“She sounds nice,” Rigney said.

“She’s perfectly lovely,” Egan said. “Until you piss her off.” The display, which had been scrolling through ships and crew manifests, suddenly stopped on a single ship. “Here.”

Rigney peered up at the image. “What is this?”

“This is the B-team,” Egan said.

“The Clarke?” Rigney said. “I don’t know this ship.”

“It handles various low-level diplomatic missions,” Egan said. “Its chief diplomat is a woman named Abumwe.” The image of a dark and severe-looking woman hovered on the screen. “Her most significant negotiation was with the Korba a few months back. She impressed them by having a CDF officer stationed on the ship fight with one of their soldiers, and lost in a diplomatically meaningful way.”

“That’s interesting,” Rigney said.

“Yes, but not entirely her doing,” Egan said, and popped up the images of two men, one of whom was green. “The fight was set up by a deputy, Hart Schmidt. Lieutenant Harry Wilson was the one who fought.”

“So why these people?” Rigney asked. “What makes them the right people to take over this mission?”

“Two reasons,” Egan said. “One, Abumwe was part of an embassy to the Utche three years ago. Nothing came of it at the time, but she has experience dealing with them. That means she can get brought up to speed quickly. Two”—she pulled out the view to show the Clarkein space—“the Clarkeis eighteen hours away from skip distance. Abumwe and her people can still get to the Danavar system ahead of the Utche and participate in the negotiations, or at the very least allow us to set up a new round of talks. There’s no other diplomatic mission that can make it on time.”

“We send in the B-team because it’s marginally better than nothing,” Rigney said.

“Abumwe and her people aren’t incompetent,” Egan said. “They just wouldn’t be your first choice. But right now we’re short on choices.”

“Right,” Rigney said. “You’re really going to sell this to your boss, then.”

“Unless you have a better idea,” Egan said.

“Not really,” Rigney said, then furrowed his brow for a moment. “Althoughc”

“Although what?” Egan said.

“Bring up that CDF guy again,” Rigney said.

Egan popped the image of Lieutenant Harry Wilson back onto the display. “What about him?” she said.

“He still on the Clarke?” Rigney asked.

“Yes,” Egan said. “He’s a technical advisor. Some of the Clarke’s recent missions have had military tech and weapons as part of the negotiations. They have him on hand to train people on the machines we’re offering. Why?”

“I think I may have found a way to sweeten your B-team plan to Secretary Galeano,” Rigney said. “And to my bosses, too.”

IV.

Wilson noted the expression Schmidt had when he looked up and saw him standing by the door of Ambassador Abumwe’s conference room.

“You don’t have to look thatshocked,” Wilson said, dryly.

“Sorry,” Schmidt said. He moved to let other members of the Clarke’s diplomatic contingent into the room.

Wilson waved it away. “I’m not usually included this early in the discussion. It’s fine.”

“Do you know what this is about?” Schmidt said.

“Allow me to repeat: I’m not usually included this early in the discussion,” Wilson said.

“Got it,” Schmidt said. “Well, shall we, then?” The two of them entered the room.

The conference room was cramped, as was everything on the Clarke. The table, with eight seats, was already filled, with Ambassador Abumwe looking owlishly at Schmidt and Wilson as they entered. The two of them took positions against the wall opposite her.

“Now that we’re all here,” she said, with a pointed glance at Wilson and Schmidt, “let’s get started. The Department of State, in its wisdom, has decided that our presence is no longer needed at Vinnedorg.”

A groan went up from around the table. “Who are they giving our work to this time?” asked Rae Sarles.

“No one,” Abumwe said. “Our superiors are apparently under the impression that these negotiations will somehow magically take care of themselves without a Colonial presence.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Hugh Fucci.

“I appreciate you telling me that, Hugh,” Abumwe said. “I don’t believe I would have figured that out on my own.”

“Sorry, Ambassador,” Fucci said, backtracking. “What I mean to say is that they’ve been having us working on these negotiations with the Vinnies for more than a year now. I don’t understand why they want to threaten our momentum by interrupting what we’re doing.”

“Which is why we’re having our little meeting today,” Abumwe said, and then nodded to Hillary Drolet, her assistant, who pressed the screen of her PDA. “If you’ll access your queues, you’ll find the information on our new assignment.”

Everyone at the table, and Schmidt, accessed their PDAs; Wilson accessed his BrainPal, found the document in his queue, and streamed the data in the bottom quarter of his field of vision.

“The Utche?” asked Nelson Kwok, after a minute. “Have the CU ever actually negotiated with them before?”

“I was part of a mission to them three years ago, before I took this posting,” Abumwe said. “At the time, nothing seemed to come of it. But apparently we’ve been quietly negotiating with them for the last year or so.”

“Who’s been the lead?” Kwok asked.

“Sara Bair,” Abumwe said.

Wilson noted that everyone looked up at the ambassador when she said this. Whoever this Sara Bair was, she was clearly a star.

“Why is she off the negotiations?” Sarles asked.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Abumwe said. “But she and her people are, and now we’re on it.”

“Too bad for her,” Fucci said, and Wilson saw there were smiles around the table. Getting this Bair’s sloppy seconds were preferable to the Clarke’s original mission, it seemed. Once again, Wilson wondered at what fate it was that brought him onto the Clarketo join its band of not-that-lovable losers. Wilson also couldn’t help but notice that the only person at the table not smiling at the prospect of taking up the Utche negotiations was Abumwe herself.

“There’s a lot of information in this package,” Schmidt said. He was flicking his PDA screen and scrolling through the text. “How many days before we begin negotiating?”

And it was then that Abumwe smiled, notably thin and humorless though it was. “Twenty hours.”

There was dead silence.

“You’re joking,” Fucci said. Abumwe gave him a look that clearly indicated she had reached the end of her patience with him for the day. Fucci wisely did not speak again.

“Why the rush?” Wilson asked. He knew Abumwe didn’t like him; it wouldn’t hurt for him to ask the question everyone else wanted to know but was too scared to ask.

“I couldn’t say,” Abumwe said evenly, looking at him briefly and then turning her attention to her staff. “And even if I could, the reason wouldn’t matter for what we have to do now. We have sixteen hours before our jump and then four hours after that before the Utche are scheduled to arrive. After that we’re on their schedule. They might want to meet immediately; they might want to meet in a day. We are going to go under the assumption they will want to begin negotiations immediately. That means you have the next twelve hours to get up to speed. After that, we’ll have planning sessions before and after the jump. I hope you’ve gotten enough sleep in the last two days, because you’re not getting any more for a while. Any questions?”

There were none. “Good,” Abumwe said. “I don’t believe I have to tell any of you that if these negotiations go well, then it is good for us. For all of us. If they go poorly, then it will go badly for all of us as well. But it will go especially poorly for whichever ones of you were not completely up to speed and dragged the rest of your team down with you. I need you to be crystal clear on that.”