“May we speak in absolute confidence?” Banstegeyn said, sitting still closer to the other man.

Mierbeunes was shaking his head. “What price confidentiality, sir, when trust, when honesty itself, is nowhere to be found?”

“I will have this reversed,” Banstegeyn assured the ambassador, patting him gently again. “You have my word on it. You may rely on that absolutely. Now, Mierbeunes,” he continued, as the ambassador took a breath, opened his mouth, shook himself and generally showed every sign that he was working up to some fresh, or at least subsequent, diatribe, “this was not my fault. Even I cannot be everywhere at all times. I have as much cause to feel betrayed as you and our dear Liseiden friends, in some ways, for I put my trust in others and was let down. They said they would vote one way, then turned and voted another. Unforgivable. Utterly—”

“That wretch, that bastard Quvarond!” the Iwenick said, sounding like he was almost in tears. Banstegeyn had made it very clear who was behind the horrifying vote earlier.

“Yes, unforgivable, I know, but it has happened. I assure you I have looked into ways of undoing this immediately, but there are no grounds. This was most cunningly, cunningly done, believe me. No grounds at all. So, we must fall back for now, regroup. But this is not the end. We will prevail here, dear Mierbeunes, and sense will be seen. But you must understand that I must risk more, to accomplish this, and so I need you to ask one more thing of our friends, when the time comes.”

“Sir!” the ambassador said, almost despairing, “how can I possibly—?”

“Please, please listen, Mierbeunes. My hope, my desire, always – and let us not call it a price, because it is more, far more noble than that – but my desire has always been to have this world, the world of my birth, my cradle, my home, named after one of its most loving and honoured sons.”

“Sir, I—”

“No, please, please do listen. Let me say just this. Let me say just four words. Will you listen, please, dear Mierbeunes? Four words; just four words.”

Mierbeunes sighed heavily, nodded.

Banstegeyn moved still closer, whispering into the ambassador’s ear. “Mierbeunes’ World. Banstegeyn’s Star.”

She should have known. So should QiRia.

Sklom, the sylocule-resembling avatar of the Warm, Considering, played the bodily acoustic Antagonistic Undecagonstring superbly, as though born to it.

The ship had programmed its avatar to do so. It had reviewed all the literature, looked up the specs, watched and analysed every available screen and sound-only recording and then simmed the resulting models exhaustively until the virtual version of the blue-furred avatar could exactly reproduce the performances of all the great virtuosi of the past. The essence of all that had then been downloaded into the avatar.