The airlock opened to a very short hallway with two doors. One was another airlock in the ceiling, while the other was a proper door at the end of the hall. The former was closed and the the latter was open to the hallway. In the open doorway stood a Freespacer Type Three, mostly organic in appearance except for the left eye and the right arm from the shoulder on down. A soft blue glow behind a small, eye-sized lens and molded polymer modeled after a normal human arm with gaps between the joints were the most obvious signs of mechanization. Garb consisted of white, loose-wrap tunic was laced up with colored wires woven together, and pants were held with a tied, ribbon-type data cable.

The Freespacer gave a short wave that could have been shy or nervous before beckoning the nekos forward, nodding with a small smile. The room was moderate in size, with small windows opened toward the loading bays and a round table of about two meters diameter. "Welcome to the Sojourner, honored guests. Please, come in, sit."

Yuumi returned the smile. If only all negotiations started this way.

"It's our pleasure to be here," she said in Nepleslian, calmly striding into the room. The black-haired Samurai, Kôsuka, parted left to that corner of the room that was closest to Yuumi's back; Kei went to the right. Yuumi pulled the chair back set for her and sat herself, scooting it forward with her hands and placing her arms hands in her lap.

She let herself look around. A plain enough room, she thought, with small windows looking over the loading bays. The first ship was headed inward, but stopped several thousand meters short.

She narrowed her eyes and let her mind do a little quick math. Mm. Freighter's too big ... The ship paused and she looked away. She would let her people do their jobs.

The table was plain, too. She liked that it was round. Most tables on Yamatai had defined, rigid sides; many were rectangles. A round table suggested there were no sides, just a position, equidistant from any other, with no borders or separate edges.

Whether the Freespacer across from her thought that way was conjecture at best. Yuumi hazarded no estimates.

The Freespacer seemed almost Nepleslian, considering the cybernetics. Yuumi understood the Nepleslians allied with them for many other reasons, but it could not have hurt that the Freespacers physically did not look so different.

But how did they think?

Not enough information for that. Yet.

* * *

"Fuck," the captain of the first freighter said as his main screen told him what he cursed his AI for ignoring. "Well this won't work."

"Orders, captain?" the helmsman asked.

"Hail the artsy bastards and ask them how they want us to give them this stuff." The captain sipped at his mug of black coffee, lips curled in irritation. "We'll work on their tech, I guess."

"Aye sir," the helmsman said. He tapped a button on his chair. "Dissonant Reflection, this is KZ Delivery I. We've just realized we're not going to fit in your loading bay. If there is another method you would prefer, please let us know, over."

The Freespacer stood to one side in the room beside the door as the party entered, noting the results of passive sensors in the cybernetic eye and murmuring: "You found loopholes in what you were asked. Interesting."

After they had entered, the greeter turned to Yuumi. The door remained open, but there was no one else in the hallway. With hands folding behind the Freespacer's back, the white-garbed greeter walked over to one of the other windows and glancing out of it to see what Yuumi had reacted to, a mild smile appearing as the incongruity of the unloading procedures was made evident. The station was built as a tube that, overall, would never have been able to house even one of the freighters within it. Its three docking arms that lead into the loading bays were intended as the exchange points, with airlock connectors that could re-size somewhat like camera apertures. Unfortunately, for freighters constructed to land within the delivery point...

"I suppose...this is a not-so-strange situation, at its heart. Whether it is two people or two peoples, misunderstandings hurt more than simply the two, wouldn't you agree?" Walking back to the chair opposite the Premier, the Freespacer stopped behind the seat and placed hands on the corners of the seat's back, not really making any motion to sit. "Like forcing two ships together when their docking systems are not compatible."

---

"Ha! They thought we were going to--" Again, the first voice was quickly cut off.

"Don't be rude, meathead..." The second voice said quickly in a stage whisper before it returned to the radio-personality voice that the Premier One had been greeted by earlier. "One moment, I shall forward your request to the Envoy...nevermind, the Envoy has been notified and your solution is on its way! Sit tight, relax, and let our fine workforce take care of the drudgery!"

Another transmission was received as the first one ended as Junker activity increased on the mothership. The swarms began moving toward the freighters, but then paused when the transmission began.

"KZ Delivery I, this is the Envoy. What is your normal procedure for unloading freight of this mass? Also, what might the shape and size of such material be?"

The comm officer of the KZ Delivery I looked back at his captain, who rubbed his chin as he parsed the situation before him.

"Huh ... tell'em we would normally use tugs."

"Thinkin' to get the others from the other ships?"

"Yeah, gonna have to, unless they want those robot-looking things to haul them off. Don't look big enough for that."

The comm officer nodded and prepared to reply, but stopped and looked back again. "Do I reply to the Envoy or the DR?"

"Shit. Just reply to the Envoy."

The officer turned again, wiping his brow with a sleeve. "Envoy, this is KZ Delivery I. We normally would deploy our tugs to manually unload the cargo, which is in 10-meter cubes. We can do so, using a tug from each of the freighters to transport the cargo to whatever destination you want."

* * *

Yuumi was not sure what to make of those words. Loophole? What loophole? Was that an insult? Whether it was or not, should she take it as one?

She smiled instead. Careful, Yuumi.

"Though incompatible at the start, it does not doom the operation," she replied, tone lightly colored with optimism. "It just makes it a little harder. After all, if everything was so easy, we would not be here right now, trying to patch old wounds."

The docking tunnels shifted, their apertures growing to about eleven-meter diameters. Meanwhile, the Envoy replied to the transmission from KZ Delivery I.

"Thank you for your offer. Let us try this: Your tugs can move the material from your vessel to the port where the Junkers will move it into the station, as they have more maneuverability. Is that acceptable? Adjustments for efficiency can be made as needed."

---

"In other words, we serve as adaptive interfaces, which allow even a possibility of connection between the two. Like those ships out there, our races want the same thing. To make a connection that doesn't damage either side. However, our natures clash, like the configurations of those hulls out there." The Freespacer leaned forward against the the chair, arms dangling in a childlike fashion over the moderately-high back, which was shoved into the 'spacer's arm pits.

"But we both know the purpose of diplomacy, so I will not belabor the subject. We must take care with our definitions to prevent more damage than has already been done by our respective sides." The Freespacer's head tilted forward and a little to one side, eyebrows raising as nimble fingers intertwined and played with each other. "It has come to my attention that neither of us really knows who we are working with."

Outside the room, a circuit in the Envoy figuratively died upon receiving the result of a Polysentience poll asking for possible opening questions. Somehow, an ancient communications-troll call had somehow passed the voting rapidly, winning with overwhelming numbers. The only thing that kept the Envoy from veoting the question was knowing that the Yamataians were unlikely to recognize the phrase or its origins and original intent. Back in the room, there was a short pause and the 'spacer speaker let slip another amused smile before standing straight again, hands resting on the top of the chair back.

"So...who is your father, and what does he do?"

The KZ Delivery I's captain rubbed his stubbly chin over the idea. The Junkers ... they just didn't look sturdy. Not compared to the tugs, but hell, it wasn't his shit.

"Give'em the OK," the captain said.

The communications officer nodded. "Envoy, we'll start sending out the tugs with the material. Stand-by while we get the others to our position."

* * *

Yuumi took the strange question in stride.

"I have no father," she said. "I had a creator, long ago. Do the Freespacers have parents?"

The swarms of Junkers resumed their movement, hundreds of them heading toward each of the cargo ships.

The Junkers themselves were widely varying in structure and design. As they neared the Yamataian ships, it became apparent that maneuvering thrusters had been jury-rigged onto many of them and those were towing the rest.

Instead of landing on the transports, the Junkers congregated on the Sojourner stations, clustering around the docking arms and waiting for the tugs to show themselves with the cargo.

---
"Created?" The Freespacer glanced off to one side, then got an "ah-ha" look.

"In answer to your question...sort of. Freespacers are nearly all cloned, in one fashion or another. All Freespacers have an ancestor, in that sense. Sometimes, too, genetic material is recombined and the result is grown. Natural reproduction is exceedingly rare, due to the prevalence of radiation..."

"So, you were created...what do you mean by that? You are organic...you must have had a donor for your genetic material."

The captain looked at the strange array of cobbled-together machines, each carrying a menacing appearance if no weapons.

That he could see.

He didn't understand the Junkers and he didn't like them. But if that's how they wanted their shit, well ... as long as they didn't start shooting.

"Let'em go," the captain said to his comm officer. "Fuck it. Won't know until we try. Keep the guns powered down, but watch them. Moment one of guys is in trouble, power up."

"Yessir," the officer said before giving the order for the tugs to launch.

Slowly but surely, green-colored ships filtered out of the freighter's wide cargo bay portal, each carrying large, strapped-up blocks of Zanarium to hand off. The ships kept their throttles fairly low, not wanting to spook anyone — let alone each other.

After about five minutes, the lead tug came upon the closest Sojourner station and stopped. It was about 700 meters from the station itself. It then radioed Delivery I.

"Hey boss," the woman said. "Do I just set it here or what? They don't seem to have enough bays for all of us."

" ... " The captain realized his plan was not as well thought-out as he preferred. "Sure, drop them there. The rest of the tugs can do the same. Make it pretty."

"Roger," she replied, beginning the process of releasing her cargo.

The captain said to his comm officer, "Tell the Freespacers what we're doing so they aren't pissed."

"Uhhh ... yessir." The comm officer hailed back. "Dissonant Reflection, KZ Delivery I. We're setting down the packages at a distance of 700 meters from the Sojourner station nearest to us. We'll keep a steady pace so your cargo, uh, haulers aren't overwhelmed. Is this satisfactory?"

* * *

Yuumi politely nodded, but in her mind she was highlighting that bit of information. Freespacers reproduced much like the Nepleslians did, at least until recently. The idea of Freespacers and Nepleslians somehow interbreeding was an interesting concept. She bet the DNA was compatible enough for successful births, though the radiation was a problem.

Then again, the Envoy seemed to have no trouble being outside of radiation.

"Not in the strict sense." Yuumi folded her hands in her lap. "I am constructed using a form of my creator's race's DNA, but the actual material of my creation is nanomechanical units. We have been classified as gynoids."

The Junkers were surprisingly adept at stringing themselves together as they reached out for the blocks, but there weren't enough of them to overcome the blocks' inertia when the Junker-chain reached its maximum length.

A few chunks broke away from the "asteroid" and moved toward the Junker collective, maneuvering behind the nearest block of material and slowly nudging it toward the writhing tendrils of Junkers. With the first block on the move, the "chunks" moved on to the next one and repeated. Soon, there was a semi-orderly delivery line arranged. There was a clear disparity, though, between the movements of the Junkers and those of the self-propelled "chunk" drones, which were actually Sky Swifts, whose external panels were hastily-manufactured and sort-of-intentionally left unfinished enough to look like space rock or metal chunks. The Swifts were precise in their movements, not wasting a bit of thrust while the Junkers clambered over each other like insects as they went about their tasks.

None of the drones or Junkers paid any mind to the tugs or transports, only the blocks of material that the tugs left for them.

---

"Ahh, so you are automata, but biological instead of mechanical. Fascinating." The Freespacer was draped over the chair back again while listening to Yuumi's explanation, before smiling and slipping around the chair to sit down on it for the first time since the meeting began.

"In-Ter-Es-Ting stuff indeeeeeeed..." A brief pause. "Well...I suppose something else should be clarified, before we go on. You may have heard of our Polysentience Network, so hopefully you know that this meeting is being streamed live to any Freespacer who wants to observe?" An eyebrow went up. The question was a preface for something else, but the Freespacer apparently was interested in confirming Yuumi's knowledge and opinion on the matter of having an audience.

The gruff captain and his crew simple watched the machines as they worked. It was impressive in its own way, but the black masses, varying between spindly arms and bulky centers, still gave everyone a bit of the creeps. The captain knew he would be glad when they finished.

* * *

Yuumi affirmed the fact she was being viewed. She heard the subtle shifting of one of her Samurai guards; likely Kei was uncomfortable with being watched. Perhaps Kôsuka was the same. She at least didn't show it.

"As long as I am not asked about state secrets, I am fine with an audience."