“It’s never a dull day in the lower reaches of the Colonial Union diplomatic corps,” Wilson said. He set down the nest and reached for a towel to wipe the soot and grime from his hand.

“And this brings us to the reason I came down to see you,” Schmidt said. “We just got our new mission assigned to us.”

“Really,” Wilson said. “Does this one involve me being held hostage? Or possibly being blown up in order to find a mole in the Department of State? Because I’ve already done those.”

“I’m the first to acknowledge that the last couple of missions we’ve had have not ended on what are traditionally considered high notes,” Schmidt said. Wilson smirked. “But I think this one may get us back on the winning track. You know of the Icheloe?”

“Never heard of them,” Wilson said.

“Nice people,” Schmidt said. “Look a little like a bear mated with a tick, but we can’t all be beautiful. Their planet has had a civil war that’s been flaring up off and on for a couple hundred years, since the king disappeared from his palace and one faction of his people blamed the other faction.”

“Was it their fault?” Wilson said.

“They say no,” Schmidt said. “But then they would, wouldn’t they. In any event, the king left no heir, his sacred crown went missing and apparently between those two things no one faction could legitimately claim the throne, thus the two centuries of civil war.”

“See, this is why I can’t support monarchy as a system of government,” Wilson said. He reached down to start reassembling the portion of the shuttle he had taken apart.

“The good news is that everyone’s tired of it all and they’re all looking for a face-saving way to end the conflict,” Schmidt said. “The bad news is that one of the reasons they are trying to end the conflict is that they are thinking of joining the Conclave, and the Conclave won’t accept them as members unless there is a single government for the entire planet. And this is where we come in.”

“We’re going to help them end their civil war in order to join the Conclave?” Wilson asked. “That seems counterintuitive to our own agenda.”

“We’ve volunteered to mediate between the factions, yes,” Schmidt said. “We’re hoping that by doing so, we’ll generate enough goodwill that the Icheloe will choose an alliance with us, not the Conclave. That in turn will help us build alliances with other races, with an eye toward establishing a counterweight to the Conclave.”

“We tried that before,” Wilson said, reaching for a spanner. “When that General Gau fellow was putting the Conclave together, the Colonial Union tried to form an alternative. The Counter-Conclave.”