Later, Laura poked her head into the kitchen.

"I'll help you clean up."

"Is everyone gone?" asked Koen. He slotted dishes into the dishwasher. Plates and cups, bowls and serving utensils, fitting together as neatly as bones in a skeleton. He had looked forward to this night so much.

"Yes, they're gone." Meaning General Graa and Mr. Grumbles. The Pick Ambassador had apparently had a splendid time.

"I'm glad to hear," said Koen and immediately undermined himself by flinging his wad of steel wool into the corner of the sink. Shump!

"I want to go to bed," he said. "I'll do all the rest of it tomorrow morning." Like a domesticated hominin, he thought bitterly.

"I can help," said Laura after several levels of self-control had asserted themselves. On one level, Laura wanted to hug Koen and make him feel better. Another level wanted him to comfort her! She'd pulled off an unprecedented coup at high stakes, and here he was, moping about animal rights.

Then there were strategic considerations. Koen had been instrumental in the success of the negotiations with the Pick. Instruments needed maintenance.

"Yoshida's robots are already making a start," called Mark from the canteen. "One of them can load a—"

"Deactivate them. Set them aside. Don't tell Yoshida." Laura turned and looked at Mark over the counter. "This is something we need to do."

Mark understood. "We" meant Laura and Koen. Laura wanted to take care of him. Or make him take care of her. The ways people always tangled each other up.

He remembered the look he and Savlayeva had shared. The last look of the evening. Coward, her eyes had told him. And now Mark's room was empty, except for the cameras.

Mark suppressed a shudder, and decided not to be alone.

"We," Mark said. "Thanks."

Laura looked at him. Why wasn't Mark taking the hint?

Before she could figure out a more strongly-worded request that he go away, Mark said, "I'll just go deactivate those robots. Nelly will understand, and she'll tell Yoshida why."

Laura glanced at the camera in the corner of the room. Right. This conversation wouldn't be private. Maybe it would be better to have Mark here after all.

Koen scrubbed at a corner of an oven rack, where some sugar had run off the baking paper and hardened into a rock-hard crust. It would make more sense to just let it soak until morning, but Laura was right. He did need this. Koen was tired, but too angry to sleep.

"It was important to invite the Pick," said Laura. She was standing behind him, face to the dining area, where Mark was wiping the same area of table surface over and over, trying to look like he wasn't eavesdropping.

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She turned to pass Koen a cup and a lock of her hair stuck to her sweaty cheek. Koen's heart hurt with the beauty of it.

She wiggled the cup in the air and Koen took it in tingling fingers.

"I know it was strange," she said.

"Fucking weird!" shouted Mark. "That shambling pig-man he brought with him? Creepy as fuck."

"Don't swear," said Laura. To Koen she said, "But it was important. This was the best I've ever seen an event go with a nonhuman. It's the best interspecies interaction I've read about or seen on videos."

"I lost my temper and stormed off," said Koen, hoping to be excused for his outburst and feeling guilty about it.

From the across the room, Mark heard both emotions. He wondered whether to press the "shame" or "hope" button. "Yeah, how about you don't do that next time?"

Mark was drunk too, and had defaulted to habit.

Koen drew his shoulders together, and Laura reconsidered telling Mark to get lost. She was also in the grip of an urge to pet the hair on Koen's forearms. "It was the best interaction with a nonhuman I've seen," she repeated. "Better than anything I've done or Mark has done."

"What about the Tensor at the accelerator port?"

"You were there too. You…I don't know how to say it. You knew the right thing to do. You took control of the situation."

"Until I didn't. I just couldn't take it, watching Graa torture this guy."

"That's your empathy," said Mark. He was feeling guilty about pressing the "shame" button. "That's what makes you a good person, Koen." Mark was trying to figure out how to bend the conversation around to getting Koen to volunteer to take over his nonhuman team building, but Laura said something.

"It's always like that with nonhumans." She emptied the remains of a bottle of wine into her glass. "We try to understand them, and you just can't. You can't feel what they're feeling. Empathy doesn't work." Hadn't she already said that? Laura glanced from her glass to Mark, to the camera at the other end of the room. Her lip twisted.

"What's wrong?" asked Koen.

Their eyes met and Laura decided to down the rest of her wine.

"I can't stand it." Her voice was low and Koen had to lean close to hear her.

"Huh?"

She lowered her voice further, drawing him closer. "I can't stand nonhumans." He smelled like soap and burned sugar and rusty steel wool. "I'm so glad you're here, Koen."

"I'm sorry," said Koen, because his brain wasn't working.

Kiss me! Laura thought at him. Or acknowledge that I just told you a secret that could ruin my career. In front of cameras! Make it mean something, Koen. Take me away from all this.

Mark had metabolized some of the alcohol in his blood at this point, which meant that his brain was working. It calculated that a romance between Laura and Koen could be turned in an advantageous direction. Mark therefore bit the inside of his cheek, held his breath, and waited for something to happen.

It didn't. Koen had stopped drinking after his temper tantrum with General Graa, and his consciousness was now pickling in nothing but cortisol, adenosine, and (just presently) testosterone. Stress, exhaustion, and lust battled Koen's forebrain, which recalled the presence of both Mark and the cameras. Meanwhile, Koen's hippocampus served up a memory of a speech Laura had delivered to him back on Earth, the last time they'd been drunk together. The general theme had been, "I'm very flattered, but…" Well. A man had his pride.

"Thanks," Koen said, "for helping me clean up."

Even Laura could tell this wasn't the time. "General Graa said he had a splendid time," she said. "He wants to see us again soon."

Koen nodded. He had work to do. He'd need to send out for books. Raven behavioral biology. Zookeeping. But not tonight.

He stretched out his arms. "For my next party, I'll just invite you two."