“How well can you take a punch?” asked Deputy Ambassador Schmidt.

Lieutenant Harry Wilson blinked and set down his drink. “You know, there are a number of places a conversation can go after a question like that,” he said. “None of them end well.”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Schmidt said. He drummed the glass of his own drink with his fingers. Harry noted the drumming, which was a favorite nervous tell of Hart Schmidt’s. It made poker games with him fun. “I have a very specific reason to ask you.”

“I would hope so,” Harry said. “Because as conversational ice breakers go, it’s not in the top ten.”

Schmidt looked around the Clarke’s officer lounge. “Maybe this isn’t the best place to talk about it,” he said.

Harry glanced around the lounge. It was singularly unappealing; a bunch of magnetized folding chairs and equally magnetized card tables, and single porthole from which the yellowish green limb of Korba-Aty was glowing, dully. The drinks they were having came from the rack of vending machines built into the wall. The only other person in the lounge was Lieutenant Grant, the Clarke’s quartermaster; she was looking at her PDA and wearing headphones.

“It’s fine, Hart,” Harry said. “Enough with the melodrama. Spit it out already.”

“Fine,” Schmidt said, and then drummed on his drink some more. Harry waited. “Look, this mission isn’t going well,” he finally said.

“Really,” Harry said, dryly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Schmidt said.

“Don’t get defensive, Hart,” Harry said. “I’m not blaming you.”

“I just want to know how you came to that conclusion,” Schmidt said.

“You mean, how did I come to that conclusion despite the fact I’m this mission’s mushroom,” Harry said.

Schmidt frowned. “I don’t know what that means,” he said.