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mathematics… he didn’t mention that—didn’t understand it, for one thing. The ateva who was working on the most abstruse part of it was likely a genius… a mathematical genius, in a species that did math as naturally as they breathed; damned right he didn’t understand it, but he suspected a truth he couldn’t prove, that atevi had sailed right past the University on Mospheira and maybe past anything in the lost library, the one they’d lost in the War… no way to prove it. But the Astronomer Emeritus scribbled away, and wise atevi heads nodded; his students thought him brilliant, and the occasional number counters and philosophical fanatics who traditionally made aijiin nervous had focused their energies on the Astronomer’s ongoing work, too stunned, apparently, or too outclassed to take their sectarian battles onto
his
chalkboard.
    A lovable, slightly otherworldly fellow… there was the devil in the design, sweetly philosophical, thinking away, building a cosmos theory that didn’t battle the traditional atevi philosophies, just lapped away at the sand beneath them.
    The two from the Foreign Office, queried by the steward regarding refills, shot over curiously shy glances, as if they feared to open their mouths even to order drinks: advisors in private, no rank. Bren figured that… terrified of the possibilities, because they were the ones who really knew how dangerous the atevi-human interface was… how explosive and how treacherous.
    Lund jovially ordered another martini, Kroger the same. The two translators wanted beers, and Bren asked for vodka and fruit juice.
    The steward went about his business.
    Lund said, when the man was out of hearing in the general roar of the engines, “How long do you figure this new man will stay down here?”
    Cope: deposited on atevi soil some four weeks ago, a man tamely landed via the shuttle instead of flung at the planet the way his predecessors had had to come down… a clerical-looking fellow who’d moved by night and avoided the open sky. They’d learned with Jason. He’d been too sick to go on duty for several weeks… lodged in the space center, since atevi security, sensing irregularity and possibly espionage in his refusal to budge to go to the island, had not let him out of the facility. Jase had gone there for meetings; Cope remained sickened by everything, the smells, the irregularity of lights, the flickering of fluorescent.
    And now Cope was on Mospheira, his senses being assaulted by an entire new set of sights and smells. He’d been, when Bren left him, lying on his new bed, not daring to venture far from his new, completely enclosed, apartments. How long would he stay?
    “I have no idea,” Bren said. “To judge by Jase’s situation, he may not know, himself. Mostly, he was sick for four weeks. Possibly younger systems adjust better. We don’t know.” Jase had said… watch him.
Watch him
. “I’d be damned careful of his opinion. I said that to Shawn Tyers when I met with him, and I’ll say it to you, since you’re going into direct contact with the Guild. He’s definitely senior to Mercheson and to Graham. He’s very sharp, possibly malingering, very much on his own agenda, probably intends to check up on everything Mercheson reported when she went back up.”
    “Alarming.”
    “Since Mercheson didn’t lie, I doubt it’s a problem. That’s what I know. He’ll be looking for resources. He’ll be testing whether the island’s resources exist. Observing the geology from space will tell them some things. Not all. Not whether Mospheirans will work with them, either. Now that there’s a space shuttle and safer access, the ship can risk higher-level personnel down on the planetary surface. And that’s exactly what Cope is.” He had a suspicion the elder members of this group might have friends in the old regime and said it anyway: “The Heritage Party is an embarrassment I hope he doesn’t encounter, but he may try to investigate