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So he did what mani did, and put on a pleasant face, no matter that strange people were very close to him. His aishid stayed right next to him, absolutely on alert; he felt it. But it was scary and exciting at once—and he
felt
these people's attention, felt it as if their anxiousness were propping him up and weighing him down at the same time.

All these people trusted
they
were going to fix things. That was what he was feeling. Their being here was like a promise they were making.

And for the first time the people on the station were not just numbers he heard about. They were
these
people. They became real to him. And he and mani became real to them.

He only hoped he looked more confident than he felt at the moment.

 • • • 

Consternation spread, the moment they got off the lift, one human in sensible brown atevi traveling dress and a dark tidal wave of Guild headed straight down the middle of a station corridor. But ship's crew, who owned this area, clearly knew exactly who they were. At least half the ship's crew had seen such sights before, and security at various points evidently had a standing Don't Interfere order. Doors opened for them, passing the traveling disturbance from one area's concern and letting it into another.

Bren walked at top speed, not out of breath, but keeping pace, moving along the up-horizoned corridor with all the strange perspective that played tricks with earthborn eyes. Lord Geigi's two men were in the lead to guide them, but in point of fact Bren himself recognized a hall he had walked before, the administrative section, where
Phoenix
captains held absolute sway, apart from the other occupants of the space station—and apart from the ship itself.

He didn't personally remember the guards on duty at the end of the executive corridor, but then, the one part of the ship's crew he didn't know by sight—was Ogun's.

“Sir,” the response was, at those doors, before he said a thing. And as the door opened. “The guns—”

“We won't use them,” Bren said, and walked past.

“Sir!”
he heard behind him, and he raised his voice without looking back. “Appointment with the captain! Don't delay us! My guards don't speak
ship!”

It was the last short office-lined corridor to the number one office at the end. A secretary had a desk to the left of those double doors, a young man talking to someone on com as they approached.

The word came back, apparently, before they arrived. The doors opened. But—

“They
stay here, sir.”

“Two with me,” Bren said curtly, and walked on in, Banichi and Jago accompanying him.

Ogun pushed back from his desk and scowled as Bren stopped midway from the door, and as Banichi and Jago took up a position behind him and to either corner of the room.

Dead stop, then. One didn't breathe hard. One didn't give any indication of disturbance.

Ogun, a middle-aged man with intense dark eyes and a complete lack of hair—even the eyebrows—took his own position, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped on his middle, giving no sign of disturbance either. And none of welcome.

“Captain Ogun,” Bren said.
“Thank
you. I'm glad to say the aiji-dowager and the heir-designate are here with me, all in good order. We've brought you what resources we have. Tabini-aiji and the President of Mospheira will wish me to convey their offer of cooperation as well.”

“Sit down,” Ogun said.

No bow was due that reception, just an unhurried nod of acquiescence. Bren took one of the two chairs, arranging his coat and cuffs, with all courtly grace.
I'll sit. Let's talk. But I'm not your subordinate. Sir.

If it were a Ragi lord, there would have been a good quarter hour of tea. Ogun just stared, grim-faced, for a moment. “You've talked with Geigi.”

“I have, sir. I understand Stationmaster Tillington is upset and there is a small situation in progress. I hope we can get past that.”

“You come up here high and wide, apparently with a program and your own intentions. Let me make something clear, Mr. Cameron, if there's been any doubt at all. I don't give a damn for your groundbound politics. And you don't decide things up here.”

“Let me make clear my position, also, Senior Captain. There's a problem approaching this station, probably intending to dock. I'm the best resource you've got, I've met the kyo before, I'm here to arrange a peaceful contact with this incoming ship, and I assure you, I equally don't give a damn about issues that divide you on this station. I don't
have
a side, except insofar as I want everybody to come out of this alive and happy. If we can get past our internal problems and arrange tight control over what signals we send out to that ship, we'll all be safer.”

“You say you don't give a damn. Unfortunately you
are
terrestrial politics,
personified.”

“The Central schedule is disrupted. I take it the issue is Stationmaster Tillington.”

“The
issue
is five thousand unscheduled problems you dumped on my deck, Mr. Cameron! The issue is potential riot and sabotage, which has now gone critical, thanks to the kyo you stirred up. You're here to damp it down?
Fine.
Now explain how you're going to deal with that ship.”

“First off, Senior Captain, I strongly suspect the kyo are here to reconnoiter. I think they want to know what we are, how extensive our holdings are, and how many ships we have. But I don't think I want to tell them that.”

Ogun let go a slow breath.

“So?”

“We know there's another species out there besides kyo. The kyo may be looking for evidence of our dealing with their enemies. They may also want to verify that we haven't been lying in what we have communicated to them. We have very little in common, physically. We don't share the same comfort zone. Trade is certainly inconvenient over such a distance. Maintaining a presence here—I hope is equally inconvenient for them. I think they're here just to look.”

“You're betting on it. You're betting a lot, Mr. Cameron.”

“The extent to which I bet will change as I get information, Senior Captain, and I will be reporting to you as I get it. I'll be hoping for all the help I can get.”

“You brought the aiji's kid up here.”

“The contact we made was through that kid. And through the dowager.”

“As a woman?”

“As an elder. We think. As we think the boy's youth was also a positive. We honestly don't know the age or gender of anyone we dealt with. We guess. But we don't know. It's that basic. We want to re-create what understanding we had, take up the conversation where we left it, with the very same persons we were talking to, granted the person we met is on that ship. We hope he is. We were trying to gain an understanding of each other—despite the fact most of the kyo words we know are things like tables and chairs, food and drink. But that's my skill, sir. That's what I do. That's what I'm trained to do. You on this ship have never made close contact with another species. Neither, as I gather, have the kyo. Atevi and Mospheirans have.
Our relationship
is the equation I think that ship is here to solve. It puzzles them. It seemed to interest them. And we
don't
want to present them the spectacle of quarrels in our midst.”

He left a small silence, then, and Ogun sat staring at him, but with an occasional redirection in the stare, a thought hurtling meteor-like through a mind itself quite, quite foreign to atevi or Mospheirans.

“They're transmitting,” Ogun said, tight-jawed. “They're repeating a series of beeps. Whatever that means. We answer the same. They haven't changed. What's your opinion?”

“That they have no desire to startle us, perhaps. That they're inviting a changed response from us. Or intending to give one themselves as they get closer. In short, I don't know. We've had no experience to tell us, except that this was exactly what they did the last time, and we're doing what
we
did the last time.”

“You think you can talk to them, in some meaningful degree.”

“I'm certainly prepared to try, sir. We were able to meet face to face with what may have been significant higher-ups aboard their ship. The presence of persons of older and younger age among us, notably the aiji-dowager and the aiji's son, did seem to impress them. They may have taken it as proof of a peaceful intent.” He wasn't sure he was getting through to Ogun in the least. The jaw stayed set. He tried something less conservative, involving more guesswork. “They blew hell out of Reunion, but they didn't destroy it. I think they sat there silent and at distance and waited. They appear to have watched
Phoenix
come in when Ramirez was Senior Captain, then watched it leave without removing the population. They then went on sitting there, evidently, for ten more years, knowing what direction you'd gone and probably which star was your likeliest destination.”

Ogun's jaw clenched and a muscle jumped. That was all.

“Possibly they've also been sitting out in the fringes of this solar system for some time,” Bren said, “watching us the way they watched at Reunion. I understand we
could
miss that sort of presence, if they weren't actively transmitting.” And right into the heart of the old feud. “And regarding that, I have a question, sir, that could be important to know. When the kyo spooked
Phoenix
out of their space, back under Ramirez' command, did you come into their space directly
from
Reunion, and did you go directly
to
Reunion after you were spotted?”

The jaw worked a moment. Ogun knew
exactly
what he was asking. And it was extremely sensitive territory. “Not directly. We tried misleading them on our exit, which is how they got to Reunion ahead of us. Unfortunately our back-trail hadn't faded. The back-trail was, yes, what they followed instead of us.”

“So they're
not
communicating faster than they can fly.”

“Nobody can do that,” Ogun said.

“Did you pick up any attempt to communicate the first time you met?”

“No. They showed, and it was Ramirez' decision to move. Fast.”

That mattered.
Phoenix
popped up in kyo space, didn't talk, ran without trying to talk. Just spooked out.

“It helps to know, sir. So we don't know what sort of ship they took you for. We have no knowledge what sort of species they're at war with, either. Or whether they've ever talked to
them
.”

“Meaning?”

“They crippled Reunion. They went straight there instead of following you, and crippled it. And waited. Whether another ship followed you wherever you went in your retreat—whether there's always been just one kyo ship—there's no indication. That ship attacked Reunion, and it's my suspicion they sat just watching Reunion try to recover, waiting for a ship to show up. And when you did come in to Reunion, you found it damaged, you found survivors, and, apparently after an exchange with Stationmaster Braddock, Braddock refused to abandon the station and Ramirez left them in their situation. Am I right? Ramirez kept that communication secret, had
only
his aide in on it, and didn't tell the captains who were off-duty. Did he spot that watcher? Did he spook out and run because of it?”

Silence for a moment. A muscle jumped in Ogun's jaw.

“That's a damned interesting theory, Mr. Cameron. Not correct in all points, but interesting.”

Ogun. The man who'd posed heated objection to
Sabin
taking a mission back to Reunion to recover the human library—objecting that Reunion would have no living survivors.

Sabin had gone back after the library. And Ogun's reason for anger at her was, according to reports, her coming straight back here to Earth once she'd encountered the kyo.

But was it the real reason?

Was there
guilt
involved in that anger? A secret that had eaten Ogun alive and poisoned relations among the captains for more than a decade, now?

“The kyo sat there for ten years, sir, just waiting for that situation to play out. But at some point they went inside the station, perhaps to explore the architecture, perhaps to capture someone for interrogation. The Reunioners snatched a member of their investigating team, and the kyo immediately backed off. Still with no communication. No further interference. And
finally
we came back. When we did, they signaled us. We responded. They let us contact the Reunioners. They let
us
remove them. We retrieved their crew member, we talked with him, we returned him to his people, and through him, we were able to meet and talk with them. We may have talked with kyo fairly high up in authority. But the point is—they
tested
the situation. They waited. They have patience in ten-year packages. So, no, I don't want to rush the communications. And if you
do
know anything bearing on what I've just outlined, sir, without prejudice, without judgment, without any opinion of the rightness or wrongness of what happened—I just want to know. I need information. Correct information.”

Small silence. “Was
Sabin
part of this meeting with the kyo?”

“The participants in the conference with the kyo, sir, were myself, the aiji-dowager, and the young aiji—both of whom have come with me to reprise the contact we had going.”

Ogun's jaw worked. He said nothing.

“We
have
a moderately good record with them, sir: we respected their territorial claim, we retrieved their crewman, returned him to them. We were allowed to take the Reunioners off, we left the area, and there were no shots exchanged. I suspect they
may
have some key concepts in common with atevi—maybe more so than they have with humans. And I will
use
that, if applicable.”