His adjutant hissed in horror at the very idea. Among the Race, even saying such things was shocking. There had been mutinies and rebellions here on Tosev 3. Perhaps more than anything else, that told what sort of place this was. Atvar held up a placating hand. “I obey. I will go into cold sleep. I will return to Home. Maybe by the time I get there, those who will sit in judgment on me will have learned more. Our signals, after all, travel twice as fast as our starships.”

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “Meanwhile, though, as I told you, those who wish to say farewell await you.”

“I know they do.” Atvar waggled his lower jaw back and forth as he laughed, to show he was not altogether amused. “Some few, perhaps, will be glad to see me. The rest will be glad to see me-go.” He got to his feet and sardonically made as if to assume the posture of respect before Pshing. “Lead on. I follow. Why not? It is a pleasant day.”

The fleetlord even meant that. Few places on Tosev 3 fully suited the Race; most of this world was cold and damp compared to Home. But the city called Cairo was perfectly temperate, especially in summertime. Pshing held the door open for Atvar. Only the great size of that door, like the height of the ceiling, reminded Atvar that Big Uglies had built the place once called Shepheard’s Hotel. As the heart of the Race’s rule on Tosev 3, it had been extensively modified year after year. It would not have made a first-class establishment back on Home, perhaps, but it would have been a decent enough second-class place.

When Atvar strode into the meeting hall, the males and females gathered there all assumed the posture of respect-all save Fleetlord Reffet, the commander of the colonization fleet, the only male in the room whose body paint matched Atvar’s in complexity. Reffet confined himself to a civil nod. Civility was as much as Atvar had ever got from him. He’d usually had worse, for Reffet had never stopped blaming him for not presenting Tosev 3 to the colonists neatly wrapped up and decorated.