"You're asking a great favor, Bren-ji."

"I know I am."

"And favors have returns."

"I know that too, aiji-ma."

"So what isthe momentary thinking inside the President's office?"

God, his wits were hazed. He should have seen that coming.

And he did from time to time take chances on Tabini, monumental chances, once he'd felt out the ground underfoot — once they were both sure of the extent and purpose of the question.

And especially when the honest answer might give Tabini a reassuring insight into human mental processes.

"Aiji-ma, nothing I've learned on Mospheira inside or outside official channels has changed my initial impression: Mospheira is disturbed — not alarmed, but disturbed, for exactly the same reasons atevi are disturbed. No one planned for this. I agree: no government likes to be surprised. Mospheira was surprised. You were surprised. And I think that ship is surprised. It left a functioning station. It came back to a situation it can't have counted on finding, and a complexity of political arrangements it can't readily unravel."

"So what does this mean? Are there two human associations now, or one? And is the authority in our sky — or on Mospheira?"

Critical questions. Urgent questions. From a ruler who couldn't conceptualize geographic boundaries as valid. "Aiji-ma, my answer from my own understanding is — they're two authorities which once were one, not hostile to each other, each now with separate interests to protect. You've been monitoring transmissions. You surely have recordings."

"Such exist."

"Do you find them encoded?"

"Numbers and names are quite clear. I assume that you can translate the rest of the voice segments for us."

That it wasn't code was reassuring. He was entirely uneasy about an agreement to translate — but Mospheira knewhe had that capacity, as they knew Hanks had when they'd sent her here: they weren't unwilling to have it done — or they hadn't indicated it to him that hecould remember.

"I would think so, aiji-ma. I would naturally prefer to consult with the university on —"

"If the Mospheiran authorities put themselves in association with that ship, tell me, where would your responsibility lie?"

"I can construe no circumstance under which that would happen."

"I can. But perhaps my imagination is extravagant."

"Human associations are more and less hierarchical than atevi." An alarming thought occurred to him. "And they're not biological imperatives. I know it's difficult to construe this, aiji-ma, but on the basis of what I've lately learned, I have to tell you that we feel absolutely nothing about that ship that atevi would feel in our place."

"You haven't convinced me, nand' paidhi. I assure you, many atevi have already assumed a unitary human authority is unquestionably what we're dealing with. Where human biology enters into it — I confess myself at a loss. But that you say two authorities exist separated by time, and that you say there isn't hostility, does confuse me."

They were up against one of those walls — imperfect interface. Atevi gut feelings and human. Tabini didn't understand, absolutely didn't understand that there wasn't man'chi, loyalty in the atevi definition: a gut-level, emotional compulsion for Mospheira to join the authority represented by that ship, which looked strong, which had historically held authority —

Mospheira itself could have no comprehension how atevi would read the situation, either. Tabini was at least canny enough in the differences between atevi and human to know that, gut level, he might think he understood — but chances were very good that he wouldn't, couldn't, and never would, unaided by the paidhi, come up with the right forecast of human behavior, because he didn't come with the right hardwiring. Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction.

But because lately — very lately — the paidhi-aiji had tumbled across that line and lived far away from experts at making that interface, stayed among ordinary atevi in the hinterlands long enough for the paidhi to meet those gut-level reactions, he at least had awareness how and on what critical points Tabini was coping with him — and in the process changing the interface, unwittingly corrupting what the paidhiin thought they knew about atevi.

"Aiji-ma, wise and perceptive as you are, I'm reluctant to use the word man'chias a human thought, even when it almost works, but it's very close to what Mospheirans feel toward this world. We think we have that feeling in common with atevi, not with the ship. A man'chito this planet."

Tabini's pale eyes were unreadable and thoughtful. Interest in the concept was the best a human could guess.

And after a long moment digesting that idea or another, chin on fist, Tabini said, "Another why, nand' paidhi, when you say you feel no such emotions."

So, so much riding on the understanding. He felt the shakes coming on, a feverishness that made focus difficult. "Whys lead to whys. I should go to bed, aiji-ma, and let you ask me when I've thought it through. I've been through too much to give answers lightly."

"This answer, nand' paidhi. Don't toss me a lure of reassurance and then say don't follow."

"Aiji-ma, it's simply emotional, our attachment to the world. There's no logic. It just is. Like man'chi, it just is."

"You say there's been no preparation for this ship to occupy the station. No — hidden presence up there."

" Youdon't believe there's a human presence up there, aiji-ma."

"But there certainly is now, is there not, over our heads at this very moment?"

"True."

"So. Let me tell you: this is very serious business, Bren ji. Humans swooping down with death rays used to be bad television. Now it's speculation on the evening news."

It was slowly sinking in, how far his mission to the mainland 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'tknow. 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 theirtechnology 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. Hankstook 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.