Nailed him. He didn't flinch from her level stare, but he didn't find anything to say, either, but, "Yes."

"So?"

"Point taken."

A tone of contrition. "I'm terribly sorry I tried to save you."

"I have it coming. Thank you for trying. Now can I persuade you to fly home? I might be able to get you a travel visa."

"I don't think you can, point one. I think the aiji is keeping me in reserve in case things blow up with your negotiations, or in case the next assassin is on target. And, point two, I'm no use there to anyone."

"It's a fairly accurate assessment. I still think I could get you out as a personal favor."

"Don't use up your credit on my account. There's still point two. I'm not going."

In Mosphei': "It's your funeral."

In Ragi: "Funny. Very funny, Cameron."

"If you'd make yourself just halfway useful —"

"Oh, tell me how."

Assign Hanks the mail. Let her affix hername to it, as if she had the office he was bound and determined to see her out of? Not likely. There wasn't damned much else she could touch without being a security risk to Tabini.

"You could write the everlasting reports."

"I could make the television speeches."

"I'm sure you could. But you do have areas of expertise —"

"I write them, you put your own gloss on them and look good."

"You write them, I delete the nonsense and the speculation and if they're useful I may moderate the report I've already sent in on your actions."

"Son of a bitch."

"That's ruder in Ragi than in Mosphei'. You really should watch the cultural contexts."

"You just can't say a pleasant word."

She was quite serious. He had to laugh. The servants took that for a moderately safe cue to refill the teacups.

"I tell you," Hanks said, in Mosphei', after a mouthful of pate and wafer, "high scores and all, I think there's a reason you're such a miracle of linguistic competency. I think you dream in Ragi."

It happened to be true, increasingly so. He found no reason to say so. Hanks was heading for some point of her own choosing.

"Did you know Barbara was going to marry?" Hanks asked in Ragi.

"No. It wasn't one of those things we discussed."

"What did you think? She was going to be there whenever you chanced in, for the rest of her life?"

"Actually, we'd raised the question. But that's Barb's business, not yours."

"I'm just curious."

"I know you are." He had a sip of tea. "You'll have to stay in that condition."

"You know your face doesn't react? Even when you're on Mospheira, you're absolutely deadpan."

"You lose the habit."

A tone of amazement. "You've really adapted, haven't you?"

Nothing Hanks meant was complimentary, he had no doubt. He didn't like this sudden pursuit instead of Parthian retreat, but he had a notion he was about to get an opinion out of Hanks, and maybe an honest one.

"What are you going to do, Bren-nadi? When are you going to come home? Or areyou going to come home?"

"I'll come home once I'm sure some fool isn't going to screw things up, Ms. Hanks."

"How do you define fool?"

"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."

"Oh, you've done more than wait." Hanks propped her chin on the heel of her hand and looked at him. "You're just so good. Just so fluent. Just so damned perfect. Look at you. You don't even question your ethics, do you?"

"Continually. As I trust you question yours."

"You're slipping, you know it? Going right over the edge. What happened to you in Malguri? What happened to the arm?"

"It broke."

"Who broke it?"

"A gentleman who didn't like my origins. That's always a danger."

"You'd rather be atevi, hadn't you?"

They were down to what she'd been stalking, he decided that: it was a tactic, it was no more sincere than the rest, but it still worked a little irritation — there were the servants in earshot, the woman's associations were closet bigots from the outset, and he didn't want Saidin or the staff exposed to that human problem.

"Ms. Hanks, you're a guest. Try courtesy. You'll like the result."

"I'm perfectly serious. I'm asking what happened at Malguri. What they did to you."

"Ms. Hanks —" He was exasperated. And halfway began to suspect the woman was serious. "They were courteous, sensible, and generally but not universally careful of our small size. I'm sorry to disappoint your well-intentioned though prurient curiosity, but I enjoyed the hospitality of an atevi estate, I made the acquaintance of a very gracious lady, we had to run like hell when rebels hit the place, and doubtless my fluency and my riding and my grasp of atevi numerical philosophy improved under fire, but I don't view myself as other than conscientiously human, irrevocably dedicated to the same objectives of technological parity that Wilson and paidhiin before me pursued, and thoroughly convinced that parity will through no fault of our planning occur in our lifetimes. Speak to the ship up there about the schedule if you don't like it. It's given us no damned choice but accelerate and given us a damnably difficult balancing act not to disrupt our economy or the atevi economy. I recall you did your thesis on economic dualism, Ms. Hanks. Let's see you do some creative work on real numbers, real provinces, real production figures. I'll give them to you. Plug those into your computer, produce some changes, and let's see if you're as brilliant without Papa's research staff as you are with it."

"I resent that!"

"My God, the woman has a sensitivity."

"Linguistics isn't the whole picture, Mr. Cameron. Give me the contact to getthe figures. Don't hand me your lame assemblage of data and then blame my results."

A phone line in Deana Hanks' reach wouldn't please his security. Or Tabini's. It didn't please him.

But Deana's one solid expertise — which wasn't his — was alleged to be finance.

Inherited it from Papa, some said. Or cribbed it from Papa's staff. He'd always believed she had. But the indignation was moderately persuasive.

Maybe there was actual, uncredited ability. Maybe there was substance.

"All right," he said. "I'll see what I can turn up for you."

"To put your name on!"

"Deana —" They were down to the bitter wafers and tea, and he swallowed one mostly whole and washed it down. "If you can work us out a course that won't shipwreck us, if you can even get a hint of acceptable schedule, nobody in the Department's going to think I did it. It's your chance, Deana. It's what you do that I can't. Points to your side."

"Damn you." Her clenched fist came down on the table, but it came down in prudent quiet, and the language was Mosphei'. "Damn you, you're promising them everything, you're giving away for freeeverything we have to bargain with."

"Naighai maighi-slii, Deana-ji. Urgent meeting. Prepare your damn vocabulary in advance." He kept his voice ever so calm, didn't look at her, and poured his own tea, no servant venturing near. "You give me the economic report out of the numbers I'll give you in such abundance your head will swim — you pull that off and I'll recommend you for an audience with Tabini, a council citation and a civic medal. Use university resources, use anysource you like, atevi or human, that's not hot for profit on the situation, and put your theory on paper. I'll listen."