He left a long silence.

“And your atevi can figure that out.”

“No, sir, though they might, now; I’m saying an atevi-human interface might manage to make smarter moves. As a set, we may figure out what we otherwise couldn’t.”

“Makes no sense,” Ogun said. “Confusion’s confusion.”

“No, sir. You aren’t responsible for understanding the atevi; your gut never will do that. Just learn what you should and shouldn’t do. I happen to likethem, but I can’t translate that word and they don’t understand. They’ve given me their man’chi, passionately so, and I can’t figure that from the gut, either, except it’s a feeling like homeand mine, and I know the quality of these two honorable people. You’re not in familiar territory here. Confusedis a condition of life on the interface, but you canknow when you’re with people you can trust. Trust intersects directly with We’re confused, sir, and I know for people who deal in exactitude on both sides, trust comes hard. But trusting the rightpeople is absolutely essential here, or we take on additional enemies when we might have had allies.”

He watched physiological reactions across the table, body language, two men who’d unconsciously leaned back from him leaned forward; Ogun had just heaved a long, deep, meditative breath—thinking, getting rid of an adrenaline rush that probably urged Ogun to attack him, his ideas, and the whole situation that pinned Phoenixto an agreement the Pilots’ Guild had hoped would be very different.

“Think of the planet,” Bren said softly, “as a very large space station with a two-species cooperation that already works.”

“Yes,” Ramirez said wryly, “but docking with it is hell.”

Bren laughed, and immediately there was less tension in the room, less critical thought, too.

“There’s no need,” Bren said. “We do that. You do the technical operations your crew knows how to do, and you teach where we don’t know. You have our cooperation, and with us, the deal’s done, if you agree. Technicalities have to be worked out with Mospheiran authorities, with your various sections…”

“The Guild itself has to meet,” Ramirez said. “You will have a majority on the Council.”

Bren replayed that, replayed it twice for good measure, asking himself if it was really over, if he’d actually done it. He saw a more relaxed body language on the part of Ramirez and Ogun, consciously projected consideration and solemn thought on his own part, and nodded.

“Then we can proceed to numbers, and matters the aiji will govern. The fact that he will have to assure fair, decent supervision of labor is entirely his problem. The aiji will deal with station repairs, the training, labor management, and his own relations with Mospheira. The aiji proposes the area of the station where you have your headquarters and your offices be under your law and your regulation, the same with your ship, in which he has no interest. He proposes that an area of the station of sufficient size be under Mospheiran law, for their deputies and business interests. And he further proposes that the aishidi’tat will govern the entire rest of the station and its general operations under its own law and customs, build to its own scale, and provide your ship with its reasonable requirements of fuel and supply at no charge.” He said nothing of ownership of the station, of policymaking, of war-making, and command of that effort. That all waited on the growth of atevi presence in space, but he also had a very clear idea that Tabini had not an intention in the world of allowing the Pilots’ Guild to dictate to him, once he owned the establishment that fed Phoenix. If the Guild should study the history of the aishidi’tat, it might learn how Tabini had ended up running the continent and, to a certain extent, Mospheira… in the sense that Mospheira nowadays didn’t work against Tabini. But he hoped they wouldn’t concern themselves with old history, not until or unless it repeated itself. Given the history of the Guild, including bringing them a war, he had every determination to see the whole station under Tabini’s guidance. They could shoot him if not… and various interests had tried.

Ramirez and Ogun listened intently, unmoving, perhaps not unaware that Tabini had steered the situation to this point, and meant to go on steering it… perhaps as disinterested in running this station as Tabini was in running their ship or ruling humans.

“We may have an agreement,” Ramirez said. “You will need to present the case to the Guild in general session, but I think you see very clearly what our interests are.”

“I think our interests are entirely compatible.”

“You have to explain it to Mospheira.”

“I have no difficulty explaining it to Mospheira. Ms. Kroger and I seem to have a problem, possibly of my making, but President Durant and Secretary of State Tyers and I do communicate quite well.”

Ramirez gave a small, short laugh, indicative, perhaps, of chagrin at the rapidity of the negotiation.

“Interesting to meet you in person, Mr. Cameron. Jase is quite emphatic we shouldn’t deal with the Mospheirans. Yolanda, interestingly, just says believe you.”

He hadn’t expected that. He gave a slight, tributary nod of the head. “My compliments to Ms. Mercheson. I’m flattered.”

“Jase says you’re the best asset we have.”

“Jase roomed with me for three years. If he and I, given our starting point, haven’t killed one another, peace is possible between our parts of the human race.”

A slight smile from Ogun. There was an achievement.

“Jase has seen what you wanted him to see,” Ogun said.

“Jase could go anywhere he applied to go. He was rather inundated with the workload that descended on both of us. Your shuttle flies, gentlemen. We, on the other hand, worked a very large staff very long hours.”

“The shuttle is a damn miracle,” Ramirez said. “Another Phoenixis far, far harder. Fabrication in space. Extrusion construction. Simultaneously repairing the station.”

“The population of the continent is a classified matter, but suffice it to say, if that is a national priority, labor is no problem. Leave that matter to the aiji.”

“How many fatalities are you prepared to absorb?” Ogun asked.

“None,” Bren said flatly. “But that’s the aiji’s problem. Accidents are possible. Carelessness won’t be tolerated.”

“And meet the schedule?” Ogun asked. “Three years for a starship?”

“Depends on your design, on materials. Transmit it to Mogari-nai with my order, and translation on the design starts today. Materials inquiry starts on the same schedule. We have a good many of the simple conversions automated in the translation, with crosscheck programs; we’ve gotten quite quick at this. We build the ship, we turn it over to you, werun the station our own way.”

“You don’t understand. It has to be built in orbit.”

“Yes, Captain, I do understand. That’s why we have to make immediate provision to get the other shuttle in operation and to get crew housed reliably and comfortably. We’ll rely on you, I hope, to determine what materials are available most economically in space, with what labor force, and what we have to lift.”

“Are you remotely aware of the cost involved?”

Bren shrugged. “There is no cost so long as the push to do it is even and sustains itself. Materials are materials. You won’t deplete a solar system; you won’t pollute a planet; you won’t push atevi any faster than they choose to work. The critical matter is who’s asking them to work, whether their quarters are adequate… and all I say about the second ship is subject to the aiji’s agreement that it should be undertaken as an emergency matter.—Does your ship work?”

That question startled them.

“She works,” Ramirez said.

“That’s a relief.”

“Fuel,” Ramirez said. “That’s a necessity.”