The house received a few supplies—those exotics it could not produce itself—via suborbital, but those arrived in small, single-use couriers. This shuttle was a four-seater, larger and much more violent. The craft was preceded by a sonic boom, flaring hugely in the house’s senses, but then became elegant and avian, its compact maneuvering wings spreading to reduce the speed of its entry. It topped the northern mountains with a dying scream, and swooped down to settle on the landing pad that had risen up from the gardens.

The dusting of snow on the landing pad began to melt in the shuttle’s heat, the pad becoming wet and reflective, as if mist were clearing from a mirror. Icicles hanging from the nearest trees began to drip.

The mistress and her houseguest had arrived.

They waited a few moments inside the shuttle while the landing area cooled. Then two figures emerged to descend the short exit stairs, hurried by the not-quite-freezing summer air. Their breath escaped in tiny puffs, and in the house’s vision their self-heated clothing glimmered infrared.

The house was impatient. It had timed its welcome carefully. Inside the main structure, a wood fire was reaching its climax stage, coffee and cooking smells were peaking, and a last few servitors rearranged fresh-cut flowers, pushing stems a few centimeters one way and then the other as some infinitesimal portion of the house’s processors found itself caught in an aesthetic loop.

But when the senator-elect and her guest arrived at the door, the house paused a moment before opening, just to create anticipation.

The lieutenant-commander was a tall man, dark and reserved. He walked with a smooth, prosthetic gait, the motion a gliding one, like a creature with more than two legs. He followed the mistress attentively through a tour of the house, noting its relationship to the surrounding mountains as if scouting a defensive position. The man was impressed, the house could tell. Laurent Zai complimented the views and the gardens, asked how they were heated. The house would have loved to explain (in excessive detail) the system of mirrors and heated water in underground channels, but the mistress had warned it not to speak. The man was Vadan, and didn’t approve of talking machines.