, had arrived from deep space and landed onworld, in spite of

Murini’s plan to keep the shuttle fleet entirely out of action. They

had immediately presented themselves on the doorstep of Lord

Tatiseigi of the Atageini, the young heir’s great-uncle, and by that

action, had put Lord Tatiseigi to the choice of sheltering them or

turning his young relative away.

Step two: Murini’s Kadagidi clan, neighbor to Tatiseigi— who

had thought they were going to chastise the elderly and habitually

neutral Tatiseigi for receiving Tabini’s grandmother and son under

their roof—had not only failed in two nights of trying to breach the

house and assassinate them all, but last night had found the

Atageini’s neighbor to the west, Taiben, supporters of the old

regime and relatives of Tabini-aiji’s clan, coming to the Atageini’s

defense. It was an unthinkable combination of clans: Taiben and

the Atageini had been at loggerheads for hundreds of years, and

now they found common cause against the Kadagidi, for the boy’s

sake.

Then, third step, Tabini-aiji himself, unheard from for the better

part of a year, had shown up to defend his grandmother and his

heir, risking life and reign on this one dice-throw: rescue Tatiseigi,

drive off the Kadagidi, and support a new compact between Taibeni

and Atageini lords.

Suddenly the Kadagidi control of their local Padi Valley

neighborhood wasn’t looking as secure as it had three days ago, and

centuries of Atageini neutrality in the region began sliding more

and more toward commitment to a cause, namely restoration of

Tabini-aiji to rule in Shejidan… because that would set a

half-Atageini great-nephew up as heir.

So the sun was up. The ancient Atageini house at Tirnamardi

still stood, if battered, in the middle of a province now annoyed with

the Kadagidi and feeling massively insulted. The historic premises

were pocked with bullets, Atageini house stables were burned and

its venerable hedges were in tatters, not to mention the damage in

the foyer and upstairs, while its lawn held an encampment of

neighboring Taibeni and their large and numerous—and now

hungry—mounts. The province took these affronts personally and

supported their offended lord.

Who overall had fared surprisingly well under such heavy

assault, the old premises proving their ancient, blunt-force

construction methods had produced very solid walls. The Atageini

house stood, and stood well. By the sound of the flood in the

bathroom, its plumbing evidently worked and its boilers must be

up, producing hot water for the sore and weary household, to judge

by comments that wafted out of the bath.

So the aiji-dowager and the aiji had won the first several rounds

of the fight, if not the war that was surely preparing. Murini sat in

the capital claiming to be the popularly-supported aiji while

Tabini-aiji sat in a Padi Valley lord’s house maintaining that he still

was. Meanwhile Lord Tatiseigi, their host, was still muttering

about the Guild’s general ban on no-holds-barred attacks and its

rules about historic properties and premises, as if this was

sufficient to preserve the Atageini province and its towns from a

repetition of last night. Most of Lord Tatiseigi’s security, who were

members of that Guild, held far less optimistic opinions on that

score, and senior members of Tabini’s security and the dowager’s

were down on the lower floor, laying plans for coping with what

they were sure would come with nightfall.

As for one Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, interpreter of foreign

affairs, Lord of the Heavens and so on and so forth, he sat in the

one safe chair in an unsafe world, wondering whether he should

open up his computer and look up his notes on the finer print of

Guild regulations, searching for loopholes for further attack and

simultaneously wondering whether, if he took his boots off to go

take advantage of that wonderful hot water in the bathroom, he

could possibly get them back on.

He had blisters, he was sure, in places he would rather not

describe to his staff. Numerous wood splinters were lodged in his

palms. He was amazingly sore.

But he had recovered his computer. And because he had it, he

had all his records from space and from the voyage. And because he

had those, he possessed detailed evidence which could argue that

Tabini-aiji’s unpopular actions had produced results well worth the

sacrifices. It was a precious record, and there was a backup for

what was stored here—but one copy was in orbit over their heads,

and another in his brother’s hands—he hoped safely back on

Mospheira by now. On the mainland, on atevi soil, where it was

most needed, this was the only copy he could hope to lay hands on,

and he wasn’t eager to let the precious computer leave his hands

until he had gotten that report to Tabini.

All things considered finally, that was the highest priority, to get

a printout or a disk where Tabini could read it and understand

what he had. It was the highest priority, even when Tano came out

of the bath and reported that the tub was well on its way to being

filled, assuming the hot water held out that long.

It was true that in his present state, he was unfit for an

audience: even while the world tottered, conventions and custom

prevailed, and a man, even the Lord of the Heavens, had to be

respectfully presentable to authority… especially an authority

shaken by events.

“You may have the water first, nandi,” Tano began, as Algini also

came out of the bath—but at that moment a racket broke out in the

hall outside their suite, a stream of angry shouting. He could not

make out words. He looked in that direction, down the short entry

hall, in some alarm, and Tano went as far as the outer door and

listened, while Banichi and Jago waited with Algini, hands on

sidearms.

“Cenedi is out in the hall, explaining certain things to the

household staff,” Tano said wryly, which drew a little amusement

out of them all. One was ever so glad to find Cenedi alive today,

and clearly indignant: None of them doubted that Lord Tatiseigi’s

household staff needed certain key points laid out before them and

the head of the dowager’s bodyguard was the man to do it—not

least bringing home the fact that most of Lord Tatiseigi’s security

equipment belonged in a museum, not active service. Even the

paidhi understood certain facts without explanation, notably that

there was a very good chance that the intruders who had gotten

into the house last night, not to mention spies predating them,

might well have installed bugs, and wise servants would not discuss

household business in any area until security with proper

equipment had cleared it…

Proper equipment. That was a sore spot. Security with proper

equipment necessarily involved outsiders poking about in Lord

Tatiseigi’s household security, even bringing in some outsiders,

namely Taiben clan, with whom the Atageini maintained a

centuries-old feud, while the bodyguard that Tabini had brought in

had its own opinions, and certainly Banichi had voiced his.

Outside security having access to house equipment had been one

major sticking point of discussions downstairs. In the paidhi’s staff’s

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