The com unit button lit and emitted a beep as Aari replaced the fallen papers on the console, lifted RK to his shoulders, and headed back into the hold to continue his reading.
“You get it, Acorna,” Becker said. “It’s probably for you anyway.”
She flipped the toggle, fully expecting to hear the voice of either her aunt, viife()haanye ferliii Neeva, checking to make sure she was all right, or that of the viizaar Liriili, spouting yet another list of instructions and requests that Acorna was to pass on to her contacts in the Federation in general and to her Uncle Hafiz in particular.
Since the rescue of all the off-planet Linyaari spacefarers, ambassadors, teachers, students, scientists, engineers, healers and their families, and the subsequent return of those rescued to narhiiVhiliinyar, just six weeks before, big changes appeared to be taking place on the Linyaari world. According to Neeva, the governing council had been in almost continuous session, trying to decide if, when, and to what degree the Linyaari should end their isolationist policy with regard to most of the galaxy, and whether they should open trade alliances with Federation planets and companies.
The council had already unanimously decided on a most favored trade alliance with House Harakamian, the empire Uncle Hafiz had recently handed over to his nephew Rank Nadezda, one of Acorna’s adopted uncles. The Linyaari hadn’t yet decided whether or not to allow House Harakamian vessels enter Linyaari space, however. At this point, the majority of the council favored off-planet trading at some mutually agreeable location. But that wasn’t a unanimous view. Some of the more progressive Linyaari space travelers even favored entering the Federation. As they pointed out, isolation had failed to protect their people from the Khieevi or from capture and mistreatment at the hands of Edacki Ganoosh, the Kezdet robber baron. The vocal minority of the council felt that knowledge of other civilizations, both friends and foes, was better protection for a peaceful people like themselves than ignorance and isolation.
Since most of the Linyaari diplomatic corps was currently recovering from their ordeal on narhiiVhiliinyar, the council was entrusting all of the Linyaari’s initial overtures to the Federation to Acorna, who was a newly appointed Linyaari ambassador and also, conveniently, Hafiz Harakamian and Rafik Nadezda’s adopted niece. The council completely ignored her protestations that Becker did not intend to return immediately to federation space, preferring for the moment to search for salvage in the galaxies occupied by the Linyaari and their current trade allies, an area neither he nor any other Federation-licensed salvage company had previously explored. Acorna had passed on the Linyaari council’s messages to Hafiz before his flagship, the Sharazoi), departed from Linyaari space.
Hafiz’s last message to the ConSor, and to Becker in particular, had been suspiciously expansive and nonchalant.
“Of course, dear boy,” Hafiz had said, “there is no need for you to hasten your business on our account. By all means stay in this congenial universe. Get acquainted. Find useful refuse. As long as Acorna is happy, her Aunt Karina and her other uncles and I are content. We’ll see each other soon enough.”
Perhaps Hafiz was really serious about retiring after all? In Acorna’s experience, it -was very unlike him to fail to seize a business opportunity by the throat and milk it for all it was worth. If he wasn’t retiring, he was clearly up to something.
So she had reason to hear from many people of her acquaintance just at this moment. But this time the corn unit surprised her. When a face appeared briefly on the screen, it was not her aunt, or another Linyaari, or even the wily Uncle Hafiz. Instead, a heavily bovine face was being transmitted, male and jowly with a curving brownish horn above each ear. It spoke in a language Acorna didn’t understand, so she reached for Aari’s LAANYE, a Linyaari device that collected samples of unknown languages, analyzed them, then served as both a translator and a sleep-learning device to implant foreign languages into the brain of anyone who wished to learn them. But the transmission trailed off just as she got the machine activated.
According to the LAANYE, the last word the creature had said translated as “Mayday” or “SOS” in Linyaari. The only other words she’d caught in the transmission before the screen turned to white, crackling static were “Niriian” and “Hamgaan).” She did recognize the race of the creature who’d appeared on her com screen. He “was from the planet Nirii-the Niriians “were regular trading partners of the Linyaari. Acorna scanned the frequencies, trying to pick up the signal aeain, but to no avail. Becker put his hand over hers and pointed. She followed his finger and saw that the screens of the long-range scanners he used to detect possible salvage showed blips of white light in several locations. One of them was backed by a mass of green light. “There,” he said. “There’s a solid mass under that one. According to the readout, it’s a small planet with an oxygen-based atmosphere. If the ship was seeking refuge, that would be the most likely place in this sector of space to retreat to. Let’s go see what we can find.”