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“One agrees,” Banichi said.

“The dowager's plane is now in the air,” Tano reported. He had been watching that situation, minute by minute.

“Good,” Bren said. “One hopes her return will be taken as typical of her sudden decisions. And once we do make the public statement to the people, we shall simply report that what is impending up there is a state visit on the part of the kyo, to which we are responding at a high level—certainly historic, but nothing worthy of general panic. People will need some image of what is happening. Best we shape it in a peaceful way.” Last sip of tea. “But one must also expect the dowager will do as she pleases about releasing information.”

“Cenedi indicates,” Tano said, “that her public reason is a visit to Najida, the matter of the new windows.”

Leave it to Ilisidi, who cloaked her reasons inside reasons inside reasons, and let everyone guess.

Bren nodded. “Once she lands, and from then until we stand in the presence of the kyo,
she
will be in charge. But Cenedi will need to have advice from us about travel arrangements.”

“We are in contact,” Banichi said. “We will keep him advised.”

 • • • 

Mani's plane was landing. And mani would be arriving in the Bujavid very soon, but Cajeiri had no real hope of seeing her when she did. His father would say mani had no need to be bothered, and he could not go to mani's apartment unasked.

So he simply continued quietly making his lists of things to pack, thinking of all the things he might need, what he would want to bring, because—nand' Bren's aishid had warned his today—warned his aishid directly, as if he were grown-up and important—that the public thought he was going with nand' Bren to Najida for a few days, with mani.

About the new windows.

Which was only an excuse.

But it would explain to anybody why he needed court dress despite it being the country.

Nand' Bren's aishid had also warned his bodyguard that he should not attempt to send letters or messages to his associates on the station, either before or after they arrived. Everything had to be kept quiet, secret, and with as little fuss as possible, because there were troubles on the station between the Reunioners and the Mospheirans, and nand' Bren did not want him or his associates up there to be involved.

Nand' Bren's aishid had relayed the question, too, how many seats he needed for his party, and he had thought hard and fast, then answered definitely that he was coming only with his aishid.

He very much wished he could take Eisi and Liedi. They should learn about space. And if he had them he could possibly be more on his own, and not depending on mani's staff—but he also knew—he had heard from his associates—how very crowded people were, and how scarce things were, and he thought maybe an emergency was not the time to try to be independent of mani. His aishid knew nothing at all about living up there. And he did know.

But the station was different than the ship—so he had things to learn, too: he was sure of it.

He wished most of all that he could tell his associates he was coming—and most of all tell them that everything would be all right despite the kyo coming—

But they would not even know about the kyo yet.

And he could not promise them anything about grown-ups and politics. That, he could not control.

So he reviewed his little dictionary and remembered words.

And he so hoped Lord Geigi would have taken his associates into his section and protected them. Grown-ups sometimes forgot things like that when emergencies happened.

He had to trust that, this time, grown-ups were paying full attention.

“W
e trust all is well here,” was the dowager's opening statement during breakfast service, on the windy balcony.

And, toward the end of table-talk, one single question that verged on business: “Have you taken Lord Tatiseigi into full confidence, nandi?”

Bren swallowed a bite of spicy toast. “We have talked, aiji-ma, but little about the nature of the emergency.”

“He will join us after breakfast,” Ilisidi said. She laid down her napkin, a signal that they could come in from the cold.

In fact, there was a to-do at the outer door just as the two of them were taking chairs in the warm sitting room, and in short order Lord Tatiseigi did enter the room, which entailed rising and bowing—not on the dowager's part—and a new pot of tea.

It came down—past polite inquiries after business in the East, and the dowager's inquiries on the legislation—to dismissing the servants for more serious talk. Cenedi and Nawari, the dowager's two senior bodyguards, held the door. Banichi and Jago were with them, and now Tatiseigi's guard, Easterners from Ilisidi's own Malguri, were in the hall to conduct their own briefing on affairs in the north.

Lord Tatiseigi had to take over the legislative effort in their absence, and also had to stand ready to deal with any situation that spilled over from orbit, or any detail Tabini-aiji needed attended in the meanwhile.

But regarding the kyo themselves, Tatiseigi was informed with only the broadest details.

“Have these strangers spoken yet?” was Tatiseigi's first question.

“Nand' paidhi?” Ilisidi deferred the question to Bren.

“No, nandi,” Bren said, “they have not as yet, and we are not absolutely certain they know we have seen them. One thing we do know, nand' Tatiseigi:
we
have experience of meeting strangers, and these visitors do not. In
understanding
strangers at close range—the kyo have only their brief experience of
us.
So what they will do and why they will do it we cannot predict.”

“Are these the people you dealt with?”

“We are not entirely certain. Another set of foreigners seems to live on the other side of their territory, remote from them, and seem currently to be at war with them, for what cause we have no information. If these other people are warlike and hostile, the kyo are, on the one hand, valuable as allies; but on the other—if the kyo have provoked a peaceful people, the kyo pose a problem. I cannot guess at this point which is the case, nandi. We are so very different from the kyo we do not know
why
they declared they would visit us. Likeliest in my own opinion, they have come to see whether we have told them the truth.”

“Perhaps they have come to see our defenses,” Tatiseigi said.

“Indeed I would not deny it, nandi. They would surely be interested to see how advanced we are, how strong we are—”

“And did we invite these people?” Tatiseigi asked disapprovingly, as if these were unbidden visitors at a dinner party.

“Precise exchange of intentions or purposes is likewise difficult, nandi,” Bren said.

“They had,” Ilisidi remarked dryly, “blown up part of Reunion Station.”

“Well, and now they come to
ours?”

One hesitated to argue motivations with Lord Tatiseigi. It was rarely productive. But Ilisidi answered quietly, “As the paidhi-aiji notes, it is difficult to know their thoughts, their fears, or their customs. It is quite certain also they do not know ours, and if they are wise, they will be as cautious as we shall be. They stated, in the limited way we can understand their speech, that they would come one day. And now they have appeared.”

“One does propose,” Bren said, “that we withdraw
Phoenix
somewhat from the station. It might be provocative to do it just as they arrive. One thing we should by no means tell them, aiji-ma: that
Phoenix
is the only ship we have. The ship under construction indicates our ability to build. A hundred more ships could be out and about the heavens, for all they know. Ships do apparently leave a trail, and I do not know how long it persists, but surely there could be other ships or stations in our control, and we shall not tell them otherwise.”

“Which is to say,” Ilisidi remarked, “that we are in fact quite defenseless, but that we must behave as if we are not—since what they do
not
see cannot be demonstrated not to exist. So we shall let them deceive themselves, if they need to be deceived. The humans, Tati-ji, feared their library would fall into enemy hands, betraying our location and situation. Unfortunately, as one understands, the arrival of our ship to recover it blazoned our origin and our path through the heavens quite, quite adequately, which was the chief piece of information we wished to keep secret in the first place. Kyo territory is not, one understands, a deep mystery to the ship-folk or the Reunioners. Humans intruded where they ought not, apparently provoking and alarming the kyo, which may have occasioned their appearance at Reunion Station. The kyo, having received our assurances we shall respect their territory, are here now, surely, to look and see for themselves what we are—or perhaps simply to balance the human intrusion into their territory with an intrusion into ours. We do not know.”

“So how shall we deal with these people?” Tatiseigi asked. “What shall we expect?”

“We are not close neighbors,” Bren said. “We scarcely threaten one another in terms of territory. There is no pressing need for conflict, which could prove expensive in every sense. Atevi understand that numbers rule the universe and readily accept that people may belong to many associations at once. The kyo seem to believe—and this is murky—that associations once made must be permanent.”

“Permanent,” Tatiseigi echoed, frowning.

“We do not understand what kyo mean by associations, or if the word is correct at all. This is one of many things we have yet to understand. The dictionary, such as we have developed it, has fewer than three hundred words.”

“Which is certainly better than we began,” the dowager said, “and a great deal to the credit of the paidhi and my great-grandson, who gathered words and wrote them down.”

“And the young gentleman and yourself, aiji-ma, who engaged them and calmed them.”

“Pish,” Ilisidi said. “We need more words, paidhi. We need precise words and more of them, aptly used, so we may be
better
able to deal with them.”

It was, indeed, what they had for resources.

Given that
Phoenix
was all but unarmed, words were
all
they had.

 • • • 

Time was running. Next day was the fourth, their last whole day in Shejidan, the last day before they would take the train to the port, and the port crew understandably wanted their baggage early. Crates stood in the hall now, about to go downstairs to the train station. Staff hurried back and forth. A grocery order arrived, with a large supply of orangelle concentrate that didn't so much as visit the kitchen before it went straight into a crate with other non-wardrobe items, including real flour, fine cooking oil, and granulated sugar.

Even during the meeting with the dowager, two crates had arrived in Bren's apartment from next door: Cajeiri's wardrobe crate and a smaller one belonging to his bodyguard. Staff had simply stacked them on baggage trucks and they stood there overshadowing the foyer.

“We are ready,” Narani said by late afternoon. “The baggage is ready to go, at your word, nandi. One believes the dowager's staff is likewise ready.”

“We shall send ours the moment hers has cleared,” Bren said, “at your discretion, Rani-ji.”

So the crates began to disappear then, as many as they could fit in the lift at once, until the foyer stood empty. Exhausted staff ate sandwiches, and slept—finally, slept.

Bren's own supper was a very informal affair—the junior cook, a lad from Najida, had presided over the kitchen amid Bindanda's raids on the spice supplies. And brandy afterward was an uncharacteristically solitary affair. His aishid joined him for a conference, but, being on duty, would not take a drop.

“Go to bed, Bren-ji,” was Banichi's advice. “You, above all, cannot become over-tired.”

It was good advice. His bodyguard would continue to work, in shifts. He took his bath and put himself to bed early.

He had talked to staff, and made final assignments. Supani and Koharu were distressed to know they were
not
going aloft. They protested their willingness to go on a later flight, if they turned out to be needed, and he had assured them both that would be a consideration.

But to be set in charge of a large household staff—next to the aiji's own, that was no minor thing, either.

Their distress concerned him, however, at a time when he could not distract himself with worries or second-guess his decisions. The baggage had left for the train station. Staff was still moving about, excited and distressed at once.

To shut off distractions, he took the kyo dictionary to bed and thought and thought, recalling the circumstances and the locale and the expression behind the words he had written down himself, trying to get a clear focus on the syntax, difficult as it was. The language held nothing like the numerical content of the atevi language, and, like Mosphei', was more than a little confusing regarding what was a noun versus what was a verb.

Verbs combined, and seemed hell to figure, in forms and nuance. They were dicey things, like nouns or states of being embedding outcomes, and a few infixes giving clues to desirable and undesirable values.

If they were even verbs. Or if that ancient concept was not misleading him.

Could one negotiate a treaty with only nouns?

Easier said than done.

Did the kyo even have a concept like
treaty?

It was a state of being. So there was a possibility.

His eyes were tired. He was asking himself about abstract nouns while attempting to decide whether there was any internal clue to tell
chair
from
sit
—that was how basic it was. The phonics in which he had written words down were his own system, and he had had to invent symbols along the way. Consonants and vowels were similarly difficult to define. The language boomed and resonated. He had tried to note distinctions. A human throat could hardly manage some sounds. And what he might have missed—or said by accident—

He found his eyes closing repeatedly while he was trying to read, and he finally got up, went to the wall and turned the lights out, then crawled back into bed and burrowed into the covers.

There was an uncommon chill in the air, tonight. Or he was that tired, and Banichi was right: he was trying to do too much himself, wearing himself down before he was really needed.

Time was running. That was the scary thing. He dreamed about girders, and vast cold spaces, where one needed a coat. That was the station docking facility.

He dreamed about a white room, and knew he needed to meet someone there, and could not remember—

Thump.

No. Hollow thump. Rap on the door. He opened his eyes, alarmed, saw a seam of light, a figure entering the room.

“Nandi.” Jeladi's voice. “One apologizes. There is a phone call from nand' Jase.”

He came awake fast, slid off the bed, hardly stopped to snatch up his nightrobe from the end of the bed. Shejidan's night was Jase's watch, the period in which he was in charge of the ship's functions, aboard or on the station. And staff was under orders not to delay any message from the station at any hour.

The office offered the closest plug for the phone. “Tea, please, Ladi-ji,” he told Jeladi, on his way out his bedroom door, and indeed, the office door was open, the light was on, and the phone already sat on his desk. He was shivering as he picked up the receiver.

“Jase?” he said, heart thumping. The floor was like ice. “Bren, here.”

“Bren. They're talking. Signal is exactly the same as two years ago, simple beep and pulse of light, repeating every fifteen point three five eight minutes. Station picked it up right at the last of the Mospheiran shift and Tillington kept them on duty. Discretion in the Mospheiran section is now completely blown and it won't be long before everybody knows. News leaked onto B deck inside five minutes, at least that there was a signal out there.”

He'd had about two heartbeats to think, first, that Jase was breaching security, calling him and discussing the kyo directly, and another heartbeat to think,
Thank God,
regarding the nature of the signal, and a third heartbeat to realize what time it was.

Damn the unlucky chance that it had come in Tillington's watch.

They were now in an entirely different game.

The robe was not enough. And his feet were approaching frozen. He sat down at his desk, shivering. “Immense relief, here, really, at least that it's the visitors we expect. But we've got to tell Lord Geigi officially and we've got to tell the Reunioners and reassure them. What's the reaction up there right now?”

“Communications are buzzing all over, but Ogun called up second- and third-shift ship techs to duty—that's the ones that were at Reunion with us. He's shut down the station com system except for official announcements. Tillington's also shut the section doors in all human sections to prevent section-to-section movement, but he can't hold that condition forever.”

“Is Geigi aware?”

“Yes. Expect a call from him, when he can get it out.”

“When he can get it out?”

“Ogun's locked down com. We're not transmitting at all, except this one call, pending your clarification.”

Good. “Echo. Precisely what we did in the past. Observe their timing. Otherwise normal traffic. Just keep me posted.”

“Relaying that,”
Jase said, and a moment later:
“Also advising Geigi.”