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him—Banichi and Jago, his personal bodyguard— bodyguard was only a fraction of what they were, but protection, surely, first and foremost. He was a decent height for a human, and his head reached Jago’s shoulder: Banichi was taller. He was rarely aware of going wired, but he was, thanks to the pocket com, which was always on, and they heard everything, all day—all night, since Jago was, well, considerably closer to him.
    “You know, nadiin-ji,” he said to them.
    “One heard, nandi,” Banichi said as they walked past the common dining room, on their way to the aiji-dowager’s domain.
    “One fears for the birthday party,” Jago observed.
    “Oh.” His reckoning hadn’t gotten that far. Oh didn’t half express his dismay.
    But they had reached Ilisidi’s door, and Banichi signaled their desire to enter. Depend on it, Asicho had made it inside first, using the icy service corridors behind the row of cabins—the staff would break their necks to keep propriety and pass information as servants would in an atevi household. So it was no surprise at all that Cenedi himself, Banichi’s counterpart on Ilisidi’s staff, opened the door for them, almost before Banichi had pushed the button.
    “Cenedi-ji, will the dowager receive a visitor?”
    “Beyond a doubt,” Cenedi said, and showed him past the little reception desk in the cabin Ilisidi’s staff had half-curtained and remodeled into a foyer. The dowager as well as her staff used the service corridors to transit between the various cabins they had turned into an atevi-style residence in this linear human ship, and Bren proceeded to the service access as naturally as to a door, following one of Ilisidi’s young men.
    Beyond, then, into the cold and the dim glow of motion lights in a barren, girdered corridor ordinarily reserved for maintenance. Banichi and Jago would stay to exchange information with Cenedi, if there was anything Cenedi had not already picked up in their interlinked communications: they were as close as two households could get, and very little needed explaining, but it was still the custom, while the Lord of the Heavens froze his bones.
    Bitter cold, for a thin-limbed human nipping through the passages, but thankfully brief. He had only chilled through the outer layers of his coat before Ilisidi’s man showed him, not into her library, as he had expected, but into a nearer room he hadn’t yet visited, which on first sight he realized must be Cajeiri’s own study, with a television and lockers and Cajeiri’s distinctive sketches taped to the lockers—fairly good sketches, for a boy seven-going-on-eight. Reunion Station, complete with the hole blown in it. Sketches of Prakuyo’s ship, odd-shaped and strange. His sweeping glance took in the aiji-dowager seated in the main chair, and Cajeiri standing respectfully behind her. There was a scatter of books on the floor. And cushions. He might have interrupted lessons.
    “Aiji-ma,” Bren said with a bow, lowering his eyes, but taking in Ilisidi’s informality of dress—not the usual high-collared coat, but a mere day-coat. In the muzziness of folded space, even she gave way to comfortable practicality; and the boy was in a black sweater he might have borrowed from one of the security staff, his gangling limbs having outgrown most of last year’s coats and shirts, and hems and seams being let out and let out until there was no more to give. “Aiji-ma.” Straightening, with the ritual second bow. “Jase-aiji reports we are on the verge of arrival— home , this time, aiji-ma. Right on the doorstep of the station, Jase believes, so there will be no great time at all getting to dock.”
    “Indeed.” A spark of lively interest. “When?”
    “I have not that precise a knowledge of the schedule, aiji-ma, but Jase thinks it will be extraordinarily close to our destination, and the ship crew provides the numbers, in the thought the gift may please you.” He drew the disk out of his pocket