Fighting Words

Two rival Crotonite embassies stationed on the world LostRoses have learned to coexist despite their differences, until a crisis back on the Crotonite homeworld threatens to drag their careful truce into a much larger fight. Kagan's follow-up to her first Isaac's Universe story tests how much diplomatic goodwill built on a distant outpost can survive when the politics driving it come from somewhere neither embassy controls. It appears in Unnatural Diplomacy, the third Isaac's Universe anthology.