“Fifteen hundred” Jase said, a thunderstroke in a deep silence. The fire crackled, reminiscent of Taiben, of Malguri, old, old places on the earth of the atevi, aboriginal places where fire was the means of heat and livelihood, far, far different than this most modern waystop. ”Fifteen hundred.—Understand, when we built the station, out there, before I was born, there were six thousand; the ship was doubled up, full. When the station went, there had to have been nine or ten thousand people, just there. But we’re the core. We sent out all our population to make the other station; and now there’s just… just fifteen hundred humans alive in space, besides the population of Mospheira… thousands, tens of thousands, six millionand more human beings on the planet, on the island. That’s incomprehensible to us. Precious to us. And whatever you think, nobodywants to jeopardize that resource… an irreplaceable one to us. That Yolanda can go up there and talk about millionsof human beings is so incredible to the Guild you can’t imagine.”

He could. Not adequately, perhaps, but he could.

“But in a certain sense,” Jase said, “when you talk to the Guild, you have to imagine a far, far smaller politics. We differ. We do differ. But we have philosophical differences, personal differences; you can’t even call it politics… certainly no regional differences. Generational differences. Experiential differences. Differences of rank: the engineers think one way; the services think another. We respect the captains; we don’t see the same conclusions; but we have to take orders. We always take orders.”

It was the reprise of a dozen conversations, some of it exactly the same; other bits, and beyond the ship-population bombshell, were new, as if, with his ship-home a reality on the horizon, Jase was recalling details. Details not purposely withheld, only lacking a certain reality in Shejidan.

The same, but different, and Bren listened with all that was in him.

“What are you going to do?” he asked Jase. “You don’t take orders.”

“I’m going to tell them things that aren’t in their database. I’m going to ask Yolanda what she said; I’m going to find her and remind her she can say no. I’m going to tell them they’d better deal with Tabini because they won’t have a concept in their universe how to get an agreement out of the atevi without him. But when my gut knows I’m talking to the captains, I’m going to be scared as hell. All the rest of me is going to want to say, ‘yes, sir’ and do what I’m told.”

“But you won’t do that.”

“I can’t do that anymore.”

“You know we’re armed. That was part of the understanding, that we would have our own security when we set up the atevi quarters on station. That there would be weapons, electronics… bare walls and life support; and we tie our electronics in with theirs, all that agreement.”

Jase drew a deep, long breath. “I’ll be damn surprised if it’s there yet. It’s not an emergency yet; it’s what I said. And the rank and file isn’t going to know what to do with it because it violates a dozen rules. You’ll stare at them, and scare them half to hell. There’ll be aliens among them. You know what kind of scare that is, when we’ve already lost one battle?”

“Not looking them in the eyes?”

Jase hadn’t, when he first came. “They really don’t like that. Try to make your staff understand.”

The consequence of growing up in small corridors, narrow passages, managing some sort of privacy in nose-to-nose confinement. They’d discussed that sort of difference over the last three years.

“I rely on you,” Bren said.

“That scares the hell out of me.”

“We share that feeling,” Bren agreed.

“Time for me to go back. It is time.”

At the root of all their plans, Jason had known he had to go back as soon as the shuttle flew reliably—being too valuable a passenger to send up with the tests. He’d known when Mercheson flew successfully; they’d both known… that he’d get the call, eventually.

“We want you back down here to finish the job, if you want to come.”

“I’ll do what I have to do.”

“So will I,” Bren said. “And I’ll work with you. Tabini will. He considers you in his household. That’s an irreplaceable advantage. When they really want to talk to Tabini, they’d be wise to send you to do it.—Might at least work a fishing trip out of it.”

Joke, but a painful one.

“Safer, this trip,” Jase said. “At least.”

“Flinging yourself at a planet?” It was the way Jason had landed, flung himself at the planet in a three-hundred-year-old capsule with two chutes, the first of which had failed.

“Don’t say that.”

He himself didn’t like all he could imagine, either.

Jase hated flying. He didn’t. But at engine switchover, he’d like to have the whole damn bottle of vodka under his belt.

“I promise,” Bren said. “You want a bed here, tonight? It’s late.”

Jase shook his head. “I’m going to take half a sleeping pill. Try to get some rest. If I don’t wake up for the launch, come and get me.”

“I will.”

“You’re not nervous.”

“God, yes, I’m nervous!” He laughed, proof of it, and didn’t think about the engines. “I plan to enjoy it anyway. Experience of a lifetime.”

“An improvement,” Jase said. “Falling out of space on my second parachute… that was an experience.—Horizons. That was an experience. Riding another living creature… that was an experience. Being onwater higher than the highest building… thatwas an experience. I want that fishing trip, Bren.”

They’d been through a great deal. Even standing upright on a convex planet under a convex sky had been a visual, stomach-heaving nightmare for Jason.

Having a natural wind sweep across the land and ruffle his clothing had frightened him: a phenomenon without known limits. The flash of lightning, the crack of thunder, the fall of rain—how could Jason’s internal logic tell the natural limit of such phenomena?

It hadn’t been cowardice. It had been the outraged reaction of a body that didn’t know what to expect next, that didn’t know by experience where unfamiliar stimuli would stop, but that knew there was danger. He was in for the same himself, he was sure, tomorrow.

“Having no up or down” Bren said, his own catalog of terrors.

“There’s up and down. The station spins.—Didn’t when we docked; but it does now. Low doorways, short steps. It’s the household that’s going to have to watch it, and they never have.”

Atevi, in Mospheiran-sized doorways. And furniture. “Well, an experience. That’s what we’re there to negotiate. Cheers.” He knocked back the rest of the glass. Stupid, he said to himself. It wasn’t wise at all, flying tomorrow, before dawn.

“Cheers.” Jase tossed down his ice-melt, and rose.

Chapter 7

A gleam of silver on a black, imposing figure in the dim inner hall, the gold chatoyance of atevi eyes… very familiar eyes, they were, never failing to observe; his staff had been there. He’d been aware of them. Jase had gotten a summons from outside, and now Jase was under observation, however benign. Someone watched, and that someone was Jago, who waited for him. She bade a polite farewell to Jase and, with Jase out the foyer doors, Narani properly attending, she came back to report as he walked toward his bedchamber, two more of the servants waiting in the hall.

“The staff reports baggage is boarded,” she said.

Bindanda, imposing, roundish shadow, said, “The bath, nandi?”

“Very welcome.” He was tired, mentally tired; he wasn’t going to shake the events of the day by lying down and staring at the ceiling. He knew that Jago would oblige him sexually; he didn’t ask that. She had her own agenda, no knowing what, and he didn’t inquire.

Rather he walked on, down a hallway more comfortable to his soul these days than the geometries of the human-area conversation grouping.