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peace.”
    He cocked his head to the side, his expression suggesting he was playing dumb. A deep anger crawled up inside her. “We need something to give the others. Not something to sell to them. You already have more credit than anyone else in the Glittering.”
    She could see that stung him; he blinked and turned away. True to form, his discomfort only lasted a moment. The man was born to wrest a great business deal out of every breath he took. She followed up on her barb. “Can you think about something more than yourself?”
    He scowled at her. “I’m thinking about every ship and station we have. I’m thinking about all of them being safer and all of them getting where they need to go more precisely. I’m thinking of a self-healing, selfdirected navigation system that takes any change in the whole system into account, so a flap of a butterfly’s wings on Mammot doesn’t blow the Diamond Deep an inch out of its original orbit. I’m thinking about getting unmanned ships wherever they need to go.”
    She sipped her wine. Bitter and good. “You’re thinking of making a ton of credit.”
    â€œSince when do you comp people who can’t afford tickets into the concerts you run?”
    She stood on tiptoe so she could look more closely at him. “I have been. I’ve been streaming them all for everyone. You still have to pay to be here. But I’ve lost millions of credits since the attack. People need hope and diversions and to work together. You and I and the rest of this damned station have to stop caring who’s the most powerful human until we’ve dealt with the Next.”
    He turned his back to her and poured himself a second glass of red wine. “Dealt with?”
    â€œAssimilated. Gotten used to. Stopped being scared of or fascinated by. Until they finish whatever they’re doing down on Lym and we know what it is so we have something to understand that’s not a rumor. People are scared. Frightened into making bad choices. We have never— never — been threatened by beings so far beyond us.”
    Gunnar teased her hand and her glass away from her stomach playfully, his energy a counter to hers. He whispered, “It will be okay. It really will. They are not aliens; they are us. They are what we will all eventually become.”
    â€œYou’re eating their propaganda.”
    â€œI’m drinking my wine.” He started some music playing and picked her up, dancing with her in the wide open space in the middle of the room, while the picture of Ruby looked down on them both. “It will be okay,” he whispered again. “The stations will come to us; they have to.”
    â€œAnd you’re doing what to help?”
    â€œI have to have a deal before I can decide whether or not to give anything away, you know.” He twisted right and spun, amazingly light on his feet given his size.
    She kissed his cheek. “You should put me down.”
    â€œI will.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œSoon.” He nibbled at her ear and turned the other way and she felt soft and vulnerable and warm in spite of her frustration with him.
    They filled the space, they and their music, and she closed her eyes and felt the rocking motion of his carry, the slide and dip of his feet. She remembered that year they started dating when she used to run on the inside track and chant in her head. Gunnar Ellensson loves me. Gunnar Ellensson loves me. Gunnar Ellensson loves me.
    Even now it was possible to re-create that secret awareness, that amazement.

CHAPTER SIX
    CHARLIE
    Charlie shivered. Cold wind sheared around the skimmer as he drove and pinked Nona’s and Jean Paul’s cheeks. Nona had found an old coat of his and pulled it on, but her legs were still bare and must be cold.
    He banked left to follow the contours of the northern Resort Mountains. They flew halfway between sea level and the tree line, and twenty