Precursor

And who, like his own security, would have no supper with the rest.

When in Rome, a very old saying went. And this whole station was Rome, and the customs uncertain.

“Kaplan. Would you like something to eat?”

“Duty, sir.”

“Sure?”

Kaplan, behind all the gear, inhaled deeply. The galley fragrances permeated the corridor. The visible eye was wide, nervous, the mouth… a little less resolute.

“Tano, would you see Kaplan-nadi has food?” He changed languages. “Ms. Kroger, Kaplan’s going to have supper with Tano, here. Tano-ji:” Another language switch. “I think we have some of those fruit sweets, don’t we, the ones Jase is fond of? Kaplan might find those a novel taste. Have we enough to spare, nadi?”

“One believes so,” Tano said.

“Ben might have supper with them, perhaps.” Kroger leaped on a chance to shed the translator, who looked somewhat disappointed, doubtless at missing the formal meal.

But if Kroger wanted to talk business at supper, that was the Mospheiran habit: and they might supply Ben quite handily. “Do,” he said. “Gi

“I trust they’ve watched the poisons,” Kroger said.

“Oh, absolutely,” Bren said. “We’ll send along a di

“You’re very well supplied,” Lund observed.

“Always,” Bren said. “It’s just the habit. One I like very well.” He escorted his guests into the room, translated the amenities to Narani and the others of his staff, seated himself and them. Banichi and Jago absented themselves, on prior protocols… not that they necessarily took for granted the lordly rank of the Mospheiran delegation, but out of convenience. Kandana deftly whisked away extra settings for Feldman and Shugart, changed bouquets to a felicitous combination for three, and added a dish of candy so deftly the Mospheirans hardly missed a word in the ru

“Have you heard from the captains?”

“Nothing beyond the appointment I have tomorrow,” Bren answered. “With how many at once wasn’t clear. Definitely with Sabin.”

“Mmn,” Kroger said. “And what do you propose to discuss?”

“Anything Sabin wishes to discuss: reconstruction of the station, agreements for the building they want done. I utterly reserve the discussion of business interests on the station for you and your mission.”

Kroger by no means looked unhappy at that.

“Have youhad any message from them?” Bren asked.

“From Ogun, a request to meet, on what business isn’t clear.”

“Interesting. Divide and conquer? I think we should communicate what we learn and agree. More, I think we should coordinatewhat we agree, present a unified package to our governments.”

“No exterior work for our citizens,” Kroger said definitively.

“Franchises,” Lund said. “Coordinated to atevi opening sections up for settlement.”

“Both very agreeable,” Bren said, “and I leave the distribution of the franchises to wiser heads than mine. The exterior work… atevi will undertake with appropriate safeguards.”

Kroger heard him out, leaning back in her chair, eyes narrowed. A pause that lengthened into significance later, she said slowly, deliberately: “Let me tell you a theory, Mr. Cameron.”

“Bren.”

“Bren.” By now, Kroger seemed amused. “Let me give you a word. Robotics.”

“It’s an interesting word.”

“A very industry-heavy word. And the means by which you mightoperate—the only means by which Mospheirans wouldhave worked outside, had I anything to say about it. Robots are the prevailing thought in Science about how to proceed with station repair, but we’ve lacked certain key information. Information that was in those archives, those damnablyhard to obtain archives. I’ve found the records—two days solid, I’ve spent chasing the information down.”

He’d heard the theories, in passing, but had paid little attention. He was listening now.

She leaned forward. “We lost the robots at the first star, such as we had, which was only the handful necessary to gather materials to manufacture the numbers required to construct a station, is the official word. Instead, our ancestors found themselves forced to use that handful in an environment that chewed through metal as fast as it ate human flesh. We arrived here, found an only marginally less hostile environment, and rather than use the resources, we risked lives to obtain or to repair those robots, and to build new ones, we risked more lives.”

“Why?” Bren asked, not quite the first time he had heard the story, but never in this environment, never with the sanction of a senior representative from Science, never coupled with the understanding whyrobots hadn’t been a viable option. It was something ruled out long ago. Wise agencies had said robots failed where heroic human beings succeeded. It was part of the legend of the arrival at the star.

Kroger’s mouth tightened into a hard smile. “Offically? Officially, two things militated against that piece of common sense, first that we didn’t have the resources to build the robots to get the resources, second, that in the Guild’s management of things, getting the resources was an extreme priority.”

“And unofficially?”

“We suspected but could never prove that the Guild wanted to keep the colonist population busy: by maintaining the extreme emphasis on heroism, on risk, they might keep the colonists willing to relocate. The Guild, according to those records, had a two step plan for getting out of this system. The Guild, according to those records, wanted to relocate to Maudit.”

This was new, utterly. Maudit, the place Kroger was saying the Guild had wanted to go, was the next system-site out from the earth of the atevi, a not-quite-planet in a thick asteroid belt.

“The Guild hopedwe’d go on to our target star once we’d just gathered resources here. This spot, in orbit around an i

Lethal. The possibilities he’d begun to imagine took a severe blow.

“Do those mining robots still exist?”

“Hard to say. The big robots, the extrusion molders, survived—the station itself is evidence of that. They seem still to exist—somewhere on this station, according to the records. But the smaller ones, the machines that could safely mine the asteroids…” She shrugged. “The Guild has only opened a fraction of the station up so far. From those records, I believe one or two might still be in storage in Section Five. Most were ca

“Can we make them work?”

“Mr. Cameron… Bren… ifthey still exist, ifyour atevi can make them run, they may well function, but they won’t work. Hardening. That’s another word I give to you. The lack of it on our initial equipment is why we suffered so much damage: we weren’t prepared for the environment we went into; we damn sure weren’t prepared for this one. The problem with making the miner-bots work, then, launched in a dirty system with minimal information, was getting the resources for spare parts. The problem with making them work nowand with any degree of economic viability is making them less vulnerable. In that archive, we have specifications, however none of them are going to enable a robot ora ma