“It’s a sight more useful than poetry, anyway,” said Tisarwat, relieved and pleased.

I raised an eyebrow. “You surprise me, Lieutenant.” That brought on a rise in her general background level of unhappiness, for some reason. “Tell me, Lieutenant, how does Station feel about what’s been going on?”

“I think,” replied Tisarwat, “that it’s glad repairs are going forward, but you know stations never tell you directly if they’re unhappy.” In the antechamber, someone requested entry. Kalr Eight moved to answer the door.

“It wants to see everyone, all the time,” said Uran. Greatly daring. “It says it wouldn’t be the same as someone spying on you.”

“It’s very different from a planet, on a station,” I said, as Eight opened the door, revealing Sirix Odela. “Stations like to know their residents are all well. They don’t feel right, otherwise. Do you talk to Station often, Citizen?” Wondering as I spoke what Sirix was doing here, whom I had not seen since Eight had seen her talking to Captain Hetnys.

In the dining room, Uran was saying, “It talks to me, Rad… Fleet Captain. And it translates things for me, or reads notices to me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Station is a good friend to have.”

In the antechamber, Citizen Sirix apologized to Eight for arriving at such an awkward hour, when the household was at supper. “But Horticulturist Basnaaid wanted very much to speak to the fleet captain, and she’s unavoidably detained in the Gardens.”

In the dining room I rose, not responding to Tisarwat’s reply to my words, and went out to the antechamber. “Citizen Sirix,” I said, as she turned toward me. “How can I assist you?”

“Fleet Captain,” said Sirix, with a small, tight nod of her head. Uncomfortable. After our conversation three days ago, and the strangeness of her errand, entirely unsurprising. “Horticulturist Basnaaid wishes very much to speak with you in person on what I understand is a private matter. She’d have come herself but she is, as I was saying, unavoidably detained in the Gardens.”

“Citizen,” I replied. “You’ll recall that when last I spoke to the horticulturist, she quite understandably said she never wanted to see me again. Should she have changed her mind I am, of course, at her service, but I must admit to some surprise. And I am at a loss to imagine what might be so urgent that it could not have waited until an hour more convenient for herself.”

Sirix froze for just an instant, a sudden tension that, in someone else, I would have taken for anger. “I did, Fleet Captain, suggest as much. She said only, it’s like the poet said: The touch of sour and cold regret, like pickled fish.”