“If the summit were to go off as originally planned, I would agree,” Egan said. “Although the alternative—no summit, the Earth turning away from the Colonial Union, the Conclave waiting in the wings to sweep it up as a member—is considerably worse. Engagement is key, even if nothing gets done, which it won’t.”

“That’s not my actual concern,” Rigney said. “If our diplomats and theirs want to talk until they are blue in the face, then I wish them joy. I have problems with the setup.”

“You mean having it on Earth Station,” Egan said.

“Right,” Rigney said. “It’d be better to have it here at Phoenix Station.”

“Because there’s no environment the Earthlings will find less intimidating than the single largest object humanity’s ever built,” Egan said. “Which incidentally will also serve to remind them just how bottled up we’ve kept them for the last two hundred years or so.” She stuffed pasta into her mouth.

“You may have a point,” Rigney said, after a second of consideration.

“I may,” Egan said, around her pasta, and then swallowed. “We can’t have the summit here, for the reasons I just enumerated. We can’t have the summit on Earth because there’s nowhere on the planet short of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where there wouldn’t be riots, either by the people who hate the Colonial Union or by the people who want us to get them off that rock. The Conclave, of all people, offered to host the summit as a quote unquote neutral third party at their own administrative rock, which I will remind you is an order of magnitude or two larger than Phoenix Station. We definitely don’t want the Earthlings to make any inferences off of that. So what are we left with?”

“Earth Station,” Rigney said.

“Earth Station indeed,” Egan said. “Which we own, even though it’s above Earth. And that is in fact going to be a negotiating point.”

Rigney furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?” he said.

“We’re offering to lease it,” Egan said. “The lease strategy was approved this morning, in fact.”

“No one told me about it,” Rigney said.

“No offense, Abel, but why would anyone tell you?” Egan said. “You’re a colonel, not a general.”

Rigney pulled at the collar of his uniform. “Stab me again, why don’t you, Liz,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Egan said. “I wouldn’t know about it, either, except that I’m the liaison, and State needed the CDF to sign off on this. This is an agreement far above both of our pay grades. But it really is a masterstroke, if you think about it.”

“Us losing our sole outpost above Earth is a masterstroke?” Rigney said.