"Are you sure you want this house to come to the Grand Gathering?" Varis asked, staring at the big board.

It was a big board. Not the one I'd been working on in the VIP suite with Arvie. But it was a big board that bore more than a passing resemblance to the big board in that other room.

An entire floor of the upper tower had been given over to planning the Grand Gathering. There were livisk all around us moving back and forth. Talking quietly. The subtle beeps and boops of people tapping at screens, or the occasional clack of one of the livisk using something that looked very similar to a traditional mechanical keyboard.

That was one of the things that ancient science fiction never really considered. That everything would look more like Alien than Star Trek with touchscreens everywhere. Because at the end of the day, there was nothing better than the tactile feel of a good old-fashioned mechanical keyboard. There was nothing more reliable than the tactile feel of a good old-fashioned mechanical keyboard, for that matter.

Though, in this case, I wasn't able to use that capable keyboard because I had no idea how to take the language in my head and transform it into whatever they were typing. So I was forced to use an old-fashioned audio interface.

Like a baby toy.

"I think that would be a good idea," I said to Varis.

She frowned. Even Arvie pulsed green for a moment as I rattled off my list.

"Are you sure about that, William?" he asked. "House Kerthen isn't a particularly well-known house. Inviting them to a Grand Gathering for House t'Thal would be giving them far more prestige than it would be giving us."

"I have a whole list of minor families I'd like to invite along."

That had some of the livisk standing around turning to look at me. Like they thought I'd lost it. Maybe I was losing it. Or maybe this was simply a case of a human approaching a situation from a different point of view and coming up with something none of the other livisk had ever thought of.

"If he says he wants to invite them, then we invite them," Varis finally said after a pause, confidence radiating through the link to me.

At least it was mostly confidence. There was still a part of her that was unsure about this. But my own confidence about what I was doing was enough to convince her that it was a good idea to at least give me a chance.

I was a touch nervous about that. I was painfully aware I might never get a chance like this again if this whole thing went poorly. Or maybe she wouldn't realize what I was doing even after the representatives of a relatively minor house went up in a massive transport-shattering kaboom, and I wouldn't be allowed to do something like this again.

But all I could do was forge ahead and hope for the best. And maybe pray that my explosive first foray into livisk politics would be enough to redeem me and make all this fuss worthwhile.

"I still don't understand it," Arvie said.

"You don't need to understand, Arvie," I said. "You just need to go along with it."

"I also don't understand why you're grinning every time you talk about this," he continued.

"Yeah, you wouldn't understand," I said.

There was a pause, which had me grinning even wider. It was a mark of honor every time I got him to pause like that.

He wouldn't understand because I'd been working with the shard version of him that his main consciousness had no access to, which was dreadfully useful. I could talk through scenarios in the VIP suite where he was totally on board because he knew my goals, and then I turned around and had a conversation with the full consciousness outside the VIP suite and he was against the plan because he had no idea about any of the scheming I'd been doing with him.

But I had counters ready for all his arguments because the part of his consciousness that knew what was going on here had thought of all the arguments he'd come up with and given me ways to counter them.

It was a strange and fucked-up situation, but it was also pretty damn funny using the computer against himself. Anything that irritated the Combat Intelligence was just fine with me.

"We'll have to invite all the normal major houses as well," Varis said. "The ones who have sworn allegiance to us at a minimum."

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"Actually, about that," I said. There was a sudden wariness through the link.

I looked over at Varis and hit her with a smile. She smiled back, but it was a sickly sort of smile. Like she could tell I was about to do something that was going to cause her some trouble with everybody assembled in this room.

"I was thinking it would be a good idea for us to invite some of the houses who aren't exactly friends with us as well."

"And why do you think it would be a good idea to invite our enemies into the tower?" Arvie said. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

I decided to play this innocent. Varis could feel what I was doing. She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded, looking to the gathered livisk all around us.

Each and every one of them had turned, and they were staring at me with an intense look. The kind of look that said they were very interested in whatever I was about to say. The kind of look that said they thought the crazy Terran was about to do something… well, crazy.

"There's an old phrase on Earth, 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.'"

"In this instance, keeping your enemies closer could result in one of them trying to set off a bomb inside our building," Arvie said.

"Come on, Arvie. It's like when we were in the great glass elevator."

"The what?" he asked.

"The big elevator you have going all around the place," I said.

I was given to understand that flying around in the great glass elevator was actually a privilege. The kind of thing that only people who were close to Varis actually got to enjoy. Otherwise, you had to go around the outskirts of the building rather than taking the most direct path across the middle.

Something about her not wanting her giant aquarium to get screwed up by somebody accidentally piloting an elevator in the wrong location, plus having a bunch of aircar equivalents ruining the sightlines would be a pain in the butt.

"General, I don't know that I can advise doing any of this," Arvie said.

"Just listen to me, Arvie."

"Yes, listen to him," she said.

"Fine," he said, after another hesitation. I really needed to start keeping track of exactly how often I made him hesitate like that. I kept forgetting to keep a running tally.

"I have every confidence in your ability to keep us safe, Arvie. I'm assuming you have all kinds of scans you can run on ships to make sure they aren't carrying anything dangerous, correct?"

Another pause. That was three for today.

"That is correct," he finally said, though he didn't sound happy about tooting his own horn.

"So either you were lying to me when you bragged about your capabilities, or inviting those houses in isn't going to be any trouble from a security point of view."

"What would we do with them if they try to smuggle something in to kill us?" he said.

"That's simple," I said with a shrug. "We kill them. Is that really so hard?"

Another pause. Four times. Which was almost better than the record Varis and I set where we went five times in one night. Not that I was going to talk about that record in front of any of these people.

I still had everyone's attention. These were all the administrative people Varis worked with on a regular basis, the people who made up the brain trust that ran her operation on the regular.

At least the brain trust on the non-military side of her operation. I figured winning them over would go a long way towards helping me to complete some of my plans.

"You cannot kill somebody who has come to your house under a shield of honor because of a Grand Gathering," Arvie said, talking like it was the most simple thing in the world.

Again, I smiled. I'd been prepared for every objection Arvie would bring up by Arvie himself, after all.

"If somebody comes under the shield of peace to a Grand Gathering, but they've brought weapons that make it clear they intend to do violence at the Grand Gathering, then doesn't that mean their shield is forfeit and we can kill them with impunity and no worry of dishonor?"

Another hesitation, five times. I was tied with the night Varis and I went five times. This was almost as satisfying.

Almost, but not quite. I threw a look at her and winked. She still had that sickly smile. Like she knew I was up to something, but she wasn't sure what it was or whether it was going to end in something bad for her.

"I figure we invite our enemies and we try to show them a good time. We make it clear we can host enemies and friends alike. That we're willing to build bridges with other nobility even if we've had disagreements in the past."

I paused for a moment. I looked at everybody in turn. Some of them were already starting to lose attention as I talked about building bridges and making peace and all that kind of stuff that didn't really interest the livisk.

"And if any of them decide to break that shield of peace? We're going to kill them like the dogs they are. If they've dishonored themselves to the point they would break the shield of peace by bringing weapons in, then they deserve their fate."

I raised my voice at that last bit. Turned it almost into a martial yell. I'm not sure how good a job I did of it, but it was definitely fun.

There was maybe the space of a breath where everybody in the room stared at me like I'd lost it. That was fine. I didn't care about my personal honor. I didn't care if everybody thought the Terran had gone insane. If anything, I was leaning into the idea of the crazy Terran just a little.

I figured if everybody expected the crazy, bloodthirsty human? That's exactly what I was going to give them, damn it. I was going to use that.

There was the space of yet another breath, and then everybody got back to work. I wished I could say it was a moment where everybody started cheering, but that didn't happen. It wasn't like this was some silly movie.

If this all worked out and I ended up taking down the Livisk Ascendancy from the inside then that's precisely the moment when everybody would start cheering me in the eventual movie they made about my life.

Still, there was an extra spring to everybody's step. People were smiling a little more, and they were giving me considering looks. Not questioning my ideas quite as much.

It wasn't exactly the whole room erupting into cheers and applause, but given what I was working with? I'd take it.

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