That, on most stations, was that—Outsider government wielded very little power over the station’s external dealings.

But on Concord, there was that other office: the Planetary Office. The Project.

And the project director, holding absolute authority over the Project, necessarily held police powers and regulatory authority, not only equal to the Earth-appointed governor’s authority, but authority that could actually override the Earth governor’s decisions, where it affected the PO’s operations or Project security.

Brazis being both local Chairman and Project Director was not to Earth’s liking: that had been clear when he took the second office. Earth officially didn’t like that combination of powers—in fact, Apex itself was divided on the matter, which had carried by one vote—but it stood, and it was useful when it came to putting his foot down. He had been at Concord for thirty years. Earth was still unhappy about it.

So now Earth sent an off-schedule mission and Reaux wanted to talk to him. Consequently, he had to wonder in which capacity, and whether he would have to put his foot down, or just listen to some financial confession of the governor’s, an appeal for understanding—in which case he would listen, and back the governor, for what it was worth, if it accorded with his interests, and the governor would almost undoubtedly explain to him how extremely it did.

What was more worrisome was the remote possibility that this incoming, very expensive ship had intentions that were going to annoy the PO. He hoped not. It had been a tranquil thirty years.

The governor’s sweeping body scans, in the long office hall approaching the governor’s suite, were fast, discreet, and asked no permission, setting off a flurry of small beeps and protests from his electronics, internal and otherwise. Brazis took no umbrage. His security was armed, he wasn’t, and, by no means on his first visit here, he knew where to leave his escort, at the entry to the governor’s suite of offices. He walked on through the last doors alone, into Ernst’s little wood-paneled kingdom.

“Mr. Chairman.” Ernst instantly reported his presence to the governor, got up and opened the governor’s office door the low-tech way, with the button. “Sir.”

No waiting. No social dance. Governor Reaux rose and met him with a little bow, if not a contaminating handshake…he wasstill native Earther, even two decades into his office.

“Antonio. I so appreciate your coming. Tea?”

He’d been on the go since the ship business had hit the horizon. Which was yesterday. “Tea sounds good,” he said. He didn’t have his scan with him—didn’t, as a rule, trust private dispensers, especially when he couldn’t watch the preparation, but an Earther staff wouldn’t slip you anything but a chemical problem. Reaux wouldn’t have an illicit nanism near his precious person.

“Did you run the media gauntlet?”

“They were out there, no way not. I’m afraid my visit will be on the news. I said it was a courtesy call. They were noisy and unconvinced.”

“Mmm.” Reaux poured the tea himself, from a dispenser tastefully concealed next to the extravagantly expensive lizard globe.

Fascinating creatures, Brazis considered them. They’d come all the way from Earth, intact, in a long-ago administration, and the globe had run for, reputedly, a hundred and fifty-odd years with minimal intervention. The lizards stared at him. Little predators, a whole food chain. A man who superintended the program that reseeded and redeemed the planet had a great admiration for the balance requisite in that globe.

Reaux served him tea in Earth-import ceramic, antique and fragile. And sat down behind his desk for his own first sip.

“You’ve made inquiries about the ship inbound,” Reaux said.

If there was one thing Brazis continually appreciated about Reaux, it was his straightforward, no-time-wasted approach. “Yes. But I’m sure your information is better. My problem or yours?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. They claim someone with ambassadorial status aboard. A consultation. You aren’t expecting anything like this, are you?”

“No reason, I assure you.”

“A five-day visit, routine in length if not in timing. If there is anything on your levels you know that’s going on—I certainly hope you’d tell me.”

“Not a thing.” He hoped his eyes were clear all the way to the back of his brain. The Chairman of the Outsider Council naturally knew a dozen things, including the names of unruly groups and certain individuals who might decide the visit of a mission from Earth was exactly the time to act up, either to get local concessions for their peculiar points of view or to create a racket clear to the Chairman General at Apex. “Naturally certain elements will be excited. They might think of something on the spur of the moment, but I doubt they’re prepared to carry anything off in an organized way. My security is out and about. Do you think you can possibly keep Mr. Nazrani off the news for five days?”

The Earth governor didn’t get to twit the Outsider Chairman about hispeculiar security problems without taking a shot in return. Reaux accepted the jab with a wry, unamused laugh.

“I know enough to make him nervous.”

“But no one of your enemies is nervous enough to act rashly, dare we hope?” Brazis said. It wasn’t Nazrani and the sports arena they were discussing now. It was their own intermingled affairs. The whole sociopolitical structure of Concord was in fact a geodesic, dependent on its little lines of tension. Pinned together by its own sins and the knowledge of those sins, that web held strong and steady, against most minor disturbances. The current cooperation had never been challenged from the outside.

Witness that Concord, ancient as it was, remained a continual point of uncertainty in a very old and essentially stable arrangement. There was Earth and the Inner Worlds, there was the Outsider territory, and those got along.

But given Concord’s unique existence in a bubble inside ondatspace…distant governments, if they were sensible, wished only a report of unending tranquillity from Concord. “We’ll certainly support you, if that’s what you’re asking. We consider your administration progressive and sensible over the last two decades. We very much value our working relationship.”

“I’m flattered.” Reaux could hardly be entirely flattered to hear he was greatly valued by the other side of this ageless détente. Small smile. “But don’t tell them that.”

“By no means. I’ll swear you’re a son of a bitch and I detest negotiating with you. I’ll exit past the media swarm frowning and angry. Do you have any clue what this portends?”

“Nothing,” Reaux said—which Brazis doubted. “Do you?”

“Nothing.” His own dance on the brink of the truth.

“It may be some political hiccup on Earth itself. Such things are difficult to foresee. We can only make sure Concord is secure, from whatever internal sources disturbance might come. I ask again: you’ve heard nothing.”

Maybe it was time for a little half-truth. “The Council at Apex has absolutely nothing to gain from disruptions at Concord. This is the important point, it’s always been true, it continues to be true, and you can assure Earth of this. The local Outsider Council, disregarding all the little trade questions we discuss with your Council, has an overriding interest in continuing stability here. We like our governor very well.”

A small tight smile, a little nod. “As we like our local Chairman.”

“If what’s arrived is Earth’s own problem trying to stir up something for home political value, it assuredly doesn’t need to involve us. This ambassador—”

“Gide is his name. Andreas Gide.”

“Mr. Gide should do his business, ask a few questions, take a physical tour, I suppose, to say he looked or advised. And then go home. They do this, don’t they, every time they need to shore up their own political capital? ‘We have a mission to Concord, we’ve investigated subversive activity.’ I’ve seen one before this, in my predecessor’s time.”