He had a bite of the toast. Two. He was hungry this morning. And he hadhad a decent sleep. He had his wits about him, such as they ever served to fend off Ilisidi's razor intellect — even if he had spent the night walking hallways in company with a creature whose whole kind might be extinct. It was a very, very old piece of taxidermy. So he'd assumed in Malguri.

"Young man," Ilisidi said. "Come. Is it business? Or is it another question wandering the paths of intellect?"

"Nand' dowager," he said, "I was wondering last night about the staff's welfare at Malguri. Do you have word on them? Are Djinana and Maigi well?"

"Quite well," Ilisidi said.

"I'm very glad."

"I'll convey your concern to them. Have the fruit. It's quite good."

He remembered Banichi chiding him about salad courses. And Hanks' damn pregnant calendar.

"So why do you ask?" Ilisidi asked him.

"A human concern. A neurotic wish, perhaps, for one's good memories to stay undimmed by future events."

"Or further information?"

"Perhaps."

The dowager always asked more than she answered. He didn't press the matter with her, fearing to lose her interest in him.

"And Nokhada? And Babsidi?"

"Perfectly fine. Why should you ask?"

The gardened and tile-roofed interior of the Bu-javid marched away downhill from the balcony, soft-edged with first light, and there was a muttering of thunder, though the sky was clear as far as the Bergid: it presaged clouds in the west, hidden by the roofs.

He hadn't called Hanks on his return. He wasn't in a charitable mood for Hanks' illusions, or gifted with enough concentration for Hanks' economics report, in any form.

He still couldn't get a call through to his mother. He'd tried, and the notoriously political phone service was having difficulties this morning. Could he possibly wonder that the gremlins manifested only on the link to the mainland?

The note the Foreign Office had slipped him declared nothing helpful, just that his suspicions were correct: nothing was being decided where it had a damn chance to be sane, in the normal course of advisory councils and university personnel who actually knew history and knew atevi; everything wasbeing decided behind closed doors and in secret meetings of people who weren't elected, hadn't the will of the people, and were going to, he'd bet his life on it, maneuver to cast everything into the hands of the ship, the station, and those willing to relocate there.

And, worrisome small matter, Jase Graham hadn't called back.

"So?" Ilisidi asked. "You've talked with these ship folk. And now they land."

"Two of them. You've gotten my translations."

"To be sure. But they don't answer questions well, do they? Who are they? What do they want? Why did they come back? And why should we care?"

"Well, for one most critical thing, aiji-ma, they've been to places the Determinists have staked a great deal can't exist, they want to export labor off the planet, they want atevi to sell them the materials to make them masters of the universe, and they probably think they can get it cheap because humans on Mospheira weren't talking as if atevi have any say in the business."

"Too bad," Ilisidi said, dicing an egg onto her toast. "So? What does the paidhi advise us? Shall we all rush to arms? Perhaps sell vacation homes on Malguri grounds, for visiting humans?"

"The hell with that," he said, and saw Ilisidi's mouth quirk.

"So?" Ilisidi said, not, after all, preoccupied with her breakfast.

"I have some hope in this notion of paidhiin from the ship. I think it's a very good idea. I can have direct influence at least on Graham, and he seems a sensible, safety-concerned individual. If nothing else, maybe I can scare hell out of him — or her — and have more common sense than I'm hearing out of Mospheira."

"Scare hell out of Hanks-paidhi," Ilisidi said. "That's a beginning."

"I wish I could. I've tried. She's new. She's quite possibly competent in economics —"

"And she has powerful backers."

"I have freely admitted to it."

"Amazing." Ilisidi held her cup out for her servant to refill. "Tea, nand' paidhi?"

He took the offering. "Thank you. — Dowager-ma, may a presumptuous human ask your opinion?"

"Mine? Now what should my opinion sway? Affairs of state?"

"Lord Geigi. I'm concerned for him."

"For that melon-headed man?"

"Who — nevertheless occupies a sensitive and conservative position. Whom — a pretender to my office has needlessly upset."

"Melon-heads all. Full of seeds and pulp. The universe of stars is boundless. Or it is not. Certainly it doesn't consult us."

"That sums up the argument."

"Do humans in their wisdom know the universe of stars?"

"I — don't know." He wasn't ready to tread in that territory. Not for any lure. "I know there are humans who study such things. I'd be surprised if anyone definitively knew the universe."

"Oh, but it's simple to Geigi. Things add. They have it all summed and totaled, these Determinists."

"Does the dowager chance to have access to Determinists?" Many of the lords paid mathematicians and counters of every ilk, never to be surprised by controversy.

Certainly Tabini's house had a fair sampling of such experts, and he'd bet his retirement that Ilisidi had.

"Now what would the paidhi want with Determinists? To illumine their darkness? To mend their fallacious ways?"

"Hanks-paidhi made an injudicious comment, relative to numbers exceeding the light constant. I know you must have certain numerological experts on your staff, skilled people —"

More toast arrived at Ilisidi's elbow. And slid onto her plate to an accompaniment of sausages. "Skilled damned nonsense. Limiting the illimitable is folly."

"Skilled people," Bren reprised, refusing diversion, "to explain how a ship can get from one place to another faster than light travels — which classic physics says —"

"Oh, posh, posh, classic folly. Such extraneous things you humans entrain. I could have lived quite content without these ridiculous numbers. Or, I will tell you, lord Geigi's despondent messages."

"Despondent?"

"Desperate, rather. Shall I confide the damage that woman has done? He's trying to borrow money secretly. He's quite terrified, perceiving that he's consulted a person of infelicitous numbers, a person, moreover, who let her proposals and his finances become too public — he's quite, quite exposed. Folly. Absolute folly."

"I'm distressed for him."

"Oh, none more distressed than his creditors, who thought him stable enough to be a long-term risk as aiji of his province; now they perceive him as a short-term and, very high risk, with his credit andhis potential for paying his debts sinking by the hour. The man is up for sale. It's widely known. It's very shameful. Probably I shall help him. But I dislike to trade in loyalties and cash."

"I quite understand that. But I find him a brave man — 1 and possibly trying to protect others in his man'chi."'

"Posh, what do you understand? You've no atevi sensibilities."

"I can help him. I think I can help him, dowager-ji. I think I've found a way to explain Hanks' remark… if I had very wise mathematicians, correctmathematicians from the Determinists' point of view…"