Deliberations: A Foreigner Short Story Read Online Free PDF

landing on the Gan peoples, about whom no one but Dur cared, since they had never signed on to the aishidi’tat.
    Well, it had been a bitter fight.
    Looking back on a long career, thirty years alone at the head of the aishidi’tat— and having guided three of its aijiin in one way or another— the lasting mess around the Treaty of the Landing had been her greatest frustration.
    Now—
    Apparently her grandson was going to make his move, with an unlikely—and, she was sure, temporary coalition of the Taibeni, the Kadagidi, the Marid, the mountain clans, and, just lately, the Northern Association, largely because Lord Tatiseigi was so firmly on her side.
    Tatiseigi had asked to call on her this evening. But she had refused, wishing not to place him in danger of assassination. She had thought perhaps her grandson might wait— a season or two.
    But Cenedi had said he would not.
    Good, she thought, on that score. The boy was using his head. He was drawing the right conclusions.
    She had written a letter to Tatiseigi. She rang a little bell on the side table, and a servant entered. “My best message cylinder,” she said, “is on the table beside you,” she said. “The message is to Lord Tatiseigi. Tell his major domo to regard it as urgent.”
    “Aiji-ma,” the servant said. Handsome lad. They all were, even the old ones, who had weathered well, over the decades.
    The servant took the letter and the cylinder and quietly closed the door in leaving.
    She had written, in that letter, Tati-ji, we have done our utmost with the boy. I am not afraid, neither of the end of my life, nor of the future of the aishidi’tat. My grandson has a temper, but he does not act in it. He does not squander his opportunities, and I did not believe he would squander this one. Now we are informed he will call on the legislature tomorrow.
    This is wise. This coalition of his will not improve with time. If he acts resolutely, he will astonish his allies, who are still laying their plans— we both know them. He will take them quite by surprise, and they will discover what we know: that he is not timid, nor hesitant once a decision is necessary.
    We ask you, our intimate, our staunchest ally, our closest associate, to bear him no ill will whatever the outcome. You may differ in opinion regarding the best course, but he knows how to govern from the middle. Let him move as he sees fit. He is as like me as you could wish. You will come to know that. He will respect my closest allies as a resource he will hope to deserve. I do not know whether this may be the last word I shall send to you. But it was never our desire to keep the world from changing. Change it will. Humans are, as the ‘counters would say, part of the numbers, now, and there is no going back from that. We cannot say what we would have been, but we can still say what we will be. We are making up that sentence as we go, and we shall never be through with that statement.
    Support him. Lead him to deserve you. Learn from him. We have left matters for him to settle and he will need advisors who have the interests of the aishidi’tat before their own...
    There were a few lines more, a request for Tatiseigi to shelter her household staff, should it be needful. She hoped that Cenedi and his closest companions would go to his service, if it came to that. Cenedi would not serve her grandson, if she were to die.
    The whole city was on edge tonight. Some feared she would call on her guard— that there would be conflict with the Shejidani Guild.
    Some even feared there would be riots, outbreaks of associational violence in the borderlands— a breakup of the aishidi’tat itself.
    If that should happen— if that should happen, if there was violence, and clans began settling old grudges, then there was the fear that the humans on Mospheira might take advantage of the situation and attack the mainland...
    Silly notion, that. The humans were too few. The continent was too wide, its recesses too