“If we refuse to get up,” Hati said, “we can strike it after morning tea.”

“The Wall may break, and us not there to see it.”

Hati sighed. And sighed again, and sat up, her dark braids, gold-banded, falling loose about her face and swaying against his cheek as she leaned to kiss him. “Up,” Hati said. Hup. That word they used to the beshti. And he gathered himself up. A clean, cold wind was blowing. It would turn hot by noon.

THE SHIP INBOUND was the Southern Cross,Constellation class, Earth origin. That meant weapons, which meant enforcement, which sometimes meant a political presence that outranked a systemgovernor. Routine ship-calls from that distant source arrived only once a year. And their current year was far from up.

Setha Reaux, who wassystem governor, consulted his records, anxiously searching for something regarding that ship, its recent business, and its possible reason for showing up all the way to Concord, to this most sensitive post outside Earth itself…where, if a ship arrived, it was not just passing through.

The Outsider Council was clearly tracking that arrival. Reaux had a call from Antonio Brazis, Chairman of that body and director of Planetary Observations.

The resident ondatofficial, Kekellen, had likewise noticed it, and sent one of his or her enigmatic queries, which had gone to technical committee for analysis, and a careful answer.

Setha Reaux, consequently, had spent last night in the office. He had a call from his wife backed up among the queries from various departments right now. He had postponed dealing with it, as one more straw on his back, likely the breaking point. He’d made over ten drafts of a message to that inbound ship, but, unable to find the right words, had sent nothing to it as yet. Now he feared his failure to salute that ship at first sight might in itself be seen as arrogance or cowardice, and he increasingly believed he had to do something.

A massive globe-garden sat cradled in the corner of the office. Most such globes were small, islands of pure Earth genes, a few algaes, a little wisp of life. Add a moving creature, and complexity increased. Add light and warmth, and life carried on, microcosms of Earth’s evolution, from salt seas to life on land. His globe, imported at great cost from Earth itself, involved anoles, quick, flitting creatures that fed and mated, birthed and died and fed the plants that fed the creatures that fed them.

Concord Station itself was such a bubble, not as successfully self-contained. Theyhad governments that came from the outside and, if not carefully managed, fed on Concord itself.

He drafted another message. He stripped it to the bare, necessary bones: Setha Reaux, Governor of Concord System, to the captain of arriving shipSouthern Cross:

Welcome. We look forward to receiving you, and hope that this visit will be enjoyable.

There. Less was more. No speculation, no apology for delay, justgeneral good wishes, his willingness to cooperate, his total blithe innocence of threat…or the fact he should have said something eight hours ago.

And he wasinnocent of wrongdoing, damn it, except a few questionable items some real stickler for accounting might fault, if an audit started looking for excuses. There were the sports arena solicitations, but they were entirely legal—he was sure they were legal, and he and the board had made peace last year.

Nothing thatpiddling small could have brought an Earth ship out here.

Promotions came out of such unscheduled visits, but his governorship was already the highest rank a man could attain. Some aspirant in some lower post, but with high connections, might, on the other hand, get a promotion upstairs, to his doorstep—Reaux’s perpetual nightmare: that the urgent need to move somebody’s nephew out of a sensitive spot, reasonable enough at the other end of the telescope, could eventually get said nephew promoted upstairs to trouble his life—or even to replace him, since his political connections had been in the prior, more reasonable administration.

Never say absolutely it couldn’t happen. Governments did incredibly stupid things at long distance, and this one had certainly done its share, but his displacement was unlikely. The fact that Concord was the most sensitive spot in the immediate universe—the one in direct contact with the ondat,who could still, in a misunderstanding, devastate human civilization—meant that Concord’s governor most often rode through governmental changes untouched, no matter what craziness—even minor wars—convulsed and overthrew the Inner Worlds.

As for the arena controversy, and all of local politics—silly small issues obsessed Concord’s local news services precisely because Concord had no close connection with events outside its own perimeter. That insularity was why a stupid social tempest in the sports club blew all out of proportion and bounced through every governmental department. It was why the president of Concord Bank and Trust, Lyle Nazrani, had fired the head of the CB&T’s corporate finance department, and then was all over the media in a campaign of high-profile interviews laced with innuendo.

Stupidity. Lyle Nazrani might even try to lodge charges, butEarth wouldn’t give a damn about the luxury seating in the arena or the ownership of the suppliers. It would never question the finance: more to the point, Lyle Nazrani, colony-born, didn’t have the personal connections on Earth to make that issue a threat. The ship had certainly stirred the local rumor mill, made a major to-do in the media, and unsettled the markets. That was the sort of collateral damage this ship could produce just by its appearance, trouble for him to deal with long after it left with its own business settled. But of all possibilities, Lyle Nazrani’s political ambition surely wasn’twhy they were here.

One surety was that if this off-schedule visit had disturbed the ondat,that was a problem with far-reaching repercussions, a problem that concerned more than Earth’s authorities. Foreseeing uneasiness in the Outsider offices, he sent Chairman Brazis one very short message; in effect, call me, stat.

He had answered Kekellen, sent a message to the inbound ship, and invited consultation with Brazis. Now he had to feed something out to the news services, whose initial clamor for interviews had now devolved to half-wit speculations on the incoming ship. So-named well-placed sources had leapt up to recall every forgotten piece of business in his administration and the prior administration that might be at issue—including the construction of the new station and the sports arena, damn them one and all. One news broker in particular he had marked for his personal wrath when all this blew over. And the news had to be diverted. Given something else to cover. Some other headline. We have sent a welcome to the inbound ship, and anticipate a constructive meeting:constructive was a good, a positive word. Let the commentators gnaw on that one. He sat at the center of an informational web and managed it as skillfully as he could.

He’d stayed at his desk, he’d ordered supper and now breakfast in. The news services were lurking out there to catch him on any transit he made between home and office. He had three different terminals active, heard reports from various agencies, went over the last six years’ tax records, and wondered extraneously if he could call in a personal favor from an editor to keep a certain senior reporter’s series on finance from airing. He didn’t want any current quotes floating through the news services.

Chime of an incoming contact from his secretary’s office…the uninvited input passed through Ernst, and most minor nuisances stopped at Ernst’s desk. The major ones, unfortunately, didn’t.

Reaux unhappily pushed the button. “Yes?”