“Call it that. Ready?”

“The ship-aiji wishes to make you welcome to the ship, aiji-ma,” Bren said.

Ilisidi gave a modest wave of the hand.

“You can tell the aiji’s grandmother that whatever arrangements Ramirez made were Ramirez’s arrangements. They’re not mine. I won’t renege on her being here, but I won’t tolerate your native types breaking our regulations or undertaking independent operations.”

“Aiji-ma, the ship-aiji does not consider herself bound by Ramirez’s arrangements, and states strongly that while she will not disapprove your presence aboard, she does not favor it and wishes you not to initiate operations that may infringe regulations or startle ship’s officers.”

“How elegant of her,” Ilisidi said and waggled fingers. “Say that whatever the custom on the ship, business at the table is not our custom. And since she has made a demand, broach the matter of that tape Jase wants.”

“Aiji-ma.” This from Jase. “I beg you let me finesse that matter.”

“You wish to translate, ship-aiji?” Ilisidi asked.

“Jase,” Bren said, a caution, a strong caution—a plea on both knees, if there’d been an up or a down, for Jase to stay out of it, for the whole topic to wait.

“Oh, serve the drinks, nadiin-ji,” Ilisidi said, losing interest in it all, and immediately a servant entered the room from behind the curtain, bearing a closed container. The servant flungthe contents, startling them all with blue and red, yellow and orange and clear and amber globes that sailed all about the premises like so many moonlets on independent courses, to collide and carom and go on moving, sloshing liquid contents. Sabin stared in incredulity and looked alarmed, as if they’d loosed so many bombs. Cajeiri clapped his hands in glee.

“Oh, mani, may we take them?”

“The red or blue for you, young rascal of a grandson, indeed. Bren-ji, the clear or the yellow. Jase-ji, the yellow is your favorite. Let our guest suit herself.” She reached up and snared a fist-sized amber one on its way past, pulled out the recessed straw, and sipped.

Bren reached obediently for a clear globe… the likes of which they had proposed to use on the shuttle, for emergencies. “Captain, the clear globes would be vodka. The yellow, vodka and juice. The others wouldn’t be safe for us.”

Sabin picked a clear one, pulled her straw and drank. “Inventive.”

“Sabin-aiji applauds the ingenuity of the service, aiji-ma.” This, as the staff loosed another volley of planetoids, these white and yellow, which drifted more slowly through their midst.

One trusted the appetizer was safe. It was pureed, to fit through the straw, in internal sacs that collapsed, and sweet, and sour, and could be enjoyed in alternation, while one parked one’s drink—if not in orbit—at least in convenient proximity.

“Delicious,” Bren said. “My compliments to the cook.” Sabin had made a cautious trial, but Jase took to his with evident pleasure.

“Curious,” Sabin said dubiously.

“Sabin-aiji views this as novel, aiji-ma.”

“We are pleased,” Ilisidi said, the full-blown royal we, when onewas far more modest. Modesty was rarely Ilisidi’s bent. “One hopes that our table will be the aiji’s frequent recourse. Do you favor the eggs, then, Jase-ji?”

God, the minefield of royal we, self-deprecating one, and that damned familiar Jase-ji.

Do you hear it, Jase? Do you understand how to answer? She tests your fluency.

“Nand’ dowager,” Jase said with a little—a very little—nod of his head, “a great delicacy in space. I have so missed them.”

Bang. Right back, dead on. Authoritative, lordly, dignified I, not we, not one, either—with no insult about it.

Bren let go a pent breath.

Sabin had, meanwhile, emptied her globe and reached for another.

“What are these?” Sabin asked, forcing a total, appalled shift of viewpoint.

Embryonic lizardshardly seemed a good answer for a ship-bound palate. “An organic delicacy, captain.”

“Different,” Sabin said.

“Translate, paidhiin-ji,” Ilisidi requested of them.

“Sabin-aiji remarks on a novel taste,” Bren said. And added: “Ship-folk are quite restricted in palate, aiji-ma. She is experimenting with new things, not unfavorably.”

A servant had to retrieve Cajeiri’s drink, and sailed it past him. Cajeiri dislodged an appetizer reaching for it, and accidentally fired the drink off at a tangent trying to recover the nudged globe.

“Gently, gently, young man,” Ilisidi said. “Haste only startles what you wish to catch. Stalk your desires. Don’t snatch.”

The servant had secured the escaped drink, and put it into Cajeiri’s hand.

“Yes, mani,” Cajeiri said.

“Learn, rascal!”

“I do, mani.”

“This is an exchange regarding the accident,” Bren murmured by way of translation. “The aiji’s son is, of course, inexperienced in zero-g.”

“Still no place for a teenager,” Sabin muttered, and Bren masked startlement. Now that he realized it, the ship had never seemed to connect this child to Damiri’s fairly recent pregnancy, and on evidence of size, Sabin clearly had not a clue that the boy was six, not sixteen.

“My definitive statement, among others,” Sabin said glumly. “But collective decision prevailed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Far too late to change that misperception, or to renegotiate personnel. They dared not let the captain find it out at this juncture.

“I trust,” Sabin said, “there’s a watch on this boy.”

“Yes, captain.”

“Let me add another statement to the first: no atevi wandering about outside this section without contacting the bridge for permission, until further notice, and this young fellow stays on this deck, period, under any circumstances.”

“Captain, I’ll happily relay that at the appropriate moment.”

“Now, sir.”

He tried to think whether to lie, or whether to proceed; but lying—had its own problems soon to appear. And things could only escalate. Ilisidi, at least, was calm. “Aiji-ma,” he said, “with personal apologies from the translator, the captain considers this urgent. She wishes us not to leave this section without direct contact with her, for a period of time that seems to be impermanent, one gathers until she’s more certain of us, and wishes you not to allow the heir to leave this section under any circumstances.”

“This ship-aiji is very persistently rude, is she not? I never detected this in you, Jase-aiji. It can’t be custom.”

“Aiji-ma,” Jase said, “this aiji is reputed for direct statement and attention to agriculture.”

“Business,” Bren interposed, and Jase blushed.

“To business,” Jase said. “Forgive me, aiji-ma.”

A waggle of fingers. Ilisidi had emptied three of the white globes—empty ones sailed off to be captured and whisked out of sight—and she sent the third away.

“We are not mentioning to the captain that Cajeiri is six,” Bren said. “She believes sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” Cajeiri crowed, delighted.

“Hush, rascal,” Ilisidi said.

“It’s a convenient misunderstanding,” Bren said, “saving argument. And there would be argument about his presence otherwise, in a dangerous place. Human custom is against it.”

“Do you hear?” Ilisidi said. “You must pretend ten more years, young scoundrel, to satisfy the ship-aiji’s expectations of your wisdom, your sense, and your self-restraint.”

“I think the ship-aiji will suspect me,” Cajeiri said sadly, and the Ragi-speakers could not but laugh a little.

“There’s a problem?” Sabin asked.

“The boy regrets his youth,” Bren said. “And amuses his elders. I should urge you, now, captain, in the very strongest terms, to delay further business discussion. We’re now approaching the heart of the meal, which atevi hold entirely sacred. Particularly should there be a meat course, which may, under these circumstances, be soup… be most respectful of it.”