“None, I fear. But I will take it as a personal matter of honor that no harm befalls you or your crew.”
“I appreciate that assurance, Snoraa. Did you issue the same courtesy to my lifemate?”
From his silence, Melireenya guessed that Snoraa had-or at least had concerned himself with the fate of Hrronye and his students.
“May I speak with the vifeDhaanye, please?” she asked politely. Neeva had taken the shuttle to the planet’s surface, feeling it a wise precaution until she knew what had become of the missing Linyaari and why they had sent a distress signal home.
“The vmeShaanye has been detained as well and is presently incommunicado, madam. Please dock your ship in bay one one four and present yourself and your crew to the guardians who will greet you there. I will do what I can to assist but my job, you understand, is to insist upon your compliance with my orders at this time.”
Melireenya had attempted to send another message back to Vhiliinyar. Like her previous attempts since coming within the planet’s orbit, her transmission met with no response.
Unable to contact base for further orders and worried about what was happening to Neeva, she saw no viable alternative but to comply. From the transmissions they had been receiving from the other Linyaari spacecraft, she and Khaan had determined that most of the fleet, if not all of it, was now deployed. Unlike the Balakiire, the rest of the ships were not investigating a distress call, but rather a widespread radio silence on behalf of the diplomatic, trade, and educational missions stationed on various planets. She opened all channels in an attempt to reach the other ships, to apprise them of Nirii’s odd behavior, but was met with the same silence that greeted her calls to home base. Something was very wrong.
She sent out a general Mayday, with no response whatever. Her only consolation was that none of this seemed even remotely like a Khieevi attack or invasion.
But as she prepared to land, she felt a deep sense of panic like none she had ever experienced. She thought that the elders must have felt this way in the old stories when, attempting to make contact with a hostile species by communicating with its least dangerous members, the young females, they found themselves instead surrounded by armed males and were taken into captivity, the purpose of which they did not truly understand to this day.
Her fears were well founded. No sooner had she landed than a team of uniformed people, not Niirians but very much like the people among whom Khornya had been dwelling when the Balakiire located her, boarded the ship. Two of them forcibly removed her from the command seat while two others removed Khaari from hers and still others swiftly took over the controls at both of their stations and demanded the access code to the ship’s computer.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What gives you the right to tamper with a sovereign Linyaari vessel? I demand to see Runae Thiirgaare at once.”
“Take it easy,” a burly young man who seemed to have no hair at all told her. “You are under arrest by the Federation Forces and your ship is being impounded.”
(Don’t worry, Melireenya,) Khaari’s thought came to her. (They will have difficulty impounding us unless we cooperate.)
(Then why do I feel us lifting up again?) Melireenya returned.
(Oh, dear. This must be one of those tractor beams we’ve been hearing about that allows us to be towed by another ship. I didn’t see one, though, did you?)
(No. But they may have been cloaked.)
Over the corn system, Snoraa’s voice could be heard demanding that the vessel ask for clearance but the uniformed people paid him no heed.
“What are the charges?” Melireenya asked. “And for that matter, what are the mysterious crimes that our people are supposed to have committed?”
She was picking up a welter of feelings and confused thoughts, most of them violent, angry, or lustful toward her or her fellow crewmen, or disrespectful of the bovine-like Niirians. They were lying, that much she knew. All of them were lying. But they were following orders, which was how they earned their living.