The reception was underway, the Oriati having brought in smaller parties to garnish the area with principles of celebration. Tau pointed out a puzzle club from Loveport, a party of children “straight off a syndicate pirate ship, bless their little hearts” playing with the octopi in the rocky aquarium, a group of Oriati writers from Galila, which was a kypra island famous for its studios, gathered in a circle to smoke hash and mumble toward inspiration, and even a local banker in a Falcresti waistcoat throwing her daughter a birthday. The embassy staff themselves had thrown out a silken sheet on the main steps, inviting their visitors to trample on luxury (the joy of their company being worth far more to the properly trimmed household than the fabric itself).

“All is prepared,” Tau said, contentedly.

“I’d say.” Osa did not like the pre-parties at all. “Everyone’s had a chance to case the grounds and slip in their agents.”

“An embassy is not a fortress, Osa.”

“It should be,” Osa muttered.

“You would put thorns on dessert cakes if you could, Osa, to keep them from being licked.” Tau aimed Baru toward the quays at the north edge of the lagoon. “I expect the Prince-Ambassador will turn out in person to say hello. Dai-so Kolos is an old colleague. Look for the laman with the curiously straightened hair…”

But no straight-haired ambassador waited at the quayside.

Their gondola kissed Hara-Vijay’s mortared rubble pier, and they came up to meet a small party of Oriati in khangas or death-white uniforms. A lean man in a puffy white blouse stepped forward to salute them with his rapier to his brow.

“Your Federal Highness.” He kissed Tau’s hand, and then Baru’s. “Your Excellence Barbitu Plane. Ladies of the house. I am Scheme-Colonel Masako ayaSegu. I can only offer my poor company in lieu of the ambassador’s. May I send ahead for anything? A refreshment? A companion?”

“Guide,” Shao whispered to Baru, “not companion companion.”

“Trust a sailor to think first of whores.”

“I wouldn’t want the gava girl to grope the wrong hole.”

“I don’t grope at all.”

Tau and the scheme-colonel began to apologize to each other: for being late, for their ill dress, for the condition of the embassy grounds and the state of the weather. Then, when Baru thought it might finally be over, they started reassuring each other that everything was quite all right on each point. Baru couldn’t take it.

“Where’s the Prince-Ambassador?” she demanded.

“With their sincerest apologies, Dai-so Kolos is away on a fact-finding mission.”

“What sort of facts?”

The scheme-colonel smiled diplomatically. “They are tabulating the size and number of fish that may be caught from a little yacht. A spontaneous excursion, for their health. Of course the embassy’s services remain at your disposal, Your Federal Highness.”