Politics, politics, politics. Everyone won a little. Everyone made sacrifices and gained benefits from the collective effort. Mospheirans compromised their dearly-held comforts to come up here, and had the benefits of advanced human medicine, not to mention the whole library of human achievement—the fabled human archive that the ship had sent down to the island. Atevi meanwhile shoved the throttle wide on their economy and risked destabilizing the most stable government the world had ever known, but theydrew down numbers from the heavens, too, mathematical certainties that could unify their number-loving culture in ways humans could only imagine, a delight that all but made toes curl.

So if Phoenixcrew ate vat-cultures and endured the worst jobs and slept aboard the ship to afford better accommodations to their world-born labor force, then they wanted something tangible for that sacrifice, too. And what logically did they want? We deserve to have our priorities addressed, too, had been the general cry from the ship-folk. They wanted to know that their ship, their whole world—and the defense of the whole solar system if anything went disastrously wrong in their estimation of the situation—wasn’t sitting dead at dock.

In that sense, the shunting of resources to that operation was a reasonable act.

But, God, Phoenixhad an appetite: they’d spent as much resource on Phoenix, which they sincerely hoped would stay motionless at dock, as they’d spent on the station with a population now in the tens of thousands. Three whole damned yearsof high-priority labor, fueling that ship, with just enough left over for the station, while certain things fell apart from sheer lack of exterior maintenance and manpower. Ginny’s new robots would help bring the station restoration back to speed, but they’d slowed the whole program to accommodate Ramirez’s insistence on refueling.

The aiji had accommodated Ramirez. So had the President of Mospheira. That was the plain fact. Mospheirans and atevi alike owed Stani Ramirez for his level-headedness against bad decisions in his own command structure—they owed him for his clear vision and his continual smoothing of the way ahead. And they wanted to strengthen his hand in the Captains’ Council, one supposed.

So, well, hell, if the ship-fueling kept Ramirez happy, Ramirez kept the ship-folk steady at their work.

And it was done, that was the best news. Done, as of this month. Complete. Finished. And nowthey got the robots they’d tried to get up here before last winter.

“ Nadiin,” the shuttle co-pilot said on the intercom, “ take hold. Prepare for contact.” He repeated it in Mosphei’, for their one Mospheiran passenger, though by now Gin knew that warning in her sleep.

They’d fixed the balky docking grapple, among the very first station repairs they’d ever made, and now the docking procedure was routine. First Phoenix, then the station became a white wall in the cameras. The image on the screen came down to the crossbars of the docking guide, and, sure enough, bless that grapple repair, they went in with a grace and smooth authority that brought cheers from the passengers.

Thump and massive click. Engaged. Safe.

Home again, strange as it was to say. Well and truly home.

“ Prepare to disembark,” the co-pilot informed them. “ Thank you, nadiin. Please follow the rope guides and don’t let go for any reason. We can retrieve you, but it’s a large, cold space, and very embarrassing to be searched after.”

Laughter, from the workers who were on their first trip.

“My best to the team,” Bren said to Ginny Kroger as he unbelted, knowing they would part ways at the lift—Ginny to the human quarter, himself to the atevi. He drifted. They continued null-G at dock: the mast had no rotation, and they simply loosed the restraints, gathered their small amount of hand-luggage and floated up out of their seats on the slightest of muscle movements.

“My best to yours,” Kroger said as the world turned topsyturvy. In that sideways orientation they met Banichi and Jago face to face: “Good day to you,” she said in passable Ragi—and had a courteous answer, at least as far as security spoke to outsiders while on duty.

“Nandi.” Banichi had taken the bulkier baggage from under the seats, and moved with the precision of practice in zero-G. Banichi took the lead while Jago glided hindmost, casually sweeping Kroger into their protective field for no other reason than that Kroger was in their way, harmless, and attached to their company. The workers squeezed aside, waiting to let an atevi lord go first, and only then drifted free of their seats, subdued and decorous in the presence of aijiin.

The inner hatch meanwhile opened. A gust of cold air came in, biting cold. Gloves were definitely in order, but Bren hadn’t found his—and now he recalled where his were, not in the carry-on at all, but in his casual jacket. And thatwas deep in diplomatic baggage down in the hold. The onworld household staff had not been apprized of the fact he would go directly to the spaceport from the ceremony.

Station personnel, meanwhile, met them as they disembarked, cold-suited, masked, stationed there to be sure they used the lines and that no one went drifting out a hundred meters to the far recesses of the docking mast.

Cold—yes. It was cold, a cold so bitter it hit the roots of the teeth on the first breath. Bren used his coat-tail on the safety-line, having no wish to lose skin; and Jago, seeing his predicament, simply took hold of his arm and drew him along. It broke no few regulations—but he arrived at the end of the safety line without frostbitten fingers.

The personnel lift that faced them was nominally sheltered, but it had been waiting a few minutes—it was bitter cold as they entered it. Atevi workers would have certainly understood if the aijiin had taken the lift first and all to themselves, leaving them to wait it out in the cold, but on his standing order Banichi held the lift door open once they reached it, packing the workers in as they never would do in the security-conscious Bu-javid—workers withtheir cumbersome luggage, to the confusion and embarrassment of the protocol-sensitive novices. On the planet, common folk had no wish to mingle too closely with aijiin, who sometimes drew bullets. Up here, there were no bullets to fear—but there was the consideration of frozen fingers and power-conservation.

“A different world up here, nadiin,” Bren said to all and sundry. “Here we do differently. Pack in. Pack in close. Customs will meet you downstairs.”

They all made it in, pressed body to body. Banichi pushed the button and the lift banged into motion, bringing the floor up under their feet.

Baggage settled. The air warmed with the body-heat of a packed elevator—the other reason for packing it close—and Bren, with his hands beneath his arms, drew breaths of air that no longer quite burned his lungs.

Atevi spring court dress was not adequate for this transit, even with the vest. Ginny was far more comfortable in the tatty parka, and had the hood up. Rime was on the metal as the car stopped at the station main deck and let them out into customs—a set of tables and low-level x-ray and sniffer apparatus easily rolled in to meet the flight—in what was otherwise an ordinary station corridor.

“Let the paidhiin out!” the cry was within the lift, and workers pressed back in an effort to give him and Ginny the scant courtesy they could manage. Those nearest the door had to get out first, all the same, and simply bowed as they walked out through customs—a privilege of rank they didn’t decline.

There they parted, having their own separate welcoming parties waiting. For him, Tano and Algini were both there, welcome sight—tall, black figures in black-and-silver uniform. Kate Shugart, from Ginny Kroger’s staff, had come to welcome her. The hellos were warm enough, and reciprocal between staffs, but: the cold above had set into travelers’ bones, and the desire for a warm drink and home overwhelmed any inclination to linger for social pleasantries.