“You can’t have that table in a corridor, sir,” was the first comment, and Bren smiled.

“This isn’t a corridor.”

The young man clearly didn’t know what to do with that statement. The door of the security center, fortunately, was discreetly shut. Algini was inside. Tano, Banichi, Jago, and the servant staff stood in the hallway, three of them in operational black, the servants in their usual formal dress, bowing when stared at.

The guide looked at him, clearly disquieted. “Come with me, sir.”

“ Lead,” Bren said, and the guide opened the door. The man wasn’t prepared to have Banichi and Jago come with him, or didn’t like it. He stopped there, looking uncertain, then led on, and Bren followed, with Banichi and Jago last, very clearly wearing sidearms.

There was no conversation, no pleasantry, no curiosity… just a handful of looks at corners, doors, and other excuses to look back, and the young man reported into his communications that he had, “a couple of the aliens coming, too.”

What the answer was to that indiscreet remark Bren didn’t hear. The young man wore an earpiece.

Not the most communicative guide he’d ever had. Bren tried to keep the corridors in mind through the changes, gray and white and beige corridors, endless, same-looking doors, two lift descents, one of which went forward, not down… he’d looked at the map last night, tried to figure where the administrative portion of the station had been, and thought they were in it, but where the captains lodged, whether even on the station, he had no idea.

Three corridors on from the only conversation, they entered more prosperous territory, a place with sound-deadening flooring, spongy, odd-feeling plastic, a bracketed, white-light row of prosperous-looking potted plants, which he didn’t recognize, but they had a fresh, not unpleasant smell. The original colonists didn’t bring many plants; weren’t supposed to, in ecological concerns… though some scoundrels had smuggled down tomatoes and a handful of other seeds from the original station stores; but the ship reasonably had whatever ornamentals had survived. Beside a doorway an airy green-and-white thing sent down an umbrella of runners and little plants. Another, at a turn, had improbable large leaves, unlike anything in the temperate zones of the mainland or Mospheira.

The hallways were no longer blank. Turn right at the green-and-white one, be sure to pass the giant-leafed monster. Jase hadn’t said they had plants aboard… hadn’t known anything on the mainland; but these…

Could they be from the stores on the station?

Or from some completely unknown world?

The doors become more impressive as they walked.

And centermost, at the end… two potted plants and a gold-metal door… clearly they’d reached some place of importance, but he’d learned never to assume that a door led to a room and not another hallway.

But their guide led them to it, pushed a button, opened the door, showed them into a council room with a T-shaped table, four seats at the far side. Ogun was one; Ramirez was the other. Thin hair combed down and cut straight across the brow, hollow cheeks, a mouth that didn’t give a thing to anyone; Ogun’s dark, square face was unsmiling.

But Bren smiled, taking his own advice. He walked in on the even numbers, even balance of seats. No round table here. The captains clearly dominated the arrangement.

“Sir,” he said, “captains.” He walked the length of the table to Ramirez, offered his hand, forcing the reciprocal gesture, and Ramirez rose, the first Mospheiran-style politeness he’d met. “Glad to meet you in person, captain; Captain Ogun, a pleasure.” He extended his hand there, too, and Ogun frowned and rose, taking it.

“Cameron.” Ramirez said, settling, and shifted a glance toward Banichi and Jago, just the least admission of their presence, about which he said not a thing, nor lodged any objection. Ogun sat down.

“Delighted you could find the time,” Bren said. “I trust you’ve spoken with Jase.”

“Extensively,” Ramirez said. “He says you’re here with authority.”

“That’s so.”

“To offer what?”

“What do you want?” Bren asked.

“What we want, Mr. Cameron, is a skilled work crew that we can communicate with.”

“Failing that, a skilled work crew who communicates accurately with their group leader.”

“When do we get the full set of shuttles?”

“I saw number two six days ago. No skin yet, but soon. Fast as it can be done. You want a job done… we have personnel who will be interested in coming here. You came here wanting a base. You didn’t have a way to reach us. We built it. What else?”

Ramirez waved a hand about him. “Make the station work.”

“That can be done.”

“Can you do it?” Ogun asked with a dour, flat stare. “These people of yours have a size handicap, fitting into places.”

“They also have talents, captain, as I’m sure Jase hastold you, which enabled the shuttle out there.”

“Human-designed,” Ogun scoffed.

“More convenient,” Bren said. Ramirez, if he was senior, said nothing, and tempting as it was to come back with wit, Bren restrained it in favor of a calm, respectful demeanor. They were autocrats, no question. This wasthe heart of the Guild. “You wield absolute authority here. The aiji has the same. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association, is a misnomer: the aiji rules the whole of the continent, can manage the industry you need, with minimal difficulty, and will keep his agreements.”

“And push,” Ramirez said, “like hell.”

“He’s an impatient man.”

“ Man,” Ramirez said.

“You arein communication with an alien authority, captain. Man isthe term they use for you and themselves, which is fortunate. Their customs aren’t yours. Their instincts aren’t yours. The first contact of humans with atevi was a success that led to a disaster. If you’d come a century ago, I don’t want to guess what might have happened. No supplies. No help at all from the planet. But very fortunately, now there’s a small association of trained personnel who know how to work with one another, a handful of leaders on the mainland and on the island who understand how to avoid problems, and with a good deal of luck we’ll agree, and make you very happy.”

“Not by throwing schedules to the winds and pressing us!”

There it was, natural consequence of the situation, and it was a case of tiptoeing past it or confronting it, keeping the aiji’s position his own secret, or laying it on the table and playing the pieces where they fell.

He made his choice.

“Being one of that small association of trained personnel,” Bren said, arms on the table, “I would have urged the aiji to proceed differently. Unfortunately, no one on your side asked me or Jase about recalling the paidhiin. That looked like a fast move. It touched off the island, it touched off the atevi, and that was exactly what happened. Jase couldn’t explain why he was recalled. Yolanda Mercheson hadn’t called back with reasons. You may have had good reasons, but I couldn’t tell the aiji I understood, and the aiji decided to find out, by honoring his agreement with the Mospheirans and sending one of their delegations up with his and not announcing the fact beforehand, even to me, since I happened to be on the island and not within secure communication range. That, gentlemen, is a very good example of the communications difficulty we hope to avoid in the future. Fortunately, this misunderstanding didn’t harm anyone. I might have argued with the aiji not to do it; but it was already fairly well in progress. My instincts said not to; I came here on twelve hours’ notice because, frankly, I want to know who I’m dealing with before I advise the aiji what to do.”

There was a small, stone-faced silence.

“Mr. Cameron, you’re pushing us.”

“No, Captain Ramirez, I’m being completely honest. I stand between, admittedly, not a foreign power, but an alien one, and you. The Mospheirans will have promised you the sun on a platter. We in the aishidi’tat know their virtues… and their limits. I, as a one-time representative of the Mospheiran government, know their limits; and I say in all desire to have Mospheira benefit from your protection, that I hope you don’t rely heavily on any offers from the island, because I know who makes them. Fortunately, that’s not relevant. The resources critical to your needs are on the atevi side of the straits, except for a little tin and a little silver, which I’m sure Mospheira will be glad to sell you. That’s my opening position.” He drew a breath, seeing he was already pressing most of the way to the wall. He went the rest of it. “The specifics of my position are actually quite generous, unless you have personnel to spare to run a space station, as I know you don’t. This is the atevi’s star, the atevi’s planet, the atevi’s native solar system; you have a ship that looks to have had hard times, and you want supply. Wethink we can arrange a bargain.”