Behind Illart, Andrezhuria shook off the Palomellese who had a hand on her arm. “I go with the First Speaker,” she said coldly. Her eyes glanced at the group of Palomellese. “Gerezan, your honor goes with us. Will you not accompany it?”
“I did try to get you to see reason, ‘Zhuria,” Gerezan mumbled.
Andrezhuria lifted her chin and tossed the tumble of blond nnglets back over her shoulders. Without another word she stepped forward through the inner doors of the air lock, hand in hand with her former husband Ezkerra. The other prisoners followed her, one by one, some protesting, others accepting their fate in benumbed silence.
When the inner doors closed behind them. Market went temporarily mad, beating on the unyielding door and twisting at the walls until his hands were raw and bruised. This could not be happening-it was some sort of nightmare!
“No nightmare,” said a raw voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You knew -what Nueva Fallona was. You knew, and you did not tell Illart.” He had a debt to pay for that failure, a task Illart had laid on him in those last words: to remember and avenge.
And he could accomplish nothing by crying like a baby or wrestling with the doors as if they could hear his desperation. Markel put his grief aside, and with it the last of his childhood, because he did not have very long to decide -what to do before the new guards came for him. They must know that he -would never swear loyalty to the regime that had killed his father. Even if they were blind enough to believe in any oath he took, wouldn’t the words choke him?
There was only one alternative: he must not be there when they came. It was a good thing he knew the secret insides of the Haven so well. In the icy calm that he had imposed on himself, Markel mentally went over at least three separate ways to exit the cabin without using the locked doors, any one of which would leave no trace. But just to confuse the issue, he would hack into the central computer and see what trouble he could make before leaving. No telling when he’d next get a chance at a data console.
Three
Labour, Unified\ Federation Date334.05.12
House Harakamian received an emergency call from the senior members of the secluded and elusive planet of Laboue, where Hafiz Harakamian made his home when he was not scouring the galaxy in search of rarities for his collection and profits for his businesses.
“Surprised by your call? Why, no, my dear Quiabriel,” Hafiz said urbanely. “I assume you wish to enlist my help in communicating with the strange ship that has been in orbit about our world for the past six hours.”
An irritated crackle came from the speaker, ending on a note of inquiry.
“But of course I am aware of it. House Harakamian’s defenses are, as I am sure you are aware, planetwide; and information, my dear Quiabriel, is the first requisite for proper selfdefense.”
But Hafiz had not been aware of the reason why Quiabriel was enlisting his aid. When he learned of it, his eyebrows rose in surprise-not so much at the news that beings similar to the horned girl Hafiz had once sheltered were apparent in vids transmitted from the strange ship, as at the discovery that Quiabriel knew all about his unicorn visitor of four years previously. Something was very wrong with the Harakamian security arrangements, to allow Quiabriel access to such information!
But concerns about his private security system vanished when the broadcasts coming from the ship were transmitted forward to the Harakamian house screens.
What it was broadcasting was not a known language but files of the most awful atrocities he’d ever seen committed, inflicted by vicious-looking members of an alien race on what Hafiz instantly identified as members of Acorna’s species. Some, and these must be the males writhing within their torture structures, had larger horns, were obviously taller than Acorna, but helpless. Then the awful visions altered to a spatial map, showing the planet Laboue where House Harakamian was sited. Clearly displayed were the bridge of a ship occupied by members of Acorna’s species, and then a second view of the galactic area in which this solar system was located as well as a five-ship vanguard of what had to be the vicious torturers aiming straight at this retreat. Then images of the unicorn people, this time standing upright and free, appeared, their arms outspread in what appeared to be a gesture of greeting-or a cry for help.