Said Chadwell had not been wasting his time in the Zogreion.

As deputy chief of the United Nations Embassy, it was his duty to act as an ombudsman, representing the needs to the staff of the department heads. The UN Embassy to the Convention of Sophonts had an enormous staff – hundreds of people in more than a dozen countries back on Earth. They had their surveys, their committees, their expert reports — not to mention their territorial squabbles and bruised egos — and all of it needed to be summarized to the Ambassador and the Consul. Said spent half his day chopping up the information sent from Earth and the other half serving it to Li and Qani. His duties brought him in contact with Severo, Nelly, and on occasion Yoshida. He should not have to monitor the Ambassador's personal chef, as well.

Chadwell considered saying so. Maybe not yet.

"I'm sorry," said Koen, miserably.

He stood at the foot of the table in the conference room. Everyone else was sitting, leaning slightly toward each other in a way that communicated on a level deeper than language: now it's us and you.

Qani was first to speak. "This puts the Embassy in a very difficult situation."

Chadwell twitched. That should have been him saying that. He'd been distracted. "What's very difficult is believing that you kidnapped the Pick Ambassador's pet, and now you're standing there hanging your head like a student in uni. Did you think we would chuckle and turn a blind eye to your youthful shenanigans?"

Qani leaned forward, cutting off the diatribe. "I'm curious how you spent so much time with General Graa after you did this."

"To lead him a merry chase, obviously," said Chadwell, face still hot. Unlike Li and Qani, Chadwell really believed that Koen had acted alone.

"I asked 'how,' not 'why,' " said Qani. And to Koen, "You said you believed he was abusing his animal?"

Koen swallowed. "I was wrong. I misinterpreted — "

"That was not your judgment to make," thundered Chadwell, with Li nodding and squinting.

But Qani did not let go of Koen's attention. "Koen, did you not hate the Pick Ambassador? How did you stand it, to put yourself all day in his company?"

"I didn't hate General Graa." Koen blinked. Jesus, was he close to tears? "I don't. I like him. I suppose I came to like him. That's why I offered to help him look for Mr. Grumbles. He missed…" Koen remembered where he was and what was happening to him. Laura and Mark were right there. They might as well have been molded from plastic. "That doesn't matter. I did it. I'm sorry."

Chadwell snorted. "Speaking of things that don't matter."

"Yes," said Qani, redirecting him. "The important thing here is how Mr. Graa feels." She paused for the cold shadow to pass over them: the fact that they had angered a powerful nonhuman.

"Well," she said. "The UN Embassy will have to call the Pick. Formally apologize. Then we shall see if he has any wish to pursue public justice."

"If they want it, I will send you to the Pick roasted with an apple in your mouth," Chadwell promised Koen. "And if not, I suppose I shall have to content myself with stuffing you so full of NDAs you can't pass gas without your lawyer present, then flipping you back to Earth with the rest of the rubbish."

Qani slapped her hand on the table. "Mr. Chadwell, will you calm down? Punishing the boy is quite beside the point. I want to know how exactly this was allowed to happen."

She looked at Mark, who looked at Said, who turned redder.

"I haven't been wasting my time here — " Said began.

"Of course you haven't." Mark's voice was low, cool, and in control. "Your time is precious."

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Said's political mask slammed down. Outwardly, he nodded, frowning seriously. Inwardly, he was suddenly cracked by doubt. He was the youngest member of the senior staff. He had no children yet, and his wife was back in London. "Holding the fort." That was what she said she was doing there without him, but what was she really up to? When Said returned to Earth, what would there be waiting for him?

Mark appraised the damage he'd done and found it good. He dismissed Chadwell, leaning like a broken statue, and passed to the next item on his agenda. "Severo," he said, "how did Koen do this without you knowing it?"

She shrugged. "He bribed me."

Nobody seemed shocked by that revelation, except Koen, and he was grateful. His friends were standing by him. Except, no, he didn't want Laura to take the fall. She should stay here. She was the only one in the Embassy who did any real work.

Koen met Mark's eyes for a moment. Right. Trust him. Mark would handle this.

Mark would. He'd been planning this for weeks. Really, more than a year.

His next problem was Nelly. "Nelly," he said, "now's the time for you to make a difference. What did you see?"

Nelly froze. A difference? What kind of a difference? Only idiots acted without full information. The consequences, unknown, were far more likely to turn out to be bad.

"I didn't see anything," she said. But somewhere in the maze of her heart, honesty compelled her. Or perhaps it was the disappointed way Qani was looking at her. "Dr. Kaliannan called me. He said something was wrong."

Mark brushed off the feeble counter-punch. "Dr. Kaliannan has become a shut-in. When it comes time for us to go back to Earth, will he be able to?" And before anyone could ask him what that had to do with anything, "There's been an organizational sickness in this Embassy," he said. "Xenophobia. The Zogreion has robbed us of our social capital. We've retreated into our Embassy as if it's a fortress, and we've failed to fulfill the mission we were sent here to do."

Except me went loudly unsaid.

Mark held his palm out to Koen. "Koen's actually done more than any of us. He's spent more time out there with the nonhumans than anyone."

"But now we know why," said Qani. She was disappointed in Nelly. She even expected more of Mark. If the boy had had any plan for the stolen pet, he'd clearly given up on it. For all the slick skill Mark was showing now, he was doing nothing more than damage control. Qani considered whether she wanted the damage to stay controlled.

At the very least, she was losing a cook. A Science Attaché, as well, if Nelly's lie came out. Couldn't Qani lose an annoying Public Affairs manager as well? "You were often with Koen, these past weeks. What did you notice?"

Mark knew that Qani knew. That Nelly had told her. That look they'd shared could mean nothing else. Now he could either kill the Consul with one strike, annihilate her so thoroughly that she'd never be a threat again…or hold off until he could make himself indispensable to her. Qani was a pro. Even if she hated Mark personally, she'd cooperate if it was in her interest. The question was, then, how to lock down her interest.

Mark turned toward Ambassador Li.

"Sir," he said. "What are we going to do?"

'We,' because I can help you. 'Do' because this is a disaster and it's your disaster. It happened on your watch.

Ambassador Li cleared his throat. The others turned to him with, impatience, fear, and agonizing hope.

Psychic powers, in the sense the dominant human culture understands the term, do not exist. The Tensors communicate via radio, laser-light, and hurled micro-meteors. For the Quotidians and several other species, pheromones are of great importance. Monumentals echolocate at each other. There are no waves of information that travel through time or between brains, aside of course from light sound, and material objects, which go only into the future.

But any species that can cooperate to the extent and in the numbers necessary to build particle accelerators and make contact with the Convention must possess social intuition. A thousand tiny cues scattered across the senses are swept up by the brain, correlated, analyzed, and converted into action faster than the conscious mind can track. In this way, a Metruian can depend on her arms to point out the most important person in the room. A Toxoplasmotic knows when her familiar hungers for meat. A Pick knows whom he can trust.

Ambassador Li did not look at Laura. Neither did Mark. Laura, herself, drew attention in no way, but she was everywhere, as invisible and necessary as the air that filled the Embassy.

Without Laura, nothing would work here. Without Laura, Mr. Grumbles would never have been kidnapped.

That was Ambassador Li's choice. Extend the blame to Mark and Laura and probably Nelly, possibly even Kaliannan and Qani. Gut the Embassy with this scandal. Let this little band of humans blow apart. Or let the investigation stop with Koen.

Ambassador Li Xuanlian considered his cook with heavy sorrow. He would learn how to cook without injuring himself. What were a few burns compared to health and satisfaction? And he would need a hobby. Without Koen and Severo around, the Embassy would be dull.

"Yes," he said. "I will call the Pick Embassy. I will apologize. This is entirely my responsibility."