Invader by C. J. Cherryh

had deteriorated in the passage of a few days: the structure of trust was — if not gone — at least badly bent. "Three days ago, aiji-ma, I'd have sworn I understood what sane atevi believed. Now — I
don't
know. I can at least swear to you there are no death rays."
    "On Mospheira? Or on that ship? By the Treaty you agreed to turn over all your technology to us, in such steps as wouldn't wreck — what, our environment? Our cultural destiny? As I recall, our own Space Committee was talking about slosh baffles for a heavy-lift rocket and the launch facilities for communications satellites. I think these people are somewhat beyond that."
    "Yes, aiji-ma," he said humbly. "They possibly are."
    "And will you turn over
their
technology to us? I fear we're back to that question again: are these people part of your association, bound by the Treaty? Or are they not? Hanks has been talking recklessly about the expansion of the industrial base. About stars and the distances between stars — and faster-than-light travel, which, you are aware, defies the views of certain sects, even commits heresy."
    He felt his head light, his thinking unstable. FTL.
Hanks
took it on herself —
    "Pardon, Tabini-ma, was she perhaps speaking in confidence — or — ?"
    "In confidence, oh, yes. To lord Geigi. Coupled with suggestions that, with sweeping advances in technology, the oil price might rise."
    "Oh, my God."
    "Deity?"
    He'd been so confounded he'd reacted in Mosphei' — of which Tabini knew at least a salient few words.
    "Tabini-ma. The woman is a —"
    "— fool?"
    "Naive," he said faintly.
    "Lord Geigi, as you know, is a Determinist. With immense oil reserves. Is she insulting his beliefs? Or promising him revenue — what do you say — under the table?"
    "One could, if one were Geigi, be very confused."
    "Especially since Geigi is heavily in debt.
Not
for public release. The man is desperate."
    "God," he breathed, and a shaky, perilous vision opened in front of him — the Association tottering on uncertain communications, disaffection of the lords, numerology confounded. Faster-than-light was now a fact in certain atevi minds, God knew how far the rumor had spread. The Determinist numerologists would have heard about it: ultimately the astronomers and the space scientists were going to hear the transmissions from the ship. The seed, as the atevi proverb had it, would see the sun.
    Then unless there was some clever face-saving device on which the Determinists might explain their embarrassing paradox, all hell was going to break loose. Important people would be called liars, respected authorities and culturally important systems would be overthrown by incontrovertible fact — possibly even taken down in bloodshed, since flesh and bone supported these glass structures of belief.
    "I'll deal with Hanks."
    "Faster-than-light." Tabini reached aside to let Eidi pour a cup of tea. "And do we, after all, deal with death rays next?"
    "I trust not," he breathed, while his mind was searching wildly for justification, for rationalization with Departmental policy, for
something
that could let him tell Tabini the thoughts that hit a fevered human brain with sudden, rare, atevi-language clarity. He couldn't count on recovering the moment tomorrow, not the approach to both Tabini and the situation.
    "Aiji-ma, here's the fact that occurs to me: atevi assume weapons. But weapons weren't the real threat in the War."
    "Ask the dead."
    "No, but they weren't decisive. We had the weapons — which did us no good. What hurt atevi — the very threat that hangs over Mospheira
and
atevi — is the mere shock of them being here. The numbers they deal with. Their bringing new things into the world faster than atevi can adjust. The same mistakes we made — and destabilized the society, the economy. Everything." The shoulder was giving him sudden, particular pain at the angle he'd chosen in the chair, and the threads of logic tried to escape him, but he hung on.