“I need to know what’s happening on the station,” said Ingray again. She blinked open her messages, but she was too tired to make much sense out of what she saw. Nothing from Netano at any rate, and nothing from Nuncle Lak. She sent them both a brief, barely coherent message asking for whatever information either of them had.
“Whatever’s happening on the station doesn’t concern us,” Tibanvori said. “Your friend is right, you should eat something. And then see if you can find some news, I suppose. And get some sleep. Though I’m sorry to say there’s nothing like civilized sleeping quarters here. These people, the ones who live in orbit, they generally just lie down on the ground wherever they are. This room”—she gestured around with the cup of serbat still in her hand—“is a concession to foreign habits. Even the Geck humans on the station generally eat squatting or standing. Though I guess you don’t need anything like comfort or manners when you’re just shoveling slimy animals into your mouth with your bare hands.”
“I can’t imagine why the Geck ambassador doesn’t like you,” Garal said.
Tibanvori made a sharp, sardonic hah. “Well, I don’t much like her, if it comes to that.”
Ingray sat, and took her own cup of lukewarm serbat. She would know when Nuncle Lak’s reply came. There wasn’t much else she could do right now anyway. “Then why are you still the human ambassador?”
“The people who appointed me were not friends of mine. Or my family’s. We have a figure of speech, I don’t know if you have it.” She took another swallow of serbat and used the spoon handle to poke experimentally at a bowl of slowly rehydrating noodles. “Ah, this may be it—kicked upstairs. Being the representative of all humans to an entire alien race may sound important, but not when that alien race is the Geck. They care nothing about what goes on away from their own planet, and only pay any attention when it’s a matter of keeping the rest of the universe out. They don’t want any communication or really any sort of relationship at all with humans, so there’s nothing to do unless a conclave should happen along, and even then there’s really no point to my office. I don’t need to be at this AI conclave, not really. I had nothing to do at the last one, when the Rrrrrr were admitted to the treaty. I might as well have stayed away this time. I only insisted on coming along because there might be civilized food there. So being ambassador for humans to the Geck may sound like a wonderful opportunity, an important job for the most distinguished and accomplished of diplomats, but in reality it’s just a way of disposing me and my career in the most insulting way possible.”
“So why don’t you quit?” asked Ingray, still baffled.
“I do. Every year. And every year I’m told that since my service has been so invaluable and I myself am irreplaceable, the Translators Office refuses to accept my
resignation.” She poked at the noodles again and frowned. “The other thing that might be at the Conclave is someone who’ll help me get away from this hole of a post.” She looked up, then, at Garal. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. You may find yourself wishing you were back in prison.”
“No,” said Garal. “I won’t.”
“Are you sure you want to go back to the Radch?” asked Ingray. “The news right now …”
“It’s my home,” Tibanvori said. “It’s civilization. Where else would I go? Certainly not here. As you already know, there was shooting on the docks just the other day. Not our part of it, as I said we’ve been left alone, thank the gods. But this is hardly a safe or civilized place.”
“Do you have any idea at all what’s happening now?” asked Garal. “I know you said it doesn’t concern us, but surely you’ve heard something.”
Ambassador Tibanvori sighed. “The last I heard, Station Security had managed to confine, who are they, the Omkem? The Omkem are confined to their end of the docks and part of one level of the station itself. I don’t think your Station Security was very heavily armed, so unless there was already a heavy military presence here, either the Omkem commander must be extremely stupid, or taking over this station isn’t what she’s after, and what she’s done so far is just one step of another project entirely.”
“Like what?” asked Ingray.
Tibanvori shoved a nutrient block across the table toward Garal, and another toward Ingray. “How should I know? I don’t live here. What would the Omkem want from you?”
“Access to our gate to Byeit,” said Garal.
“Or Tyr,” Ingray added.
“Well, there you go,” said Tibanvori. “I imagine they either want to threaten the station—or someone on it—to guarantee your acceptance of whatever terms they’re looking for, or this is a distraction from the real threat that’s already on its way here. Not a good time to move, with the Geck here, but they can’t have known the ambassador would have some incomprehensible alien fit over a stolen ship, and the distances involved make it impossible to do things like this on the spur of the moment. Probably the forces here have to act based on when more ships will arrive, and those will be, as I’ve said, already on their way.”
“We have to tell someone!” Ingray cried. Almost alarmed enough to stand up, exhausted as she was.
Tibanvori waved dismissively. “If military authorities here haven’t already figured all of that out, no amount of warning will help them. Eat.” She nudged the nutrient block nearest Ingray. “Get some sleep. Then decide what you’re going to do. You”—she turned to Garal—“have already made your decision.”
“Yes,” agreed Garal. “The ambassador is right, Ingray. There’s nothing you can do right now, and you’ll make better decisions when you’ve had some sleep.”
She managed a few bites of nutrient block and a mouthful or two of cold, soggy noodles, and then found a dark chamber nearby to lie down in. The floor wasn’t soft, not exactly, but it was surprisingly comfortable. She was asleep in less than a minute.
And dreamed endlessly of being in the vacuum suit, of seeing only black through the helmet visor, the sound of her breath loud in her ears. She knew she was dreaming, could feel that she was somehow not all the way asleep. Could sense the darkened chamber around her, thought every now and then she could hear voices somewhere else on the ship, and yet the dream was still there, she was still prisoned in the ill-fitting suit.
She woke. Blinked for the time. She had slept for far longer than she’d thought; at some point the vacuum suit dream must have trailed off and she’d finally slept deeply. The floor had shifted underneath her, had flexed to support her the way her bed at home would have. She lay there a moment, and then blinked open her messages and news again.