The American said, "Sir, we have a remote relay point flying in station with the primary. We ask that you contact our commander, Admiral Naomi Fang-Castro, for permission to land. If she agrees, we will stand down here. We our transmitting the link, which is a standard inter-ship channel."

The link came in and Zhang turned to Duan. "Your advice?"

Duan said, "They're bluffing."

"Probably. Almost certainly. But if they aren't, they'll kill us."

Duan's face was impassive, but she was sweating, Zhang thought. She didn't want to make the call, because whatever call was made, there'd be criticism in Beijing. On the other hand, if she didn't make the call, she would be showing an unseemly deference to the captain.

She said, "We should consult with the minister."

Ah. Nice move, Zhang thought. Consulting with the minister would take hours, which they really didn't have. "If we consult with the minister, we'd have to go back to the ship, which would appear to be a retreat, which would be undesirable," Zhang said. "So. I will consult with Fang-Castro."

"You must insist that we be allowed to land," Duan said.

"Of course," Zhang said. He nodded at Peng, who also served as comm officer. Peng picked up the link through the American satellite and called the American ship. The call was answered by the American comm officer, and a moment later, Fang-Castro appeared on the screen.

She spoke in Mandarin: not the best Mandarin, but good for an American: "Captain Zhang. I hope you managed the aerobraking without damage or injury. There was cheering on our bridge when you came through intact."

Zhang smiled. "I appreciate that, Admiral. Alas, we did not. We have suffered a number of casualties, and substantial damage, which we are still assessing, as I'm sure you know. At the moment, however, we wish to approach the alien planetoid, but we have been met by armed members of your crew, who are refusing us access. As you know, this is a violation of basic space law, and we must insist on access."

"And you shall have it, Captain Zhang," Fang-Castro said. "But not immediately. I will be frank with you. Inside the primary, or planetoid, we have found an AI computer which is willing to divulge a substantial amount of information on alien science. We have broadcast a vid of this AI-"

"I have seen this," Zhang said.

Fang-Castro said, "Captain, your English is far better than my Mandarin. Might we switch to English?"

"If you prefer, of course," Zhang said. Duan nodded: she'd matriculated at UCLA.

"Thank you," Fang-Castro said. She looked down-at a slate, Zhang thought-then continued. "The AI has established an I/O link on which to transfer this data. We have been accepting data for six days. The AI tells us the transfer of certain kinds of scientific information will be complete in two days. When it is complete, we will leave this station, and you will be free to access it. The reason we refuse access now, quite frankly, is that you frighten us. Our intelligence agencies tell us that you have a military crew-even your scientists have military status. We have very little military aboard, which creates a problem for us, as I'm sure you recognize.

"We are not refusing you access because we want to keep you away from the AI computer, but because we want to keep you away from our crew and the equipment we have on board the primary, and because we want to finish downloading the scientific information. If we allow you on board, we would essentially be at your mercy, since you can stay here longer than we can. So, that is our position. In two days, we will depart this station, and will leave it to you."

She continued: "As an indication of our goodwill, we will further tell you that this station is a refueling depot for the alien ships, and also a trading station. We have asked the computer if we are allowed to trade, and have been told that we are. Trade values are assessed by an alien onboard computer. Each species is allowed to leave items valued at eight points by the aliens, and once we leave eight points in value, we will be allowed to take away alien items valued at eight points. We were granted a full eight points. This ship will take four points in value and we have indicated to the trade computer that you should be allocated the other four points and the computer has agreed that this would be appropriate. So, as a gift, we give you those points, in the hope that you will accept our difficult position with goodwill. We ask you to wait two days. Then, the station will be yours."

Zhang said, "This will require some consultation. I am sorry that we frighten you, for I assure you, that is not our purpose here. We have questions, however, which our experts in Beijing will want answers to. Have you met the aliens?"

"No. There are no aliens here. The primary is a remotely controlled station that creates antimatter as fuel, and stores the antimatter in the fleet of smaller moonlets that accompany the station. Trade goods are exchanged purely through a computer-mediated barter system. Alien visits are extremely rare. We have found the onboard AI to be extremely forthcoming on all these matters, and our experts tell us this is so simply because the aliens have no reason not to be, and some reasons why this . . . position . . . may benefit them."

"So the planetoid contains nothing but this cooperative AI and the trade goods?"

"That is correct. It's essentially a warehouse. The I/O interface is complicated, but we have managed to establish one. If it had been simple, we would have already finished downloading the alien information, and would have gotten out of your way already. Since ours-American and Chinese I/Os-are compatible, and we will have no further use for our gear when we leave, we will leave our connection intact for your use, if you wish to use it."

"Understood," Zhang said. "I will return to my ship now for consultation, which will take some time. I will contact you when we finish."

Fang-Castro said, "Captain Zhang, I would point out to you that if your consultations are anything like ours, this will take quite a long time, because of the light-speed lag. By the time they are done, there should be very little time left before the Nixon departs. Perhaps we could both suggest to our governments that slightly prolonged consultations on Earth . . . would obviate our problem. If they last long enough, the Nixon will be gone."

Zhang said, "I will point this out."

Fang-Castro: "Assuming that everybody sees the wisdom of that, I would tell you that the Nixon has excellent fabrication and repair facilities. If there is anything we can fabricate for you, or any repairs that we could assist you in, we would be happy to do so."

"Thank you. We need to finish our assessment of the damage we have taken. I will call you personally if we have need of your aid."

Back aboard the Celestial Odyssey, Zhang ordered the contact crew into a conference room, and called First Officer Cui to join them. The video of the encounter with the Americans was already on its way back to Earth, and now he said, "Feel free to speak your minds."

Cui and Duan glanced at each other-the video of this conference would be on its way to Beijing as they spoke. Zhang said, "I'm serious about that. We need to plan our next move, and I want more than just the thoughts in my own head. We also need the thoughts of our experts back home, and quickly."

Cui spoke first. "Sir, I think it was a mistake not to push the issue and attempt a landing. I do not think there is any doubt that the Americans were bluffing. They can't afford to initiate an attack."

Zhang shook his head. "Officer Cui, I am nowhere so free from doubt as you are. I believe your assessment is correct, but I also believe we both might be wrong. The consequences of an error in judgment are so severe that I want us to pursue all other options before we force a confrontation with the Americans. Be assured, I will force that as our last resort. Not as our first. We explore other options before we risk even the smallest, most unlikely possibility of . . . an international difficulty."

"Sir?" Dr. Mo, the biologist, spoke up. "There is a great deal more to this complex than the planetoid that the Americans have sequestered. There are myriad smaller moonlets that are clearly alien constructions, and uncountable numbers of small autonomous spacecraft traveling between them and the rings and the planetoid. The Americans can't be everywhere at once."

"True," interjected Cui, "and the Americans have no force of authority beyond a physical presence. They could order us away, but they would have no means of backing up their order. They would never risk initiating an attack by their ship on ours. Their vessel is obviously fragile, it's a flying bundle of twigs. Even our light armament could permanently disable it in a matter of minutes. Their poorest tactician would understand this."

"That, I entirely agree with," replied Zhang. "Still, they may devise some kind of a response. We may not get more than one chance at this. Do we just pick a target at random? I'd rather spend that chance on better than the flip of a coin."

"I have a suggestion." Dr. Gao, the astrophysicist, looked at her data slate. "Our instruments picked up low levels of radiation from many of the moonlets. I mean really low, nothing that would be hazardous to people, not even with prolonged exposure. But the interesting thing is that some of the spectra show a slight energy spike at 511 KV. That means positrons. Antimatter. Not much, just a handful of particles, but something has to be generating those positrons. That technology has to be associated with this antimatter storage that Fang-Castro spoke of. If we should go examine one: it would establish our right to work among the alien artifacts, and there'd be nothing the Americans could do to prevent it."

Zhang punched through to Comm: "Put a chart of the planetoid and its accompanying fleet on the conference room screen."

The map popped up a moment later, a complicated skein of artifacts encircling the planetoid, the moonlets flying in a steady formation, other, smaller ones moving between the moonlets and the rings.

"There's the one we want," Gao said, tapping one of the smaller vehicles, which was moving toward the nearest of the moonlets.

Zhang turned to the political officer. "Mr. Duan, do you see any aspects of this plan which conflict with our orders from Beijing?"

Duan considered the matter for a double handful of seconds before replying. "Sir, I don't see anything in this plan that contravenes the Party's instructions. But I feel I must register an objection to your actions at the planetoid. We had clear instructions not to engage with the Nixon."

"Which, Mr. Duan, I followed to the letter. I did not engage the American ship directly in any fashion. I tested the waters . . . and their resolve. The verbal exchanges were meaningless theatrics. We learned what we needed to know without engaging." He turned to Cui. "Mr. Cui, I want you to work up a list of personnel for the shuttle mission to the moonlet. I want everyone on that trip who could possibly be of any use in investigating the alien technology. If we're fortunate, this won't be the only opportunity to study their technology, but we can't count on that. Assume the worst about the Americans: that is our one and only chance."

He then turned and spoke directly with the camera that was recording and transmitting the conference. "To you experts in Beijing, I would suggest that the American commander was probably telling the truth, and that her assessment of the balance of power between our two ships was accurate. Therefore, I believe that the Nixon will be leaving in two days. I don't believe that she was being entirely candid with us: there may be other issues here, but we can't know what they are, unless there is some special intelligence of which I'm not aware. I believe that there would be some profit in investigating the moonlets, and perhaps some legal precedent would be set by doing such an investigation. However, I will suspend any further action from this ship until we have time to confer with you in Beijing. We have much work to do in repairing this ship, and we will do that, starting immediately. We await your counsel."

President Santeros: "The goddamn Chinese ought to learn how to speak proper English. I've got this Mandarin translator telling me what the chairman is saying, and I have no way of knowing if he's getting the implications right, and the goddamn Chinese don't speak in anything but implications."

Out of sight, behind her, the chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs stuck the knuckles of her fist into her mouth, to keep from laughing. Santeros, who apparently had a monitoring screen in front of her, snapped, "I saw that, White . . ."

Crow, sitting in the conference room next to Fang-Castro, muttered, "Just tell us what they fuckin' implied."

Fang-Castro: "Shhh," although nothing was outgoing at the moment. It was wall-to-wall Santeros, with a few advisers, from the Oval Office.

"Anyway," Santeros said, "the Chinese are screaming at us and say that they will gather a coalition of other geopolitical entities to penalize us for this blatant violation of space law. They insist that their crew be given access to the alien primary, and say that they will begin immediate investigations into other alien vessels in the fleet around the primary. However, there's a goddamn implication that they won't act until they can get agreement from the other geopolitical entities, and that will take about, mmm, two days . . ."

Crow said, "All right. We won."

". . . But you better be prepared to get the hell out of the neighborhood. All that stuff about leaving trade points was fine, and helping with repairs, that's good, but sooner or later, they're going to find out about the memory modules, and the fact that we're sneaking away like a thief in the night. Then, the shit's gonna hit the fan. We gotta hope you can get out of range before that happens."

Fang-Castro called Zhang. The Chinese comm said, "Our commander has been promoted. You may call him Admiral Zhang now. We will put you through."

Crow, standing to one side, whispered, "They didn't want him negotiating with a superior officer. They jumped him two ranks. If he's a Chinese admiral, he technically outranks you now. He'll have two stars."

"I'm sure I can handle it," Fang-Castro said. She smiled when Zhang came up on the screen. "Sir. First, congratulations on your promotion. Our intelligence people have kept me briefed on your personal background, and I have to say, I'm honored to be dealing with you."

Zhang's face crinkled with something that might have been embarrassment. "Thank you. It appears that my superiors will order me to make a landing under . . . any circumstances . . . when they have finished Earth-side negotiations with other nations that are as outraged by American actions as we are."

"We understand," Fang-Castro said, to a minute nod from Zhang.

And there it was: the deal was done. "We will be vacating the primary as soon as possible. In the meantime, is there anything we can do to help with your repairs?"

"Possibly. We understand from some of our astronauts that when the Nixon was a space station, you had on board three Mitsubishi Force 5 printers. If you still have these on board, we would wish to borrow one."

"Stand by, Admiral, let me talk to our head of maintenance." She lifted her slate, tapped it, got Martinez on-screen: "Joe, do we still use Mitsubishi Force 5 printers?"

"Yes, ma'am, we've got three of them."

"Would it be possible to move one to the Celestial Odyssey in a timely way?"

"Uh, we'd have to figure out a way to isolate it, package it. We can't just shove it out in space, you'd have some differential contraction among parts that wouldn't be good. Probably put it on a bus . . . I'd have to make some measurements. Yeah, I could do it, given twenty-four hours. Be a lot quicker if you'd let them come over with their tug if it's got a pressurized cargo hold. We could just push it in. We could do all that in a couple hours."

"Stand by on that-I'll let you know."

"Do they need carbon fiber? We've got a ton of it we'll never use. Actually several tons, we never took it out. They might be able to use it to repair their tanks, and not have to hitchhike back with us."

"Good thought. I'll ask." Fang-Castro went back to the link to Zhang. "Admiral, uh, I don't want to embarrass anyone, but how many people fit in one of your tugs?"

"Up to fifteen . . . why?"

"We're still a little nervous about your military capability. My maintenance chief says that we do have that printer, as well as several tons of carbon fiber, and we could allot you some of that if you need it. The fastest and easiest way to get that to you would be for you to send a tug over. Our shuttles aren't pressurized and the maintenance man is worried about differential contraction under temperature extremes. But if you sent a tug over with fifteen crew aboard . . . we would be inclined not to open the air lock."

Zhang smiled. "You Americans are too paranoid. We will send the tug with the pilot and a copilot. Tell us when to come. And thank you. I will ask about the carbon fiber."

When they finished talking, after more pleasantries, Crow said, "We need to get that video off to Earth right now. If this is a ploy . . ."

Fang-Castro said, "You must be one of those Americans who's too paranoid."

Crow: "The I/O's got what, twenty-eight hours?"

"That's what Wurly tells us . . . if nothing breaks. I just wish we had more bandwidth to Earth. We're archiving most of it."

Greenberg came up: "Ma'am, we're ready to go. Everything looks nominal with the engines."

The printer delivery went without incident, and the Chinese pilot seemed genuinely grateful, joking with Martinez's men as they moved the massive piece of machinery into the Chinese tug, along with two tons of raw carbon-fiber stock.

Twenty-eight hours later, John Clover was interrogating the jukebox as the I/O stream was coming to its scheduled end. Direct vocal interrogation of the jukebox had slowed since the I/O link went up, simply because so much more critical information could be passed over the link.

The vocal material had, as a result, gone to what nine-tenths of the Nixon's crew dismissed as "anthropological." Clover persisted, right to the end.

"Wurly, you said you can provide us with operational logs for the station, correct?"

"Yes, for most of them. No, for a few. I cannot provide detailed security logs, only summary reports."

"Why is that? Can I talk to the security system?"

"Security data can include the detailed activities of visitors to the depot. In the case of sanctions, where that information needs to be promulgated to the rest of the depot network, it must include species-specific information that exceeds the normal privacy protocols. Consequently, access to the detailed logs is not allowed. That information is not accessible to external systems."

"Then the security system contains explicit details about the species visiting the depot?"

"No, even the internal-to-security database contains the bare minimum of identifying information, only enough to recognize a species if it shows up again and to allow other depots to impose mandated sanctions against that species. Still, it is against depot rules to access that data, and attempts to do so will be met with penalties."

"What is in the summary reports, and are we allowed to see them?"

"The summary reports contain security-related status information about the station. For example, the approach of your ship. The details are completely scrubbed from the summary. No one could identify your species or its origin from the summary information. You are allowed access to any information I have. None of my data is restricted."

Sandy had stuck a camera to a wall to record Clover's interrogation attempt, and had then stretched out on the floor in an attempt to nap: he couldn't do that in an upright position, nor had he trained himself to do it simply by floating in a zero-gee state. Clover spoke to him: "Well, the jukebox spins an airtight yarn. There's no point in trying to get around its own security, because it doesn't know anything it won't tell us voluntarily. Plus, I'll bet you anything that trying to circumvent its protocols breaks the rules."

Sandy asked, "Wurly, does trying to circumvent your protocols break the rules?"

The answer-bot spoke up. "That is correct. As long as no harm is done to my systems, though, the sanctions are small because the effort cannot gain anything. There is just enough of penalty to discourage species from trying."

Clover asked, "Have there been any sanctions applied during this depot's operation?"

"Yes, thirteen times, all for minor breaches of protocol. Would you like the summary reports?"

"Yes. Also, are there summary reports that list arrivals and departures that don't result in sanctions? If so, I would like those also, and time-stamped."

Sandy keyed a private channel to Clover. "What are you up to? Are you going to get us in trouble?"

Clover shook his head. "Nope, I've got an idea, and I was just making sure it's completely legal." He turned his attention back to the answer-bot. "Wurly, I'd like to get the environmental logs for this room and any other habitable portions of the depot. Not the minute-by-minute logs, just anytime there's a significant adjustment to the environmental conditions-lighting, temperature, atmosphere-and I'd like that time-stamped. Is there a problem with that?"

"That is a legitimate request." The console's colors mirrored a warm sunset. "I've extracted the data you requested and directed it to the uplink your technician set up. It will increase the time of the I/O flow by .013 seconds."

Clover keyed his comm back to Sandy: "You see that?" He chortled. "We may not know exactly who visited or where they came from, but we know when, and if they behaved, and the environmental data will tell us a hell of a lot about their biology. I just scored major demographic data on the populations of alien species in our neck of the galaxy."

"Good job," Sandy said. He yawned. The I/O link went down and Wurly said, "Data transfer through the I/O link is now complete."

"Thank you," Clover said. "Wurly, I have-"

Fang-Castro crashed the party. "For all members of the contact crew, the I/O record is now complete, or so we have been told. Return to the Nixon immediately, or make arrangements to hitchhike back home with the Chinese."

"That's us," Sandy said on the private link. On the public link, he said, "Yes, ma'am. It'll take a minute to pack up my cameras."

Clover asked, "Wurly, do you have any final message for the people of Earth?'

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Hello, people of Earth."