“Mr. Cameron, sir,” Kaplan urged him, wishing him to go to the left. Kaplan, a young man, wore a kind of headset, and had swung down an eyepiece, appalling-looking creation. It looked like half of eyeglasses; screens, set only a minute degree from the eye, quite transparent to the outside view.

Such eyepieces could be used for targeting. Bren recalled that. Mospheira didn’t have any survivals of that technology, not outside the close confines of the Defense Department.

And on a thought, Bren delayed for another moment, regarding transmissions down to Mogari. “Ginny, give Shawn my regards when you talk to him,” he said.

“The same to the aiji,” Kroger said, with less than atevi-style formality, annoyed as hell, Bren thought.

“See you,” he said to Jase, before he acquiesced to the guidance offered. It was the parting he least wanted, and Jase knew he meant it: See you. It was another of those mutual codes. But for now he obediently led his group after the crewman, down a short hall to an automatic door.

They passed through that and into a hall that, incredibly, curved upward, exactly the reverse of the situation that had turned Jason’s stomach when he’d faced planetary horizons.

Remarkable, Bren thought… and was glad to know his stomach tolerated it. It didn’t feel as bad as it looked. There was just more upward-curving hallway. And a lot of intersections. He’d seen the diagrams of the station; had studied them with interest, when, two years ago, the whole business of diplomatic establishments had come up and they’d talked about what he could do about the doorways, the sanitary facilities, all the modifications that evidently hadn’t been made as agreed.

But, damn, he thought: he had them in his computer, that small machine Jago carried for him. Since he’d gotten this new portable, and since it went in the highest security Mospheira and the mainland could mount, he’d never dumped a file that he feared he might regret. More, he’d loaded everything in that he could possibly lay hands on, everything Shawn lethim have.

Everything they knew of Phoenixdesign was in there; station design was; the architectural modifications, and ten or fifteen card games and any other piece of extraneity he’d used in the last damned year, and he hadn’t even thought about it, except a passing connection of neurons about having it with him, asking himself, under hasty circumstances, if there were atevifiles he could compromise.

But he didn’t keep the sensitive ones in the portable. Those were in the office computer, under guard. He didn’t take them back and forth to the island, only files atevi and the island shared. Thank God, he thought, for that.

His staff was coping with the perspective and the maze they traveled. Keeping his own steps straight seemed to want conscious effort, but at least the nausea didn’t recur. Most of all, he was glad to have played the hand right in the encounter with Ogun… not to have been settled into siege in a rapidly-cooling shuttle cabin while Tabini slugged it out verbally with the Pilots’ Guild, as could have happened if he’d overshot his limits. Atevi, who chilled less readily, could have lasted longer than he could… but it could have been damned dangerous, no credit to Kroger… none to him for antagonizing the woman.

But that he’d win the question with the captain who didn’t want atevi cargo on his station, he had little active doubt. It was not in the ship’s interest to offend Tabini, as it was not in his own interest or Tabini’s to declare war with an orbiting power.

Ultimately, agreements had to work. Ultimately, Kroger, who seemed to get harder to deal with when fear reared its head, had to work with him.

And with luck, he would do what he’d come to do in the same two weeks as the Mospheirans planned to use. He’d get an arrangement with Ramirez and his brother captains, Ogun included, that let him come and go… and that let Jase come and go. He had no right to add that to the bottom line, and couldn’t spend the aiji’s credit to get it; but he was forming an opinion that if Bren Cameron had any personal credit in this affair, he knew where he was going to spend it.

Seeing this place with its wrong-curving corridors, its endless, same-textured, cream-colored corridors, he understood how frightening Jase had found the variability of a planet. He found thismorally frightening. A machine had extruded this corridor, a huge, unvarying machine. The door insets were just that, inset in an extruded-plastics form, not fighting the curvature except for a slanted sill, and every one the same, every door human height, as the corridor overhead was interrupted by absolutely regular translucent light panels.

It was absolutely the antithesis of hand-crafted Malguri. His ancestors had made this place… and he didn’t recognize it. Heart and mind, he didn’t recognize it.

Banichi and Jago walked just behind him, clearing the ceiling by not too much, trusting his leadership without question as they went deeper and deeper into this maze, deeper and deeper into places human authorities knew and he didn’t. Tano and Algini walked behind them, the staff with the hand-baggage two by two behind that. He was aware of the order every time they passed a section door, and there were no few. The escort took them on and on.

And finally right-turned down an intersecting corridor, through a doorway—theirs, Bren hoped, in acute discomfort, only to be disappointed. There was more corridor, another turn, and again a corridor, another door. Kaplan had to be using that eyepiece to navigate, giving no advantage to anybody who wasn’t receiving the information. Scuffs on the flooring gave the only proof of prior traffic.

Security… for the holders of the information. They’d refurbished this area. Put noidentifying marks anywhere on walls or doors or floor.

“Here you are” Kaplan said confidently, at an apparent dead end that might be only another turn in the corridors, and opened a door.

Light came on inside a room with a bed, a desk, several chairs, and a dressing-area.

“Thank you,” Bren said. “And what for the rest of my team?”

“I’ve no instructions, sir. Far as I know, this is what there is.”

“Nine persons won’t fit.”

“I can relay that, sir.”

“And how do we come and go to our meetings? I have to make an appointment with your officers at the earliest. How do I contact them?”

“Someone will come for you.”

“At very minimum we’ll need more beds.”

“I have no orders, sir.”

“You have a request. This is one bed. Obviously there are other beds elsewhere.” He waved a hand, Tabini-esque. “We need more beds.”

“They’re built in, sir. Can’t move them.”

“Then mattresses. Bags with stuffing in them. I don’t care. My people are not going to sleep on the floor or step over one another. We need more rooms. We need mattresses.”

“I don’t know what I can do, sir.”

“You know how to find out, however. That is a communications link you’re wearing; you cantalk to your officers on that communication system, and I insist you do that or accept all the responsibility for not doing it. Tell them mattresses. Or padding of some sort. I want those within two hours. Rooms by tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll work it out. Will you show me the phone?”

“Phone.”

“Communications, sir.”

There was contact, behind both eyes, glassed and unglassed. The young man stepped inside and touched a wall installation, fingers flying over buttons. “This is communications. This is light. This is up heat, this is down. This is the fan setting. There’s an intercom. You just punch in and wait.”

“What about the other rooms neighboring this one? I’m sure you won’t mind if we open them up.”

“There’s personnel assigned there, sir. There’s personnel assigned all over. This is living quarters.”