Yes, all right.

Much gladness!

Ione took another pace, then laughed. Reviewing everything Joshua had said to the young Kiint would take hours. Hours she hadn’t been spending on the beach of late. Haile was becoming very crafty.

Jay leaned against her friend, watching Ione put her sandals on and start back up the path to the tube station. There was a slightly distracted expression on the woman’s face, that Jay knew meant she was busy talking to the habitat personality. She didn’t like to dwell on the topic. More than likely, it would be the possessed again. That was all the adults talked about these days, and it was never reassuring talk.

Haile’s arm twined around Jay’s, the tip stroking her gently.

You taste of sadness.

“I don’t think these horrible possessed will ever go away.”

They will. Humans are clever. You will find a way.

“I hope so. I do want Mummy back.”

Shall we build the castles of sand now?

“Yes!” Jay grinned enthusiastically and started splashing her way back up to the beach. They’d made the discovery together that Haile with her tractamorphic arms was the universe’s best ever builder of sand castles. With Jay directing, they had made some astonishing towers along the shoreline.

Haile emerged from the water in a small explosion of spray. Betterness. You have happiness again.

“So do you. Ione promised to come back for the words.”

It is the best niceness when the three of us play together. She knows this really.

Jay giggled. “She turned purple when you said that. Good job you didn’t say fuck to her.”

The Oenone, ione reflected. Why do I know that name?

Atlantis.

Oh, yes.

And a certain interception in the Puerto de Santa Maria star system. We received an intelligence update from the Confederation Navy last year.

Oh, bloody hell, yes.

Captain Syrinx wishes to talk to you.

Ione sat down in the tube carriage and began towelling her hair. Of course.the affinity contact broadened, allowing Syrinx to proffer her identity trait.

Captain,ione acknowledged.

I apologize for the haste, but please be advised a Confederation Navy squadron will start arriving in another nine minutes and thirty seconds—mark.

I see. Is Tranquillity in danger?

No.

What then?

I am carrying the squadron’s commander, Admiral Meredith Saldana. He requests an interview at which he can explain our full strategic situation to you.

Granted. Welcome to Tranquillity.the captain faded from the affinity band.

She was curious about you,tranquillity said. It was quite plain from her emotional content.

Everybody’s always curious about me.she borrowed the habitat’s external senses to observe local space. They were in Mirchusko’s umbra, with Choisya and Falsia hovering just above the gas giant’s crescent horizon. Apart from the flotilla of blackhawks on patrol around the habitat’s shell, there was little spaceship activity. The Oenone was the first starship to arrive in seventy-six hours. Some MSVs and personnel commuters continued to glide between the counter-rotating spaceport and Tranquillity’s bracelet of industrial stations, but they were running a much reduced flight schedule. A lone dazzle-point of fusion flame was rising up past the drab grey loop of the Ruin Ring, an He3 tanker en route from the habitat’s cloudscoop to the spaceport. Program the squadron’s arrival into the SD platforms,she said. And warn the blackhawks, we don’t want any mistakes.

Naturally.

Meredith Saldana. That’s two family visits in less than a month.

I don’t think this is a family visit.

You’re probably right.

It was a suspicion which was proved unpleasantly correct soon after Syrinx and the admiral were shown into the audience chamber of De Beauvoir Palace. As she listened to Meredith Saldana explain the proposed ambush of Capone’s fleet at Toi-Hoi a swarm of ambiguous feelings lay siege to her mind.

I don’t want to involve us in front line campaigns,she confided to Tranquillity.

To be pedantic, we’re in the campaign, not the front line itself. And the eradication of the Organization fleet is not a strategic opportunity which can be overlooked.

No choice?

No choice.

I still think we’re too important for this.

But safe. The safest place in the Confederation, remember that.

We hope. I’d hate to put that to the test, right now.

I don’t see how it will. Not from this action. We will essentially be a supply and rendezvous base.

“Very well,” she told the admiral. “You have my permission to use Tranquillity for your task force’s port station. I’ll see that you get all the He3 you need.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Meredith said.

“I’m slightly concerned by this flight restriction you wish to place on starships until the ambush, although I do appreciate the logic behind it. I currently have over twenty blackhawks deploying sensor satellites around the orbit where the Laymil home planet used to be. It’s extremely important research work. I’d hate to see it jeopardized.”

“They would only have to be recalled for three or four days at the most,” Syrinx said. “Our scheduling is very tight, here. Surely a small delay wouldn’t effect the research too much?”

“I’ll recall them for now. But if you’re still here after a week, I’ll have to review the policy. As I said, this is part of the effort to find an overall solution. That is not to be regarded lightly.”

“Believe me, we don’t, ma’am,” Meredith said.

She stared at him, trying to work out what was going on behind his blue eyes. But his answering stare offered no clue. “I have to say, I find it ironic that Tranquillity has become so important to the Confederation and the Kingdom after all this time,” she said.

“Ironic or pleasing? Chance has finally brought you the chance to vindicate your grandfather’s actions.”

There was no humour in his tone, which surprised her. She’d assumed he would be more sympathetic than Prince Noton. “You think Grandfather Michael was wrong?”

“I think he was wrong to pursue such an unorthodox course.”

“Unorthodox to the family, perhaps. But I assure you it’s not chance which has brought us together. This whole situation will prove how right he was to act on his foresight.”

“I wish you every success.”

“Thank you. And who knows, one day I might earn your approval, too.”

For the first time, he produced a grudging smile. “You don’t like losing arguments, do you, Cousin Ione?”

“I am a Saldana.”

“That much is painfully obvious.”

“As are you. I don’t think every Confederation admiral would have coped as well as you at Lalonde.”

“I did not cope well. I ensured my squadron survived; most of it, anyway.”

“A Confederation officer’s first duty is to follow orders. Second duty is to the crew. So I believe,” she said. “As your original orders didn’t cover what you encountered, I’d say you did all right.”

“Lalonde was . . . difficult,” he said heavily.

“Yes. I know all about Lalonde from Joshua Calvert.”

Syrinx, who had been looking considerably ill at ease while the two Saldanas conducted their verbal fencing, glanced sharply at Ione, her eyebrows raised in interest.

“Oh, yes,” Meredith reflected. “Lagrange Calvert. Who could forget him?”

“Is he here?” Syrinx asked. “This is his registered port.”

“He’s away at the moment, I’m afraid,” Ione told her. “But I’m expecting him back any day now.”

“Good.”