Such thoughts swam leisurely through the paidhi's wavering brain, along with a sharp longing for his comfortable, quiet little garden apartment, and a fevered consideration of the lady of the apartment with her library of books on flowers — but, sadly, not a garden accessible to her —

He should recommend his lower-level garden to Damiri. She afforded him her hospitality. He could show her a charming place in the lower halls she'd likely never visited in her rich and security-insulated life.

In that thought the paidhi was growing entirely fuzzy-minded, and he really had rather sit down than go on to tour the breakfast room. He was certain, all credit to Banichi and Jago, that he had the very best and most secure guest room for himself. He was completely satisfied with the historic bed. He thought the library and the private solarium delightful. He couldn't bear a detailed tour of the other wonders he was sure abounded, which on another day he might have a keen interest as well as the fortitude to see.

There was a chair at the door of the solarium. He sat down in it with his heart pounding and mentally measured the distance back to the bedroom. He wasn't sure he could make it.

"Nadi Bren?" Jago asked as their guide hesitated.

"A fine chair," he breathed, and patted its brocade arm. "A very fine chair. Very comfortable. I'll be very pleased to work in this room. Please — convey my profound thanks to lady Damiri for allowing me this very kind — this very — extraordinary hospitality. I very much regret her inconvenience. But I can't —" He wasn't doing well with words at the moment. "I can't — manage any formality tonight. Please convey to Tabini-aiji my intention — to be in my office tomorrow. It's just that, tonight — I'd like my computer. And my bed. And a phone."

"We're both to stay here, nadi," Banichi said. "In these apartments. Guarding you. We'll carry your messages." They all towered above him, a black wall of efficiency and implacable hospitality that seemed to cut off the daylight. "Tano will occupy the security station and the small suite at the front door. He's already moving in — he has arrived with your suitcase. Your belongings will be in the drawers. Algini will join him in the security station, as soon as he's back from the hospital — we estimate, within a day or two."

"Not serious, I hope ..."

"Cuts and contusions. Perfectly fine."

"I'm very glad." His head was going around. He rested his chin on his fist, elbow on the arm of the chair, to fix a center of rotation in the environment, somewhere around Jago's figure. "I was very glad — very glad you came to the airport. Thank you. I wouldn't —"— wouldn't have trusted, was the expression that leaped to mind. He wasn't censoring quickly enough. He'd made himself a maze of syntax. "— wouldn't have had such confidence in strangers."

Damn, he wasn't sure how that parsed, either. He might just have insulted Saidin and the whole staff. He couldn't remember the front end of his own sentence.

"No difficulty at all," Banichi said. "Jago and I will establish ourselves in the red and the blue rooms, nearest your own, if that's agreeable."

"Of course." He didn't know how Banichi stayed on his feet: Banichi was walking wounded himself, limping slightly all through their tour about the apartment, but Banichi went on functioning, because that was the kind of man Banichi was, while the paidhi —

"Nadi Bren?"

The room went quite around. And around. He shut his eyes a second, until it stopped, and he drew a shaky breath. "Nadiin," he said, determined to settle some details — what was going on, and why the extraordinary security, "is there anything else you can tell me about my situation? Is there a threat, a difficulty, a matter under debate?"

"All three," Jago said.

"Regarding the ship over our heads?"

"Among other small matters," Banichi said. "I regret, Tabini-aiji mustsee you as soon as possible, nand' paid-hi. I know you'd rather be in bed, but these are our orders. I'll explain your exhaustion and your inconvenience, and perhaps he'll come here."

"What small matters? Whatmatters? I haven't had any news since I left."

"The hasdrawad and the tashrid. The ship. Nand' Deana."

The hasdrawad and the tashrid he could guess. They were in emergency session. He'd understood he could postpone his speech to them by at least the term of his illness. The ship. That was a given. He knew that was why his presence and his ability to translate was so vital to the aiji. Touchy, the Foreign Office had said of the course of events with it. But —

"The aiji has not held audience with this Hanks person," Jago said. "He has not regarded this substitution as legitimate."

"But," Banichi said, "certain individuals have indeed approached Hanks-paidhi. Tabini wishes to talk to you about this situation as soon as possible. Within the hour, if you can possibly manage it."

He'd thought he hadn't the strength to get up. He'd thought he'd no reserves left.

But the thought of Hanks occupying his office, holding meetings, as Banichi hinted, with God-knew-whom on her own, making her own accommodations on questions he'd resisted, resisting what he'd already settled — in the middle of thiscrisis —

It wasn'ta phone-call solution. He needed to know what had happened between Hanks and Tabini before he dropped angry phone calls to Mospheira into the mix.

"I absolutely need to talk to Tabini," he said. "Now. I'll go there." The room might still be going around, but he had a sudden sense of what he had to focus on.

Like the apparition in the heavens — which put the entire Treaty in doubt.

Like a woman who'd consistently scored low on culture and psychology, who'd survived the academic committee winnowing process and gotten an appointment as paidhi-designate solely because she had high-ranking, narrow-interest support in the State Department — and a high-level finagle, he was sure of it, had landed her in a damned bad situation for novices.

"I'll advise the aiji," Banichi said.

CHAPTER 3

Tabini's apartment, literally next door and centermost of the seven historic residences on this floor, was no strange territory: a young paidhi and an equally young aiji, both of them suddenly appointed to office with the demise of Tabini's father and the abrupt resignation of Wilson-paidhi — in private, where no politics intervened, he and Tabini laughed and held discussions far more easily than certain powers on either side of the strait might like to think. They were both sports enthusiasts — he skied and Tabini hunted; both single men in high-stress jobs — but he had Barb and Tabini had Damiri for refuge, and they compared notes.

They'd met in Tabini's apartment times uncounted. Scant days ago they'd been on vacation together, hunting in the hills at Tabini's country house at Taiben — where, in technical contravention of Treaty law, which forbade a human on the mainland carrying any sort of weapon under any excuse, Tabini had been teaching him target shooting. In the evenings they'd sat on the hearth ledge in that rural and peaceful house, looking forward to tomorrow and exchanging grandiose hopes for the future of human-atevi relations: a joint space program; trade city contact between their species, from the modest beginning of student computer exchanges —

Now, with their respective armed security drinking tea and socializing quietly in the foyer, the two of them took to the small salon aside from the entry of Tabini's residence — not a room he'd been in before, but Tabini had taken one look at him and ordered the little salon opened, so that, Tabini had said, the paidhi needn't walk another step.