Precursor

“So I have the Heritage party for guests.” He’d picked up the prior signals of Kroger’s attitudes, the unconscious statements of prejudice; he didn’t see them in evidence at this table, in this room. He took that for a signal, perhaps, of a woman who’d adopted protective coloration, perhaps in a bid for survival.”

“Certainly not Hanks’ followers,” Kroger said. “Neither one of us. I’m not a dogmatist; I’m a scientist. Tom’s an economist, performs wizardry, odd moments of magic, I don’t know what; but he’s no more a follower of Hanks than I am or you are.”

“That’s quite good news.”

“There was quiet cheering inside the party when the invasion bounced off the shores,” Lund said. “That’s not publicized, but, God, that wasn’t a direction we ought to have gone, and no few of us knew it. We didn’t have the means to stop it. There was cheering in some quarters when the ship came back; there isn’t, yet, in others, and in some surprising quarters: some of the pro-spacers don’t want it. They’d wanted to do it themselves, if you want the honest truth; they damned sure didn’t want another Guild dominion.”

“I know these people,” Bren said quietly.

“Robotics,” Kroger reiterated. “What we should have done from the begi

And from Tom Lund: “You’re not alone, Bren. Not you, not the atevi. Others share your enthusiasm for this new opportunity. Believe that, if nothing else.”

“I do believe you,” he said. “And I’m very willing to take this to the aiji with a strong recommendation.”

There was a small silence at the table, a trembling, hope-fraught kind of silence.

“Well!” Lund said. “ Well!Good! But I trust this room is secure. We understand your principals are rather good at that sort of thing.”

“They are.”

“Promise Sabin what you have to,” Lund said quietly, “and let’s get our own agreement nailed down, together, present a deal signed and sealed. Thentell the captains.”

Bren gave a small, conscious smile, thinking to himself that these two were a tolerably good team. Sometimes Kroger seemed in charge, sometimes Lund, and he began to get the feeling that they were accustomed to sandbagging their way to agreements, much as the aiji was.

But these two were from inside the Heritage establishment, the pro-space wing, perhaps, perhaps some more convolute— associationwas an atevi word, one with emotional depth, and implicit unity. Coalitionof interests seemed more apt, a human way of operating quite similar and quite different from ways atevi would understand.

“I’ll reserve what we’ve discussed,” he said, “and we’ll continue discussing it. This venue is secure. It’s one reason I encouraged you to come here. I hope you’ll come back.”

“Every intention to,” Kroger said.

It was a success, an unqualified success, Bren said to himself. Obstacles were falling down left and right because the situation mandated cooperation and old, old rivalries and attitudes didn’t survive the encounter. It wasn’t histriumph; it was the triumph of basic common sense, after a long night of bad decisions. Three years of diminished power for Gaylord Hanks and Mospheirans had gathered up their wits and brought the likes of Gi

Thank God, he thought.

The servants had carried on their business in near-silence, dealing in small signals, whisking courses onto and off the table. Only at the end, Bren signaled Narani to come and meet the guests, whom he introduced in Ragi, with translation, and said, in Mosphei’, “A nod of the head is courteous. One doesn’t rise or take their hands.”

His guests showed that courtesy; the servant staff lined up and bowed in great delight, and there were smiles all around, that gesture both species, both remote genetic heritages, shared… he’d never so much wondered at it or thought it odd until he saw Bindanda and Kroger smile at each other, both looking entirely self-conscious, each in their own native way… convenient in an upright species to unfocus the hunting gaze, perhaps, this bowing and smiling: hard to glare and smile simultaneously.

“Very fine,” he said in Ragi. “Thank you, Narani-ji, so very much. Is the staff managing with Kaplan-nadi and with Ben-nadi?”

“Very well, nandi,” Narani said, sounding pleased with himself; and courtesies wended toward a late drink and a social moment, which stretched on uncommonly at table. They were short of a sitting room and the lord’s bedchamber seemed less appropriate for foreign guests.

Narani had put together a supper for Shugart, alone at her post; and that ended up in Feldman’s hands as the guests departed, with Banichi and Tano and Jago there to bid them all a farewell, Kaplan in his array of electronics… he had at least put off the eyepiece to have supper, and had stuffed himself with food and fruit sweets, so Bren discovered.

“He liked them quite emphatically,” Jago said, “and had eaten far too much to enjoy them, and wished more. So we quite by chance suggested through Ben-nadi that he put some in his pockets.”

“He was very pleased,” Tano said. “Like Jase, he had never had such strong tastes.”

“One hopes he is careful,” Bren said.

Fruits. Vegetables. Jase called them water-tastes and earth-tastes, and said they made his nose water. It hadn’t stopped him making himself sick on them. Tano knew, and he trusted Tano had warned Kaplan before stuffing his pockets full.

Fruit sweets.

Kaplan’s first taste. Therewas one of the likely first imports. Jase had said he would miss the fruit most of all.

And wouldn’t have to miss it long, if the meeting tomorrow went well, and if they gained agreement with the captains.

Send and receive produced no messages from Toby. A hello, and I have made up our arguments and everything’s finewould have capped off the evening beyond any fault.

But that there wasn’t… that was understandable. He’d been too damned much in Toby’s life the last several years; it was more than time to leave Toby to settle his own life, his own marriage… his own kids. He had to keep hands off.

Meanwhile he had a small flood of messages answering the morning’s mail, answers from the mainland, a note from the office asking on what priority they might be translating the transmission of what was, in effect, the archive, and thatwas a question that deserved an answer on better information than he had at the moment. He needed to compose a query to the University to see whether they might release what index they compiled.

Algini, meanwhile, was freed from his isolation, having had supper slipped in to his station. His security needed a briefing, and he provided it, a rapid, Ragi digest of what he had discussed with Kroger and Lund.

“Computer-operated machines,” he said, but that was too cumbersome. Robotisounded distressingly like a vulgar word for lunatic, which would never inspire atevi workers to trust them.

“Botiin.” he said, which sounded like guideor ruler. “Like manufacturing machines, but capable of traveling out to the job, in the very dangerous regions. One sits back in safety and directs them.”

“Air traffic control,” Banichi said, which summed up a great deal of what atevi thought odd about Mospheiran ways, a system about which there was stillfierce debate, regarding individual rights of way and historic precedences, andfelicity of numbers.

He had to laugh, ruefully so, foreseeing a battle on his hands—but one he could win.

One he wouldwin. “I have a letter to write to Tabini,” he said to his earnest staff. “I want you to help me make it soundbetter than air traffic control.”

They thought thatwas fu