"I need the phone," she said in a civil tone.

"I'll talk to security." He took a large swallow, and switched, back to atevi. "But if you launch out on this notion, Deana-ji, and if you hold yourself up to the aiji as competent to do this and he extends you the credit and the contacts to try — you risk, should I fall down the stairs and break my neck, becoming the paidhi who couldn't deliver. Shortly thereafter — the ex-paidhi. Possibly the late, dead, deceased paidhi. Does that worry you?"

"No," Hanks said sharply, though there seemed by now a little prudent fear in that tone. "Not your breaking your neck and not my ability, Mr. Cameron. I want the phones to work. This afternoon."

"I'll do what I can. Note, I don't sayI can. On this side of the strait, it's best to hedge one's promises. You should learn that. But you're in it. Good luck." He stood up, having decided that lunch — and his patience — was over. Hanks stood up, and he walked her to the door.

Jago was there. Jago, who delivered him an absolutely impassive stare and stood aside for him to show Hanks-paidhi to the foyer, into Algini's keeping.

He felt Jago's eyes on his back the entire time. She'd been here again, gone again, and came back, specifically, he suspected, to stand in the hall and listen to the negotiations with Hanks-paidhi, who had not made a good initial impression on Jago, not down in the subway and not by any behavior Jago had just heard.

"Algini-ji," he said to Algini, when he reached the foyer, and the station where Hanks' security, likewise Tabini's, waited. "Hanks-paidhi will go back now. — Good afternoon, Deana."

He offered his hand. He didn't think she'd take it. She surprised him by a light, strong grip and, in Mosphei', "It's Ms. Hanks, Mr. Cameron, thank you very much, I'm not your sister. Try smiling. You look so much nicer that way."

He didn't smile. He didn't appreciate the insulting coquetry, in front of staff, but she escaped with that. He wasn't interested in warfare, now, just the cursed numbers however she came up with them.

And interested in keeping her busy. Giving her a way out with her credibility intact. She had to know that it was an honest offer. It was a critical time, and paidhiin weren't that easy come by: the Foreign Office had years invested in Hanks, and she mightlearn — if she learned fast enough.

Noon had come and gone and he hadn't gotten his call from the ship — which, when he realized it, didn't improve his mood. There were a thousand possible reasons, including procedures aboard the ship, including long debates, including a ship that ran exactly like Mospheira, with no one willing to make a decision.

All the same, he'd hoped for sane and rapid agreement. Tabini had hoped. Doubtless the Space Committee would have hoped, and he had that committee scheduled for this afternoon.

He'd almost rather have Hanks' company instead. And that was going some.

CHAPTER 12

The paidhi didn't regularly speak at committee meetings. He usually sat in the corner in silence — he had a veto, which he didn't intend to use. He had no right to speak, except by invitation of the chairman…

"One understands, Bren-paidhi, that there will be changes, and rapid change. And clearly everything we've done and all materials in production — are subject to cancellation. We've promise of a building program that has no specifications, no design, that we've seen. Does the paidhi have any more information?"

"Nothing yet," he said. "I hope, nadiin, as you all do, that when information comes it will be thorough. Like you, I'm waiting for responses to questions. I'd say — there will be certain materials we'll use; we may go ahead with the launch program as a way to lift materials into orbit. There's still the construction for the launch site, maybe with modifications for the landing craft, unless whatever they propose can land at Shejidan Airport. Which isn't totally outside possibility. But we've yet to see."

"And Mospheira? The phones are down again." That was the representative from Wiigin, coastal and in a position to know when trade wasn't moving. "We take this for ominous."

Clearly Wiigin wasn't the only one to take that for ominous. Lord Geigi was on this committee. He wasn't one that Tabini had wanted on the committee, but lord Geigi did have the mathematical, and more, a scientific background rare for the tashrid.

Geigi didn't look happy. Geigi hadn't looked happy during the entire meeting.

"Nand' paidhi," another member asked, "what of Hanks' advice to expect far-reaching change?"

"Hanks-paidhi has decided to work with my office in certain areas in which she has considerable expertise. Economics, chiefly. She's not expert in space science. Nor, you may have gathered, fluent enough to pick up certain shades of meaning. It was brave of her to come across the strait to take up duties while she believed I might be dead —" He saw no reason to demolish Hanks' reputation with atevi, and gave her her due. "But she's straight out of an office on Mospheira and acquiring experience on the job. Thank you for offering her the help you have." That was for the opposition party, whom he didn't want to embarrass. "I think it exemplary of the peaceful system we've worked out that the office was able to function during the crisis, and I thank you in particular for your patience."

"Her advice has run counter to yours," Geigi said bluntly — and rudely — without the proprieties of address. "What are we to think? That juniors are free to advise us?"

"Our advice should not be that different." He felt giddy, blood as well as breath insufficient, or the heart not beating fast enough. Which seemed impossible. Like falling off a mountain. Like a fast downhill, on an icy slope. You could stop. But you didn't come up there to stop. He'd determined on his attack. He launched it. Cold and clear. "Let me be more clear, lord Geigi: in the State Department, there are divergent opinions: those who view that atevi and humans should always stay separate, a view which Hanks-paidhi has held; and those who believe as I do, that there's no unraveling a society that has become a whole fabric. I'm aware that certain atevi are equally apprehensive of true technological parity as if it were a subterfuge for cultural assimilation. That is the point on which Hanks' party and mine do find agreement: that cultural assimilation is not the ideal and not the target. The traditions and values of atevi are for atevi to keep. We know that attractions and change come with advances —"

"Television," a conservative representative muttered.

"Television," he agreed. "Yes, nadi, television. And we should nothave provided the formats for broadcast and news. Maybe the television stations shouldn't broadcast full time. Maybe we've made mistakes. I'd be the first to agree that following our pattern is attractive, both culturally and economically — my predecessor vetoed the highway bill becausehe viewed it as casting atevi into a human development pattern destructive of atevi associational authority, and, pardon me, he found extremely strong opposition to and resentment of that veto. I've moderated my own view on the matter, I understand that there were and are local situations that should receive exceptions, but that's beside the point: one can't carry local situations into a major, continent-spanning development of a technology that's going to disrupt atevi life. The paidhiin have always opposed that kind of development."