And had he only found out about that change in plans when the shuttle had landed and deposited said senior staffer unannounced on mainland soil, he might have been able to address those alarms. Instead, he’d been shipped off to Mospheira, delivering that same senior staffer from the station, one Trent Cope, to Shawn’s superiors, and now he had to learn of Jase’s imminent departure from a former colleague who had no idea the bombshell he’d been dropping.

Yolanda recalled to the station. Now Jase leaving without notice…

Now Tabini-aiji cleared a human mission to go into orbit and deal with the situation on the station before Tabini’s own representatives could go aloft?

He was more than appalled. He was furious. And having walked onto the plane with the matter with Barb simmering, an unreasoning fury boiled up in him at the sight of human smiles. The friendly greetings of former junior staffers in the Foreign Office grated on his nerves, and two senior staffers from Science and Commerce whose provenance he more than doubted were just the topping on the affair.

He knew damned well what the thinking on the island was: Mercheson had gone up with what shecould report after her sojourn on the planet, and now the island government grew nervous about what she wouldreport about them… justifiably, counting that certain injudicious fools on Mospheira had started shooting at each other in her witness.

The human government had changed three years ago, dumped out George Barrulin and his cronies, put in Hampton Durant as president… cleaned house, so to speak. Mercheson had fled the island briefly for the atevi-ruled mainland, feeling her life in danger among the human population. When the political dust had settled, then she’d gone back to her job… and as of a month ago was up in orbit spilling all the island’s sins to the Pilots’ Guild.

Which was the reason a shuttle existed: the ship that had brought his ancestors to this planet had left again, lost itself for a couple of centuries and then come back to find the space station mothballed, the labor force become colonists on the planet, and the species that owned the planet more or less in charge, despite the delusions of the island that they were the superior species. The humans on the planet had lost a war, agreed to turn over their technology step by step so as not to disrupt the world economy, and never quite grasped the fact that turning over computer science to the mathematically gifted atevi had let the genie loose. Humans on Mospheira weren’t the most technologically advanced beings on the planet… not any longer.

And that technological transfer, two hundred years of it, was at an end, as regarded Mospheira passing technology to the atevi government in Shejidan. Right now the only humans with anything to teach the atevi were in orbit, the crew of the returning starship… the Pilots’ Guild; and the atevi government had turned its attention in that direction. As a consequence, the paidhi, the human interpreter to the atevi, currently one Bren Cameron, as an officer of the Mospheiran Foreign Office, was out of a job; the paidhiin, Bren Cameron, Yolanda Mercheson and Jase Graham, as officers of the atevi government and the Pilots’ Guild respectively, were the interpreters of the new order of business.

Now the ship, as if oblivious to the highly specialized nature of that post, called back both their experienced paidhiin, sent a new man down who couldn’t keep his meals down, and he… he shared a plane with an unexpected human delegation, on their way to orbit, on hisspace shuttle.

Shawn Tyers, always trustable, had not quite answered why they scrambled to this sudden order from Mospheira, when he’d asked the blunt question. People are nervous, had been Shawn’s answer. Average people are nervous. They called Mercheson back.

One could damned well bet they were nervous.

“Mr. Cameron.” Ben Feldman, his own age, courteously rose out of his chair to welcome him with a handshake. “We’ve met.”

He wanted to choke the life out of all of them. But diplomats didn’t have that luxury. He smiled, instead. “Bren, if you will. Ben, Katherine…”

“Kate.” Kate got up, offered a hand, and the portly gray-haired man rose. “Tom Lund.”

And the gray-haired, long-nosed woman: “Ginny Kroger, Science. Dr. Ginny Kroger. Pleased to meet you.”

VirginiaKroger. Out of Science. He knew that name, put a face with it, one of the old guard. And Tom Lund, from Commerce… that was a department of the government just a little too close to Gaylord Hanks and George Barrulin, whose influence had damned near taken the world to war three years ago. Their brilliant management was whyMospheira was renting seats on an atevi shuttle… that and the fact that a few billion years of geologic time hadn’t put titanium, aluminum, iron, and a dozen other needful substances in reach of the islanders, where the current aiji’s predecessors had settled human colonists.

“You’re certainly a surprise,” Bren said. “What prompted this sudden hurry?”

“The aiji,” Lund said as they sat down. “Cleared the visas, like that. No warning. We’ve learned… we were ready, even if we didn’t expect it.”

“What—pardon my bluntness—” He suffered a moment of desperation, seeing a thoroughly unpleasant situation shaping up in what had been the world’s clear course to the future. “What do you expect to get, up there?”

He,at thirty, was the veteran diplomat. The people he faced, with gray hair in the mix, were utter newcomers to the trade.

No one on Mospheira but him had actually negotiated with a foreign power in two hundred years. The Mospheirans from their origins had not been models of good sense in international relations… and now they were rushing to insert themselves and their lack of expertise between two armed powers which had had a diplomatic contact proceeding fairly well and without incident.

And they were doing it at the very moment that other armed power pulled its diplomats back without explanation.

He kept a pleasant expression on his face, knowing he was rattled by the whole situation. He certainly didn’t intend to blow up the interface, not with people he knew were going to go do their best to double-deal the atevi andthe Pilots’ Guild. He knew it wasn’t the friendliest question, but he asked it. “Is this a test run, or is there something specific you intend to do up there?”

“I beg your pardon,” Lund said in distress.

“Serious and sober question. I’m worried. Isthere a reason for rushing up there?”

He saw the flicker of thoughts through various eyes… their remembrance, doubtless, that though they were talking to a human being, and though they were on a first name basis, he didn’t work for the Foreign Office anymore… they were talking, in effect, to the aiji’s representative. The aiji had just cleared them to go, but the aiji could unclear it.

“It’s your government’s decision,” Ginny Kroger said, leaning forward. “We filed the request. We had word last night it was cleared. On your own advice, we cooperate, Mr. Cameron. I believe that is your advice.”

He couldn’t deny that, and he gathered up his self-control, such as still existed. “I don’t deny that.” So it wasTabini-aiji’s doing, more than theirs. The ruler of the major civilization in the world had just reacted to the move the Pilots’ Guild had made, serially recalling theirambassadors for consultation, in effect, and sent up, not his own people, but a complete wild card… a handful of Mospheiran experts, two from the ivory towers of University and State, and two old hands in island intrigue.

God, he said to himself, uneasy at the possibilities, and belted in.

“Then I understand what he’s doing.” he said.

“Do you?” Lund questioned. “That’s ahead of anyone in the State Department.”