“Honored,” Banichi replied in Mosphei’, in a voice that would rattle china. He even gave a nod of the head, signal honor to the paidhi’s guests if they knew enough to recognize the fact.

“Honored,” Ben said. It was his very first chance to speak a word of Ragi to an ateva face-to-face, and the atevi in question disappointingly spoke Mosphei’ to him first. But it was still a life-defining moment for the two linguists. Bren heard the quaver, saw two pairs of eyes wide as saucers, unabashedly staring at what they’d devoted their lives to understand.

Tom and Ginny remained more reserved, staying more to the rear… he knew that reaction, too. One felt smaller than usual. Even the scents atevi brought with them were mildly different. All of a sudden and for the first time, Mospheirans found themselves not in the majority, not giving the orders, not the masters of civilization. It was another life-defining moment, less pleasant than Ben and Kate’s.

“The escort is waiting, sirs,” Banichi said, and Bren translated. “Observe caution on the steps.—Nadi Bren, Jason has gone to the lounge.”

“ Hashe?” He didn’t let it show on his face or in his manner, and he didn’t translate that part. He reined his reaction back hard, though he felt it as a blow to the gut. He’d raced all this distance, left his family early—he’d had to be the one to take the new ship-paidhi to the island when he was ready to go, no question, but dammit! someone could have waited. He’d rushed to get back to have time with Jason… and to no avail, it seemed.

Things suddenly didn’t seem that right on the mainland, despite Banichi’s and Jago’s presence, not with this mission, not with Jase’s.

“The aiji deemed best he welcome the passengers and deal with them. Jasi-ji asks you meet him there.”

“Let’s go there, then, nadi-ji.”

“Is there a problem?” Tom asked him.

“No,” Bren said quickly, adjusting his coat sleeve past the annoyance of the straight pin, relieved it had held, dignity preserved. It had scratched his wrist, minor pain, bringing a spot of blood to the cuff. “Jase Graham’s gone to the space center to welcome you there. The aiji, I’m sure, thought you’d be more at home if he met you.”

“Very thoughtful of him,” Tom said, and at that unthought and rude familiarity, Bren found himself furious, behind a diplomatic mask. Thoughtful.

Thoughtful, hell!Not of him, not of Jase, not of the unusual haste that was manifesting around him.

But having fallen already into the expressionless mode of atevi among strangers, he’d also begun hearing things through a Ragi filter, began to adjust his eyes, so that Banichi and Jago looked ordinary, and it was the humans who looked strange. Such was the order of the majority of the world, except for Jason Graham, and, briefly, Yolanda Mercheson.

And he knew every nuance of his guards’ expressionless expressions, understanding by that immediate advisement that he was being set on his guard, so far as Banichi could go against the aiji’s orders. He didn’t know why, didn’t take anything for urgent information, guard-your-life information, but his bodyguard was just slightly on edge about something.

Welcome home.

“Very thoughtful,” he echoed Tom Lund. “I’m sure the aiji hopes this mission goes well for both the island and the mainland.”

Three times was a charm, didn’t the proverb say?

The fourth launch of a newly-built shuttle, however many missions its exact predecessor had flown in the skies of the earth of humans, still didn’t feel secure, not to him. It didn’t feel that secure to Jason, either, not to anyone who’d sweated through the first, problematic docking. Not to anyone who knew why there’d been an hour-long cabin blackout on the third flight.

Why the rush? he asked himself.

The haste couldn’t feel that secure to the four Mospheirans, either.

Every time he thought about the possibility of a post-launch emergency, with two places in the entire world with a long enough runway, he found his palms sweating. Mercheson had made it safely to orbit. Jase would. He didn’t effectively give a damn about the Mospheirans… and did.

No cargo, well-thought test plans thrown to the winds…

“Shall we escort our guests to the facility, then?” he asked Banichi and Jago.

“As you wish,” was Jago’s answer… elegant, smooth, reasonable, and not a hint in her official bearing that there was ever anything but business between them, or anything in their meeting but well-oiled routine. “The van can accommodate us all,” she said, “nandi.”

With Banichi, then, she led the way down the stairs. The usual van was waiting.

“Watch the steps,” Bren said, starting down after her. All the stairs on the continent were higher steps than standard on Mospheira. He didn’t forget; he didn’t trust them to remember, and turned once and twice, hearing too much haste and suspecting too much sightseeing behind him. Rain slicked the ground. A brisk wind was blowing—tousling the Mospheirans’ hair, disturbing a strand or two of his despite his braid, but never, ever disturbing the precise single plaits that swung between atevi shoulders.

The van rolled forward as his bodyguard reached the tarmac. Banichi and Jago opened the double doors of the van and with the others settled inside, leaped inside themselves with a spring-rocking bound, pulling the doors to after them with a businesslike thump.

The van rolled off on its way, comfortably appointed, windowless, with no access to the drivers, whose identity Bren suspected as two more of his personal guard.

The van was armored: it was never a particularly quick acceleration. It heaved on bumps like a boat on rough water, while humans sat on seats out of human scale, sharing close, jostled space with a species who owned the planet by birthright. The humans stared at close quarters. In dim conditions, atevi eyes reflected gold under bounced light. Jago’s gleamed from her seat in the dark corner. Bren didn’t look to see the Mospheirans’ reaction to that, only thought to himself that Jago damned well knew the effect on humans, knew it spooked him, knew it would spook the Mospheirans, and didn’t take precautions against it.

Jago was mad, damned mad, at something.

Banichi added his stare to the chatoyant glare, and then looked away, not a word said at the moment.

Then, in Ragi, looking at Ben, “Pleasant flight?”

“Yes, sir,” Ben said quietly, in Mosphei’.

Banichi was pushing it and knew exactly which ones of the humans were translators.

Beyond that, it was silence: Banichi prodded, Jago smoldered in silence, and Bren wondered in increasing desperation what could have gone wrong so quickly… besides Tabini’s bloody-minded obstinacy and the Guild’s picking a fight neither Jase nor he could win. Possibly both of them had understood Tom Lund’s unfortunate, offhanded remark.

Ample opportunity for trouble. It was with them. It had gone to the space center with Jase.

The van, having made the long crossing of the security zone of the airport, bounced sluggishly and went down a steep ramp.

Somewhere behind them, massive hydraulics operated… the security doors, inside the space center at the northwest end of the airport, the new wing. Bren recognized the route, had absolutely no question they were on it, finally in it, and safe, at least in that regard.

The van leveled out, pulling to a halt with a low-tech complaint of over-burdened brakes. A thump sounded at the side of the van, someone hitting the doors, and a warning horn sounded outside.

Banichi and Jago left their seats, opened the doors in response to the signal from outside, and let them out into the dimly lighted concrete tunnel of the center. The white-and-black baji-naji emblem was conspicuous on the metal doors that faced them.

It was the emblem of Fortune and Chance, those governors of all cast lots, appropriate symbol for the shuttle as it was historically appropriate for the halls of government.