Visitor: A Foreigner Novel by C. J. Cherryh

had had time or fluency enough to answer—things regarding their future and their children’s future.
    Certain situations were still in flux. It was not an occasion to unbend and make extravagant promises that he would do this and that or that they could have this and that. He couldn’t promise that their lives would resume a normal track. Nothing the Reunioners had experienced in the last decade had been normal, and their future involved changes, changes to everything they knew . . . changes in their own children. Some of those changes were already happening.
    “News this morning,” he said, “
Tillington
is replaced.” That was good news for any Reunioner. Tillington had been the roadblock to any improvement in their situation. “I’ve just spoken to the new Mospheiran stationmaster, who is Gin Kroger—you don’t know her, but she was on the voyage with us, she knows what you were promised, and she’s determined to begin meeting those promises within the limits of resources at her command.”
    They did like that news. They were a little suspicious, and that was understandable.
    “What about our situation?” Artur’s mother asked. “Did you talk to her about us?”
    “I can assure you that for right now, you’ll be as safe here as anywhere on the station . . . more so than where you’ve been. Safe and as comfortable as we can make you. I can’t say right now
how long
you’ll need to stay here.” A cup of tea arrived beside Cajeiri, and another beside him. “You know that there is a kyo ship inbound, they want to talk, and that we will be talking to them as extensively as they want, much as we did at Reunion. We expected this visit. We’re not utterly surprised by it. We’ll deal with it and we expect it to end as reasonably and quietly as our last conversation at Reunion, with their understanding that we’ve told them the truth and that we’re peaceful here. Best case scenario, we’ll make a solid agreement and all sleep better at night. But that means there’ll be a time in which I’ll be quite busy with that visit, and you’ll have to rely on your young folk to translate to the staff for you. I’ve no doubt your young folk will manage to communicate at least as well as they did on Earth. Ask, and maybe they’ll teach you the words they know. Staff is prepared to handle mistakes—they’ll be charmed with the gesture.”
    Tea had now arrived beside everyone, and he picked up his cup a little before Cajeiri, who was watching his moves, not the converse that strict manners and protocol of rank dictated. “Atevi custom discourages serious talk during tea, understand. It’s a way to ask that we calm our minds and speak quietly for the space of a cup or two, not quite on business, but let me assure you, conversationally speaking, that the new stationmaster is determined to fix things, and that your own host, Lord Geigi, who is right now busy with the arriving stationmaster, has locked down your premises in the Reunioner area to preserve them absolutely intact. Right now things are still a littletoo unsettled in the sections to go in after property, but be assured it’s being safeguarded.”
    “We have business,” Bjorn’s father said unhappily. “We have jobs. We’re grateful. But we have a lot to lose. Everything to lose. There’s a notebook. All my notes. Family records. Two hundred years of records.”
    “Mr. Andressen. It is Andressen, am I correct?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What records would those be, sir?”
    “Private.”
    Bjorn’s father—Mr. Andressen—was not accustomed to atevi-scale intrigue, or was baiting a trap.
    “I do take note,” Bren said with equanimity, “and whatever they are, they will be under guard, along with other property. Nobody is going to enter the premises until we can make a systematic recovery—no recklessness about it. If you have particular items, provide a list of what you want and where to find it, and I’ll order it found and