"All of them," Dock said. "We have all learned from you, Zoe."

"What has it cost the Obin?" I asked. "From the time Hickory and d.i.c.kory came to live with me, until the moment I stepped onto this ship, what has it cost you? What have I ever asked of any Obin?"

"You have not asked for anything," Dock said.

I nodded. "So let's review. The Consu gave you intelligence and it cost you half of all the Obin when you came to ask them why they did it. My father gave you consciousness, and the price for it was a war, a price which you would have willingly paid had he lived. I have given you ten years of lessons on how to be conscious-on how to live live. The bill for that has come due, Councilor. What price do I require? Do I require the lives of half the Obin in the universe? No. Do I require the Obin to commit to a war against an entire other race? No. I require only your help to save my family and friends. I don't even require that the Obin do it themselves, only that they find a way to have someone else do it for them. Councilor, given the Obin's history of what it's received and what it has cost, what I am requiring of the Obin now comes very cheap cheap indeed." indeed."

Dock stared at me, silently. I stared back, mostly because I had forgotten to blink through all of that and I was afraid if I tried to blink now I might scream. I think it was making me look unnervingly calm. I could live with that.

"We were to send a skip drone when you arrived," Dock said. "It has not been sent yet. I will let the rest of the Obin council know of your requirement. I will tell them I support you."

"Thank you, Councilor," I said.

"It may take some time to decide on a course of action," Dock said.

"You don't have time," I said. "I am going to see General Gau, and I am going to deliver my dad's message to him. The Obin council has until I am done speaking to General Gau to act. If it has not, or will not, then you will leave General Gau without me."

"You will not be safe with the Conclave," Dock said.

"Are you under the impression that I will tolerate being among the Obin if you refuse me?" I said. "I keep telling you this: I am not asking asking for this. I am for this. I am requiring requiring it. If the Obin will not do this, they lose me." it. If the Obin will not do this, they lose me."

"That would be very hard for some of us to accept," Dock said. "We had already lost you for a year, Zoe, when the Colonial Union hid your colony."

"Then what will you do?" I asked. "Drag me back onto the ship? Hold me captive? Record me against my will? I don't imagine that will be very entertaining entertaining. I know what I am to the Obin, Councilor. I know what uses you have all put me to. I don't think you will find me very useful after you refuse me."

"I understand you," Dock said. "And now I must send this message. Zoe, it is an honor to meet you. Please excuse me." I nodded. Dock left.

"Please close the door," I said to Hickory, who was the closest to it. It did.

"Thank you," I said, and threw up all over my shoes. d.i.c.kory was over to me immediately and caught me before I could fall completely.

"You are ill," Hickory said.

"I'm fine," I said, and then threw up all over d.i.c.kory. "Oh, G.o.d, d.i.c.kory," I said. "I'm so sorry."

Hickory came over, took me from d.i.c.kory and guided me toward the strange plumbing. It turned on a tap and water came bubbling out.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It is a sink," Hickory said.

"You're sure?" I asked. Hickory nodded. I leaned over and washed my face and rinsed my mouth out.

"How do you feel?" Hickory said, after I had cleaned myself off as best I could.

"I don't think I'm going to throw up anymore, if that's what you mean," I said. "Even if I wanted to, there's nothing left."

"You vomited because you are sick," Hickory said.

"I vomited because I just treated one of your leaders like it was my cabin boy," I said. "That's a new one for me, Hickory. It really is." I looked over at d.i.c.kory, who was covered in my upchuck. "And I hope it works. Because I think if I have to do that again, my stomach might just flop right out on the table." My insides did a flip-flop after I said that. Note to self: After having vomited, watch the overly colorful comments.

"Did you mean it?" Hickory said. "What you said to Dock?"

"Every word," I said, and then motioned at myself. "Come on, Hickory. Look at me. You think I'd put myself through all of this this if I wasn't serious?" if I wasn't serious?"

"I wanted to be sure," Hickory said.

"You can be sure," I said.

"Zoe, we will be with you," Hickory said. "Me and d.i.c.kory. No matter what the council decides. If you choose to stay behind after you speak to General Gau, we will stay with you."

"Thank you, Hickory," I said. "But you don't have to do that."

"We do," Hickory said. "We would not leave you, Zoe. We have been with you for most of your life. And for all the life that we have spent conscious. With you and with your family. You have called us part of your family. You are away from that family now. You may not see them again. We would not have you be alone. We belong with you."

"I don't know what to say," I said.

"Say you will let us stay with you," Hickory said.

"Yes," I said. "Do stay. And thank you. Thank you both."

"You are welcome," Hickory said.

"And now as your first official duties, find me something new to wear," I said. "I'm starting to get really ripe. And then tell me which of those things over there is the toilet. Because now I really need to know."

TWENTY-THREE.

Something was nudging me awake. I swatted at it. "Die," I said.

"Zoe," Hickory said. "You have a visitor."

I blinked up at Hickory, who was framed as a silhouette by the light coming from the corridor. "What are you talking about?" I said.

"General Gau," Hickory said. "He is here. Now. And wishes to speak to you."

I sat up. "You have got to be kidding me," I said. I picked up my PDA and looked at the time.

We had arrived in Conclave s.p.a.ce fourteen hours earlier, popping into existence a thousand klicks out from the s.p.a.ce station that General Gau had made the administrative headquarters of the Conclave. He said he hadn't wanted to favor one planet over another. The s.p.a.ce station was ringed with hundreds of ships from all over Conclave s.p.a.ce, and even more shuttles and cargo transports, going between ships and back and forth from the station. Phoenix Station, the largest human s.p.a.ce station and so big I've heard that it actually affected tides on the planet Phoenix (by amounts measurable only by sensitive instruments, but still), would have fit into a corner of the Conclave HQ.

We had arrived and announced ourselves and sent an encrypted message to General Gau requesting an audience. We had been given parking coordinates and then willfully ignored. After ten hours of that, I finally went to sleep.

"You know I do not kid," Hickory said. It walked back to the doorway and turned up the lights in my stateroom. I winced. "Now, please," Hickory said. "Come to meet him."

Five minutes later I was dressed in something I hoped would be presentable and walking somewhat unsteadily down the corridor. After a minute of walking I said, "Oh, c.r.a.p," and ran back to my stateroom, leaving Hickory standing in the corridor. A minute later I was back, bearing a shirt with something wrapped in it.

"What is that?" Hickory asked.

"A gift," I said. We continued our trip through the corridor.

A minute later I was standing in a hastily arranged conference room with General Gau. He stood to one side of a table surrounded by Obin-style seats, which were not really well designed either for his physiology or mine. I stood on the other, shirt in my hand.

"I will wait outside," Hickory said, after it delivered me.

"Thank you, Hickory," I said. It left. I turned and faced the general. "Hi," I said, somewhat lamely.

"You are Zoe," General Gau said. "The human who has the Obin to do her bidding." His words were in a language I didn't understand; they were translated through a communicator device that hung from his neck.

"That's me," I said. I heard my words translated into his language.

"I am interested in how a human girl is able to commandeer an Obin transport ship to take her to see me," General Gau said.

"It's a long story," I said.

"Give me the short version," Gau said.

"My father created special machines that gave the Obin consciousness. The Obin revere me as the only surviving link to my father. They do what I ask them to," I said.

"It must be nice to have an entire race at your beck and call," Gau said.

"You should know," I said. "You have four hundred races at yours. Sir."

General Gau did something with his head that I was going to hope was meant to be a smile. "That's a matter of some debate at this point, I'm afraid," he said. "But I am confused. I was under the impression that you are the daughter of John Perry, administrator of the Roanoke Colony."

"I am," I said. "He and his wife Jane Sagan adopted me after my father died. My birth mother had died some time before that. It is on my adopted parents' account that I am here now. Although I apologize"-I motioned to myself, and my state of unreadiness-"I didn't expect to meet you here, now. I thought we would come to you, and I would have time to prepare."

"When I heard that the Obin were ferrying a human to see me, and one from Roanoke, I was curious enough not to want to wait," Gau said. "I also find value in making my opposition wonder what I am up to. My coming to visit an Obin ship rather than waiting to receive their emba.s.sy will make some wonder who you are, and what I know that they don't."

"I hope I'm worth the trip," I said.

"If you're not, I'll still have made them nervous," Gau said. "But considering how far you've come, I hope for both our sakes the trip has been worth it. Are you completely dressed?"

"What?" I said. Of the many questions I might have been expecting, this wasn't one of them.

The general pointed to my hand. "You have a shirt in your hands," he said.

"Oh," I said, and put the shirt on the table between us. "It's a gift. Not the shirt. There's something wrapped in the shirt. That's the gift. I was hoping to find something else to put it in before I gave it to you, but you sort of surprised me. I'm going to shut up now and let you just have that."

The general gave me what I think was a strange look, and then reached out and unwrapped what was in the shirt. It was the stone knife given to me by the werewolf. He held it up and examined it in the light. "This is a very interesting gift," he said, and began moving it in his hand, testing it, I guessed, for weight and balance. "And quite a nicely designed knife."

"Thank you," I said.

"Not precisely modern weaponry," he said.

"No," I said.

"Figured that a general must have an interest in archaic weapons?" Gau asked.

"Actually there's a story behind it," I said. "There's a native race of intelligent beings on Roanoke. We didn't know about them before we landed. Not too long ago we met up with them for the first time, and things went badly. Some of them died, and some of us died. But then one of them and one of us met and decided not to try to kill each other, and exchanged gifts instead. That knife was one of those gifts. It's yours now."

"That's an interesting story," Gau said. "And I think I'm correct in supposing that this story has some implication for why you're here."

"It's up to you, sir," I said. "You might just decide it's a nice stone knife."

"I don't think so," Gau said. "Administrator Perry is a man who plays with subtext. It's not lost on me what it means that he has sent his daughter to deliver a message. But then to offer this particular gift, with its particular story. He's a man of some subtlety."

"I think so, too," I said. "But the knife is not from my dad. It's from me."

"Indeed," Gau said, surprised. "That's even more interesting. Administrator Perry didn't suggest it?"

"He doesn't know I had the knife," I said. "And he doesn't know how I got it."

"But you did did intend to send me a message with it," Gau said. "One to complement your adopted father's." intend to send me a message with it," Gau said. "One to complement your adopted father's."

"I hoped you'd see it that way," I said.

Gau set the knife down. "Tell me what Administrator Perry has to tell me," he said.

"You're going to be a.s.sa.s.sinated," I said. "Someone is going to try, anyway. It's someone close to you. Someone in your trusted circle of advisors. Dad doesn't know when or how, but he knows that it's planned to happen soon. He wanted you to know so you could protect yourself."

"Why?" General Gau asked. "Your adopted father is an official of the Colonial Union. He was part of the plan that destroyed the Conclave fleet and has threatened everything I have worked for, for longer than you have been alive, young human. Why should I trust the word of my enemy?"

"The Colonial Union is your enemy, not my dad," I said.

"Your dad dad helped kill tens of thousands," Gau said. "Every ship in my fleet was destroyed but my own." helped kill tens of thousands," Gau said. "Every ship in my fleet was destroyed but my own."

"He begged you not to call your ships to Roanoke," I said.

"This was a place where he was all too subtle," Gau said. "He never explained how the trap had been set. He merely asked me not to call my fleet. A little more information would have kept thousands alive."

"He did what he could," I said. "You were there to destroy our colony. He wasn't allowed to surrender it to you. You know he didn't have many options. And as it was he was recalled by the Colonial Union and put on trial for even hinting to you that something might happen. He could have been sent to prison for the simple act of speaking to you, General. He did what he could."

"How do I know he's not just being used again?" Gau asked.

"You said you knew what it meant that he sent me to give you a message," I said. "I'm the proof that he's telling you the truth."

"You're the proof he believes believes he's telling me the truth," Gau said. "It's not to say that it he's telling me the truth," Gau said. "It's not to say that it is is the truth. Your adopted father was used once. Why couldn't he be used again?" the truth. Your adopted father was used once. Why couldn't he be used again?"

I flared at this. "Begging your pardon, General," I said. "But you should know that by sending me to send you this warning, both my dad and my mom are absolutely a.s.sured of being labeled as traitors by the Colonial Union. They are both going to prison. You should know that as part of the deal to get the Obin to bring me to you, I can't go back to Roanoke. I have to stay with them. Because they believe that it's only a matter of time before Roanoke is destroyed, if not by you then by some part of the Conclave you don't have any control over anymore. My parents and I have risked everything everything to give you this warning. It's possible I'll never see them or anyone else on Roanoke again, because I am giving you this warning. Now, General, do you think any of us would do to give you this warning. It's possible I'll never see them or anyone else on Roanoke again, because I am giving you this warning. Now, General, do you think any of us would do any any of this if we were not absolutely certain about what we are telling you? Do you?" of this if we were not absolutely certain about what we are telling you? Do you?"

General Gau said nothing for a moment. Then, "I am sorry you have all had to risk so much," he said.

"Then do my dad the honor of believing believing him," I said. "You're in danger, General. And that danger is closer than you think." him," I said. "You're in danger, General. And that danger is closer than you think."