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“What's his status?”

“It's calm, over there. No lockdown. Up in ship-sector, the captains are all awake. Ogun's ordered me to advise Geigi delay his going on-shift until we can get the humans calmed down. I did relay that. Sabin's order was to call you. I told Geigi I'd report back, and that Sabin's watching the situation with the Reunioners. As of five minutes ago Tillington was headed up to ship-sector for conference with Ogun. Sabin's making an official announcement to the Reunioners just about now, what's happened, the reason for the doors shutting, requesting calm, and everybody staying where they are.”

Understandable. Not optimum, but the situation up there wasn't optimum.

“Atevi won't riot. They
will
want to get information fairly soon, so stay in close communication with Geigi. They
will
expect the captains to have a plan and tell them about it. You can break the news to all concerned that we're headed up there. You know the kyo pattern. We're likely to have time. Calm and communication are the best route.”

“I'll relay that to all concerned. I hear we are gaining some time. The kyo shed a little V at the same time as they started transmitting. They're going to be arriving at least a day later. Maybe a lot more if they repeat the decel.”

That was another relief. The knowledge that Ogun had called the second and third shift
Phoenix
technicians on duty was a relief.
They
understood what had worked before. And the senior captains had authorized Jase to bring him into the loop. As had to be.

“With the kyo, we have to do everything the same as before. That
's
official, from me.
Phoenix
has the records. But if anything happens that isn't in the prior pattern, consult me before any response. Just repeat your prior response and stall with that.”

“Understood. I'll relay that. I'll be in touch when I know something more.”

“Right.”
Damn
it. “Tell Geigi call me if he needs me.”

“I will.”
Contact clicked out.

The time? He had no idea. He had no clock in his office: a reminder of time was a nuisance when he was working.

Call Geigi? He needed to do that.

Call Ogun? Tell the senior captain what to do in his command?

He didn't want to get into an argument with Ogun. Mistrust and infighting inside the Captains' Council dated back at least to Ramirez—and likely from long before anyone now holding a captaincy.

Every Captain had his allies. Sabin and Jase had the paidhi-aiji, and Ogun, Ramirez' closest ally, had—unfortunately—Tillington.

This was not going to be a happy divorce, upcoming, Ogun from Tillington. He'd known that before the kyo had entered the picture. Before Tillington had slammed doors shut as if the station were under attack.

Now that the kyo were involved, administrative changes that had had time to work out were coming on like snowballs rolling downhill. He couldn't wait any longer to open discussions with Ogun.
He
had to deal with the man and tell him what was going on and about to go on, without letting the situation between Ogun and Sabin blow up.

And Tillington was in Ogun's office for conference right now.

He feared he might have waited too long.

Jeladi arrived with a fresh pot of tea, quietly set it down and poured it. Jago arrived right behind Jeladi, in uniform, awake and on duty, and bearing his bath slippers.

He slipped his feet into them. They were numb. He accepted the cup of tea, and cradled it for warmth, while Jago and Jeladi waited for information his brain was rapidly sorting.

“Jase-aiji just called. The ship is signaling, nadiin-ji, transmitting as they did at Reunion, so it
is
the kyo; and the news is out, on the station. Ogun has taken command, and is conferencing with Tillington. Ogun has shut down all communication; I have asked it be opened, and authorized a response. Meanwhile the atevi section seems in good order, but Tillington has shut all the section doors, confining both the Reunioners and the Mospheirans wherever they happen to have been at the time. Sabin is advising the Reunioners what has happened. Tillington has likely made an announcement in the Mospheiran sections. I have authorized Jase to release information that we are coming up there. I cannot complain of the orders Ogun has given, though I am uneasy about Tillington. Advise the dowager's staff, Ladi-ji, of all this. Jago-ji, advise the aiji's bodyguard. There is no reason to wake him, but that will be at his staff's discretion. It was well I caught a little sleep. Our day is starting early.”

There were solemn nods and, as quietly, both left.

He sat staring at nothing in particular, and the tea failed to warm him. Staff was already moving about the halls in greater numbers. Day staff was waking, not necessarily fully informed, but understanding the day was starting, and likely getting information from night staff.

The contact with their visitors was not going that badly. There had been
far
worse possibilities.

Now there was a manageable event, but it was acquiring a texture of small, troublesome details—one of which was that he had, pursuing the Tillington matter, been preferentially working with Sabin and Jase, who were
not
in the best relationship with Ogun.

Bet on it, bet on it, Ogun was getting Tillington's opinions now. And Ogun wouldn't be talking to the Reunioners, who had experienced this twice before. Or to Geigi, whose section was the only one not in turmoil. The Reunioners and Geigi were not Ogun's usual contacts. The information flowed as it was accustomed to flow, and in this case, not from the best source.

He wrote a quick note to Tabini:

Aiji-ma, the incoming ship has signaled identically to the ship we dealt with at Reunion. This is very good news.

The signal has just been picked up by the humans on the space station and the news has spread unrestrained to all human sections of the station. I have asked Jase-aiji to relay information to Lord Geigi. Geigi and I discussed this scenario, among others, during his visit here. We have already laid out what to do and in what stages to do it. I have every confidence he is doing exactly that now, and if he encounters difficulty he will contact me with certain coded words. If anything disrupts communication with him, Jase-aiji will contact me. That, also, we have arranged. So I am confident in our arrangements.

Therefore one recommends that the lords of the aishidi'tat should now be given the news to let them prepare their own statements. One recommends this be announced as an impending state visit. We sincerely hope this is the truth.

To Ilisidi:

Aiji-ma, a signal from the foreign ship indicates these are the kyo, and one now has some reason to hope that the individuals we know are part of this mission.

Humans and atevi on the station are being informed of the situation. Transmission from the station has ceased, but I trust will resume soon. Humans on Mospheira will likely get the news as the sun rises if not before. Lord Geigi is implementing plans long since laid. I have advised the aiji your grandson that the lords of the aishidi'tat should be informed at this point. We are not officially releasing the information here on Earth that we are going up to the station, but the station is releasing that information.

The ship is also slowing slightly, giving us a day or two more, but our launch is firmly set and on schedule.

To his staff at Najida: to go by the Messengers' Guild:
Nadiin-ji, an urgent message is arriving simultaneously for my brother. Please wake Ramaso and nand' Toby to receive it.

To Toby himself:

Toby, phone Mospheira immediately. At this point news will be breaking on the station and it will be making its way through channels by dawn, if it has not already arrived from station operations to Mospheira.

The kyo are signaling. We recognize the signal and it is optimistic. We regard this visit as a diplomatic contact. By all signs, it is the kyo we were dealing with.

Tell Shawn all other things apply.

Urgently.

God. One more day. One more day, and they would be on the shuttle headed up there. But now that the news was getting out, public disturbance might make it difficult to get safe transport to the port.

Call Ogun at this point— or keep operating through Jase, whose immediate superior was Sabin?

He didn't personally trust Ogun. There was too much cloudy history there—too much of the very history the Heritage Party pointed up as reasons not to trust the administrators, too many things Ogun had done high-handedly, without consultation with Sabin, since Ramirez' death.

And perhaps because of that clouded history—Ogun's having been a part of former senior command—in his heart of hearts he didn't personally rule out
Ogun
as the origin of Tillington's unfortunate remark.

Sabin and Ogun didn't agree on a wealth of matters—spectacularly, they didn't agree. Sabin had organized the mission to Reunion without Ogun's full agreement. Sabin had hoped to prevent exactly what had happened: another species getting their location.

It was no fault of Sabin's that the mission had given the kyo their point of origin. The other species had very likely been sitting there when they arrived, thanks to moves Ramirez had made, as he suspected, leading the kyo to Reunion in the first place, when their decoy effort failed.

But tell that to a man who had had issues with Sabin for a long, long history of a divided Council. Ogun very possibly had been in command along with Ramirez when
Phoenix
had intruded directly into kyo space—

No way to know that now. Only Ogun knew what Ramirez had done. The other people closest to Ramirez were dead. The surviving crew that had been on duty, with a fragmentary picture of what had happened, might have loyalties to one captain or the other—but they had no whole understanding of what had happened or what decisions had been made and why.

At a certain point, in this current situation, the hell with it. So much unhappy history
should
be cut loose and let go, if they could just let go the distrust and the recriminations along with it.

And if he kept talking only to Sabin—at this critical juncture—he made himself part of the pattern. He could back Sabin all the way to marginalizing Ogun—or splitting the crew.

With Ogun—rested so much information.

And with Ogun—stood a good number of the ship's crew and the Mospheirans on station, who trusted him—for one thing, as the man who'd kept the station functioning when the coup in the aishidi'tat had cut off supply and left them suddenly on their own.

No, the man had been on the wrong side of one historical situation. But on the right side of the other. Sooner or later he had to deal with Ogun, and with Ogun in charge of communications and with the risk of the station sending some wrong signal back to the kyo—
later
did not seem a good idea.

He picked up the phone, began the process to get another station contact, and hoped Jase had been able to get communications cleared.

He had.

And the voice was Mospheiran.
“This is Station Central.”

“This is Bren Cameron, in the name of Tabini, aiji of the aishidi'tat. Get me Captain Jules Ogun. Not his office. Captain Ogun, personally, by whatever channels it takes. As long as it takes.”

“He's in a—”

“I understand that. Unfortunately no one he can contact down here speaks Mosphei' if he tries to call me back. And there's an extreme emergency in progress. Can you give me a time at which he will be
out
of his meeting?
Your physical safety
is at stake.”

“Just a moment, sir. Please wait.”

Communications up there, in whatever Central was active at the hour, was accustomed to his contacts with Geigi, and occasionally with Jase. Probably somebody had to get somebody to authorize a contact that didn't have a precedent, and very likely Ogun had given direct orders not to be disturbed during a series of meetings of his own choosing.

Communications took far more than a moment. Bren began sorting papers on his desk, and thinking. Hard. He had to engage Ogun fast and turn the conversation to the positive. Had to. He didn't want to start with an argument.

Click.

The man
did
have curiosity, from past observation. And he was a bit touchy about criticism.

“This is Ogun.”

“Bren Cameron here, Captain. I know what you've done and so far everything you've done has been absolutely correct, to the letter. I've been following the situation. I have information. Have you a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

“You are now receiving a signal identical to previous communications with these people. This is a
good sign.
This is exactly the pattern of the last contact, which ended peacefully. You should be echoing their message back exactly at their interval.”

“Appreciated.”
The tone was not appreciative.
“And
then
what do we expect, Mr. Cameron?”

Not a happy man today, no.

“Keep repeating the initial message and interval identically, sir, no matter what they send, and notify me if they change it. I'm heading up there tomorrow with the same team that handled the last interaction with the kyo. We'll be traveling express.”

There was dead silence from Ogun's side, no encouragement at all.

“We are bringing up linguistic records from the meeting at Reunion and we will back you, sir. Speaking for the aiji, we place human safety, including yours, on an equal priority with our own. I would also respectfully suggest, sir, that you detach
Phoenix
from the station now and move out very, very slowly to a convenient distance. Doing it later might send the wrong signal.”