Laura did not need to be told to follow Ambassador Li into his office. She closed the door behind them.

The Ambassador seated himself behind his desk, the window looking out on the Zogreion pulsing at his back. He placed his hands on the desk in front of him, folding them around the wine jar.

It was the traditional kind, made of brown-glazed ceramic, the size of a melon. Laura had no idea what it had to do with anything. How strange it was to see something in the Embassy and not know why it was there.

Sweet osmanthus is an evergreen shrub related to olives, privet hedges, and lilacs. Its white, fragrant blossoms can be harvested in the autumn and used to flavor cakes, teas, and of course distilled liquor. It is called "cassia" in English because of a translation error that confuses osmanthus, the cassia cinnamon tree, and the laurel, Greek symbol of victory. In Chinese mythology, osmanthus grows every month to cover the face of the moon, and it is the eternal punishment of Wu Gang to keep cutting it back.

"I regret I didn't have a chance to tell you earlier," Li said. "We have received a crate of moon cakes and two crates of cassia wine to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. We committed ourselves to a banquet, didn't we, and we were on the moon when we did it." His chuckle was forced. "We must now consider the menu, since at the moment, all we have is the moon cakes and…" He looked down at the jar between his hands. "Alcohol."

In the Mandarin dialect, that word was homophonous with "long," as in "may we work together for a long time."

"Understood, sir," said Laura. "I am confident that Koen will be happy to arrange the food, before his departure."

A long sigh. "That would be ideal."

A silence stretched. Laura took it as a cue to begin her apology. She had spent the morning composing her justifications. Something that would allow them all to pretend she hadn't been involved in the kidnapping of Mr. Grumbles, and that it hadn't been a stupid idea.

"Sir," she said. "may I also bring up the matter of the time spent in one-on-one interactions between human and nonhuman that have occurred in the past week?"

He held up a hand to stop her.

Laura's stomach tightened at the expression on his face. Not angry, not even sad, but tired. Ambassador Li wasn't squinching. He sat in his chair like a sack of concrete, his shoulders slumped. His face looked as if someone had grabbed the skin under his jaw and pulled downward.

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"Since I was in my thirties," he said, "the world has undergone many changes. A woman could have a child and still work, and her parents could help out. We knew that through hard work, we could create a better world. However, now, things are much less certain."

Laura didn't know what to make of this. Her usual skills at condensing commands from the vapor of her boss's indirect utterances were giving her nothing.

She tried agreement. "The world is an unpredictable place." When that failed to change Li's hangdog expression, she switched to optimism. "Nevertheless, we can still build something great. We've…learned a great deal." She couldn't apologize, not without admitting guilt and blowing down the fiction everyone was working so hard to maintain. "With this knowledge, we can do better in the future."

"In the future, something else will happen," said Li. "A collapse, a crisis, a plague, a war, or some other incomprehensible and alien occurrence could emerge from the sky or the earth and swallow us up."

"I understand, sir." Laura tried to think of a way to politely say, 'you're wallowing in self-pity,' but came up empty. Well, she had no more important place to be than here, and nothing more important to do than listen to her boss. If this was his way of punishing her, then so be it. She would stand here for as long as it took.

"You don't understand." Li met her eyes for the first time since Koen's confession. "Anything can happen," he said. "It is best if we bear that in mind, and stop waiting."

"Waiting, sir?" Laura honestly didn't know.

"I waited for too long. Now I'm here, looking back…" Li's hands squeezed the wine jar. Relaxed. "…but that's not important. For a woman, it is different."

Understanding finally came. Li was asking, in a manner so indirect that it could be taken as a real question and not an implicit order, if Laura wanted to resign. Resign and go live with Koen on Earth.

Laura's mind broke apart. One part of her, the deepest, said, "YES! Gimme!" The next layer up, the one constructed specifically for this purpose, said, "No! Bad girl!" Another part said "never give up" and "this is a trap." "What does he want me to say?" And "how can I play this?"

She bowed deeply. "Ambassador," she said, "if I have not fulfilled my duties adequately, please terminate my services."

Ambassador Li looked sadly at the top of her head. "No one in my life has outperformed you, Ms. Zhang. Your unwavering commitment deserves nothing but praise."

Laura straightened. "Thank you, sir."

But in the pit of her brain, below the barrier her political training had erected, an impetus formed. It did not think in words more complex than "mine!" and the object of its desire was Koen.