Foreigner

He wasn’t amused. He leaned his back against the stones, folded his arms and fixed Banichi with an angry stare, determined to have it put, one way or the other. “You know,‘doing what.’ I could feel better if I thought it was policy. I don’t feel better thinking it might be something I’ve done, or trouble I’ve made for Tabini—I likehim, Banichi. I don’t want to be the cause of harm to him, or to you, or to Jago. It’s my man’chi. Humans are like that. We haveunreasonable loyalties to people we like, and you’re going far past the surface of my politeness, Banichi.”

“Clearly.”

“And I still likeyou, damn you. You don’t shake one of us, you don’t fling our likingaway because your man’chisays otherwise, you can’t get rid of us when we likeyou, Banichi, you’re stuck with me, so make the best of it.”

There wasn’t a clear word for like. It meant a preference for salad greens or iced drinks. But lovewas worse. Banichi would never forgive him that.

Banichi’s nostrils flared, once, twice. He said, in accented Mosphei’, “What meaning? What meaning you say, nand’ paidhi?”

“It means the feeling I have for my mother and my brother and my job, I have for Tabini and for you and for Jago.” Breath failed him. Self-control did. He flung it all out. “Banichi, I’d walk a thousand miles to have a kind word from you. I’d give you the shirt from my back if you needed it; if you were in trouble, I’d carry you that thousand miles. What do you call that? Foolish?”

Another flaring of Banichi’s nostrils. “That would be very difficult for you.”

“So is liking atevi.” That got out before he censored it. “Baji-naji. It’s the luck I have.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking. God, I’m not joking. We have to likesomebody, we’re bound to like somebody, or we die, Banichi, we outright die. We make appointments with grandmothers, we drink the cups strangers offer us, and we don’t ask for help anymore, Banichi, what’s the damned point, when you don’t see what we need?”

“If I don’t guess what you like, you threaten to ruin my reputation. Is this accurate?”

The headache was suddenly excruciating. Things blurred. “Like, like, like—get off the damned word, Banichi. I cross that trench every day. Can’t you cross it once? Can’t you cross to where I am, Banichi, just once, to know what I think? You’re clever. I know you’re hard to mislead. Follow, Banichi, the solitary trail of my thoughts.”

“I’m not a cursed dinner-course!”

“Banichi-ji.” The pain reached a level and stayed there, tolerable, once he’d discovered the limits of it. He had his hand on the stonework. He felt the texture of it, the silken dust of age, the fire-heated rock, broken from the earth to make this building before humans ever left the home-world. Before they were ever lost, and desperate. He composed himself—he remembered he was the paidhi, the man in the middle. He remembered he’d chosen this, knowing there wouldn’t be a reward, believing, at the time, that of course atevi had feelings, and of course, once he could find the right words, hit the right button, findthe clue to atevi thought—he’d win of atevi everything he was giving up among humankind.

He’d been twenty-two, and what he’d not known had so vastly outweighed what he’d known.

“Your behavior worries me,” Banichi said.

“Forgive me.” There was a large knot interfering with his speech. But he was vastly calmer. He chose not to look at Banichi. He only imagined the suspicion and the anger on Banichi’s face. “I reacted unprofessionally and intrusively.”

“Reacted to what, nand’ paidhi?”

A betraying word choice. He wasslipping, badly. The headache had upset his stomach, which was still uncertain. “I misinterpreted your behavior. The mistake was mine, not yours. Will you attend my appointment with me in the morning, and guard me from my own stupidity?”

“What behavior did you misinterpret?”

Straight back to the attack. Banichi refused the bait he cast. And he had no ability to argue, now, or to deal at all in cold rationality.

“I explained that. It didn’t make sense to you. It won’t.” He stared into the hazy corners beyond the firelight, and remembered the interpretation Banichi had put on his explanation. “It wasn’t a threat, Banichi. I would never do that. I value your presence and your good qualities. Will you go with me tomorrow?”

Back to the simplest, the earliest and most agreed-upon words. Cold. Unfreighted.

“No, nadi. No one invites himself to the dowager’s table. You accepted.”

“You’re assigned—”

“My man’chiis to Tabini. My actions are his actions. The paidhi can’t have forgotten this simple thing.”

He was angry. He looked at Banichi, and went on looking, long enough, he hoped, for Banichi to think in what other regard his actions were Tabini’s actions. “I haven’t forgotten. How could I forget?”

Banichi returned a sullen stare. “Ask regarding the food you’re offered. Be sure the cook understands you’re in the party.”