“And yet, my team has,” Abumwe said, finally looking over at Schmidt. “Most of it, anyway. The Department of State assures me that the reassignments are only temporary—they need my people to fill in holes on other missions—but in the meantime I’m left with two people on my team. They left me Hillary Drolet, and they left me you. I know why they left me Hillary. She’s my assistant. I don’t know why they chose to take every other member of my team, assign them some presumably important task, and leave you doing nothing at all.”

“I don’t have any good answer to that, ma’am,” was the only thing that Schmidt could say that wouldn’t have immediately put his entire diplomatic career in jeopardy.

“Hmmmm,” Abumwe said again, and turned back to the Clarke.

Schmidt assumed this was his cue to depart and began stepping back out of the observation deck, perchance to avail himself of a stiff drink at the nearest commissary, when Abumwe spoke again.

“Do you have your PDA with you?” she asked him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Schmidt said.

“Check it now,” Abumwe said. “We have new orders.”

Schmidt drew out the PDA from his jacket pocket, swiped it on and read the new orders flashing in his mail queue. “We’re being attached to the Bula negotiations,” he said, reading the orders.

“Apparently so,” Abumwe said. “Deputy Ambassador Zala ruptured her appendix and has to withdraw. Normally protocol would have her assistant step up and continue negotiations, but Zala’s plank of the negotiations hasn’t formally started, and for protocol reasons it’s important for the Colonial Union to have someone of sufficient rank head this portion of the process. So here we are.”

“What part of the negotiations are we taking over?” Schmidt asked.

“There’s a reason I’m having you read the orders, Schmidt,” Abumwe said. Her tone had returned. She turned to face him again.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Schmidt said, hastily, and gestured at his PDA. “I’m not there yet.”

Abumwe grimaced but kept whatever comment about Schmidt that was running through her head to herself. “Trade and tourism access to Bula worlds,” she said instead. “How many ships, how large the ships, how many humans on the ground on Bulati and its colony worlds at one time, and so on.”

“We’ve done that before,” Schmidt said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“There’s a wrinkle that’s not in your orders,” Abumwe said. Schmidt looked up from his PDA. “There’s a Bula colony world named Wantji. It was one of the last ones the Bula claimed before the Conclave told the unaffiliated races they could no longer colonize. They haven’t put any of their people on it yet because they don’t know how the Conclave would react to that.”

“What about it?” Schmidt asked.