Chapter 6

Captain Chopka:

While my crew docked the ship to the space station, I weighed what to say to the System Commander. While I was confident my Lieutenant acted properly, the inevitable question about whether he should have contacted the local base authorities was sure to be raised. Still uncertain was what I would do if the local security forces _had _ been operating with his approval. The Admiral's authority was near absolute inside the system, and my only recourse in that case might be to leave suddenly. With that thought in mind, I had a few words with H'raawl-Hrkh.

Lieutenant Mitzep brought the three jaguar cubs and their handler to the lock. The male cub brought back a few old memories of the war: I'd killed young jaguar troopers just a few years older than him. I pushed those old thoughts to the back of my mind and smiled reassuringly at them as I made a last check of the airlock. It was just a few seconds until the station-side door opened, so I motioned them all to hide behind me without speaking. As I'd hoped, my old classmate, Commander Yerris, was alone on the other side when the door opened. I saluted, and he returned it in a perfunctory fashion. I guess too long on the staff leads to slack habits.

"Ah, good, Captain." He looked at the cubs, then at Mitzep and Berypt, indicating his approval with a half-wave of his tail. "You've got the pilot and their keeper, too. We've got to hurry, because security can only keep the hallways empty for a few more minutes without causing suspicion. I've gotten us a meeting room near the ceremony site. Follow me."

We left the dock by a service lift, traveling upward two levels, then down a maintenance access hallway. At a nondescript door, he looked out to see if the way was clear. We stepped out into a public hallway and crossed it immediately to a door on the opposite side. As promised, we met no other station personnel. Inside, past two guards in body armor, were the system commander, Admiral Cerdres, Captain Pon-wic, the security chief, and the admiral's aide. The admiral was seated, looking in as poor health as I'd heard from the rumors, with thinning fur.

"Captain, thank you for rescuing these three." I narrowed my eyes in surprise. He continued, "Yes, I have known about the Doctor Lonske's jaguar program from the beginning. When he approached me about quietly relocating the laboratory, I agreed." Glancing at his security chief, I could see this was a surprise to him, too. His expression was barely concealed anger, perhaps at being bypassed by his superior. The admiral continued. "While we could have simply transferred your charges, it was felt that a covert move would have avoided public outcry. When we moved the other cubs-"

Berypt interrupted him.

"The other cubs- they're alive?"

"The other cubs were sent to a secret facility on the home world, under the care of Doctor; on his families' estates, in fact. I assure you, they are fine. You would have been told of their destination once you were underway, so there was no need for your unorthodox escape. Still, I'm glad to see you all here safely." Captain Pon-wic moved over beside him, saying in a quiet voice,

"Admiral, we're overdue at the ceremony. We can't possibly spend more than a few minutes with this. Commander Yerris, why don't you go make our excuses, tell them the Admiral's been delayed." My friend looked puzzled, unsuccessfully hiding his annoyance at being sent on a menial task that was more appropriate for the aide to perform, but nevertheless left the room.

I turned back to see the Admiral admiring a doll held by one of the young females. He was bent over in his chair to look, so I barely caught it when it happened: Pon-wic leaned forward as if to steady him, placing one paw palm downwards on his neck. I heard a faint hiss, and the admiral convulsed, flinging his head back violently, his face darkening. The security chief stood away from the old fox, pulling a small dart gun from an inside pocket, dropping his aide with one dart. Before anyone could move, he snapped,

"Everybody keep their paws where I can see them! Guards, cover those two." He pointed at Mitzep and me. The guards looked surprised, but were obviously loyal to him, because they obeyed promptly.

"Admiral Cerdres' views will not be the position of his successor, nor do they represent those of any thinking Diyim'yi. Captain, this farce is over. Now that we now know where all the trained jaguars are located, we'll soon round up the rest of the members of your conspiracy. You have violated several fleet directives in the past several hours; I doubt seriously you will be in command of your ship much longer. You may consider yourself under arrest."

"What about the jaguars?," Berypt asked anxiously.

"They must be destroyed, thanks to you. They're entirely too well educated now to be allowed back into the wild." Berypt howled an anguished 'No!' and launched herself at him. Less than halfway across the compartment, he hit her with two darts in rapid succession, dropping her to the floor. In the silence that followed, he stepped over alongside his guards.

The male jaguar coughed in anger, and started toward him, but a guard quickly butt-stroked him to the floor with his weapon, where he fell, stunned. Taking advantage of these distractions, I had gradually been lowering my arm to reach for my own weapon. Pons-wic must have seen it, because he pointed his pistol back at me.

"Don't."

It would have remained a standoff, except that a cub, Leece I think, took this opportunity to pounce from her position beside the Admiral's chair, forcing him against a guard, her jaws causing him to use both hands to protect his throat, dropping his dart gun. Her sister grabbed the other guard around the waist, and they both went down under the two cubs. Seeing the second guard's rifle was still held as a club, I made my draw. Mitzep beat me by half a second both of us spraying the remaining guard's face with darts.

Meanwhile, Pon-wic rolled out from under the pile. His muzzle and forearms were a bloody red through his black and white fur, but he succeeded in throwing the young cub bodily across the room. He made a staggering escape through the door while Mitzep and I pulled the other female cub off the first guard. He was conscious but out of the fight; his remaining functional paw was needed to hold a pressure bandage once I relieved him of his weapon. Mitzep then followed Pons-wic out the door, while I checked the other casualties. The admiral wasn't dead, but clearly in need of major medical assistance. Everyone else was tranquilized, and the other guard's color looked bad, possibly an allergic reaction to the darts. Since the jaguar male could stand, I had him carry Berypt. Mitzep stuck his head back in the door.

"He got away, but he's left a trail of blood. As security chief, he's bound to get some help soon. I called H'raawl-Hrkh. She's going to break all connections except the lock tube, so we'd better hurry."

"I hate to leave the Admiral like this."

"We don't dare take him. Here." Mitzep pulled the room fire alarm. "Let someone else deal with them."

"You're getting used to this, or I'm getting old. Let's get back to the ship." Mitzep diplomatically said nothing.

Lossp:

Outside, my view screen showed the harshly lit, angular metal of the docking port. A small gantry just below main deck level held the various umbilicals we'd just disconnected from the ship, one hose trailing ice crystals. My console beeped softly, the 'airlock sealed' indicator began to flash, so I tripped the 'acknowledge' rocker switch to silence it. The Captain's voice came over the intercom.

"We're all here. Get us underway now; I'll be on the bridge once I settle our passengers in medical. Captain, out." The XO bared her teeth and needlessly tightened her harness straps before reaching over and engaging auxiliary power.

"Lossp, break connection with the station. I'm backing out on thrusters, now." I blew the explosive bolts on the passage tunnel before we used up all the slack, and it accordioned backwards from the ship. Some maintenance person's lost, misplaced clipboard blew out into open space as the air vented.

"We're free."

"Rotating, fifty meters. Is the nav comp ready? I'll engage your course as soon as we clear the structure, give me a quick scan once the antenna's clear."

"Right. ATC repeater shows nothing in our path. My radar in…fifteen seconds…they're not too happy with you at station control…ranging!" I degaussed the PPI to wipe the canned radar repeater feed from system control off my scope, filling it up with unprocessed blips from my own transmitter. Commander H'raawl-Hrkh laughed.

"They can stay unhappy as long as we get out of here. Anything?" She had killed the lights up above me, dimming the bridge, as she peered out her own forward visual screens.

"Execute, but plan on an unscheduled course change 15 degrees up, in 30 seconds. Somebody's gotten cute: There's a small powered rocket on a converging course, probably a service float."

"Got it on visual." She grabbed the engine quadrant with one paw, the yoke with the other. "Engaging now. Your course, with a roll and turn in 25, 24…." I watched the scope as she turned the ship.

"You're clear. We can either go back on original heading, or ride out this course. Which do you want?"

"That's the Captain's call. Let's just get clear of the inner system. Switching to main engines in 27 minutes, regardless. Peacetime max acceleration. Keep an eye out for pursuit: Normal, active emissions 'til further notice. No radio replies, though. We just play stupid." She locked on the autopilot, making notes in her bridge log. When she looked back up at the screen, I asked,

"What do you think happened? I thought his friend was going to square things with system command?" She gave a deep, feline 'chuff.'

"No telling. This whole time in Nurnkh system has been bad for me. Something's going on out here, and I trust the Captain and my little Mitzep more than some Admiral I maybe saw across an auditorium once. Any signs of pursuit?"

"Not yet, but nothing in the inner system is likely to catch us. The long-legged ships are all guarding the approaches. They'll know we're coming: can't outrun radio waves this close in."

"Is true." As the tension of leaving dockside faded, her clipped 'professional' syntax loosened, letting more of her native accent through. "Anything on the radio yet?"

"No. ATC stopped yipping at us, even. Definitely nothing beamed toward the perimeter along our track." Looking out of my navigation compartment, I saw Captain Chopka enter the main bridge.

"There will be." He summarized the situation on the station. "Once Captain Pon-wic tells his version of what happened, there'll probably be 'shoot to kill' orders to all the outer stations. Our only chance is to get through the perimeter and make it back to the home system, so we can get our version to the right authorities, especially Captain Amkro and Candroc on the council. Lossp, what have they got that can intercept on the most direct course home?" I looked at the figures on my kneepad.

"Station four has one ship and six fighters. If the ship from station six is at the end of its patrol track, that's another one."

"That's too many, even after our rebuild. We'd never get past. How about a two-jump route through H'raawl-Hrkh's home system?"

"Better odds: two ships, four fighters. But a ship launched today on the direct route could beat us home by six days."

"Well, that's out. Any other options?"

"Two jump: Earth and then home. We pass station three at the limit of fighter range, with no ship on-station."

"That'll surprise them! What about the time?"

"Even, but we'd need to scoop-refuel from the Jovian atmosphere. Depending on how well that goes, we end up ten hours to a day behind that hypothetical fastest ship."

"So no time for sightseeing. Okay, plug that one in, best time to jump speed. Otherwise, back on normal watches. XO, you've got the bridge. Mitzep and I'll relieve you in two hours, assuming Nurse Berypt recovers from that trank with no complications. I wish the doctor was with us this trip!"

I spent the remainder of the shift programming the course into our flight computer, with one ear on the radios, and my eye on the sensors. Shortly before shift change, the message I'd been expecting passed us headed for the outer stations. The transmission consisted of two parts: A clear-text declaration of our illegal departure and orders for our capture, and an encrypted message for the station commanders. I passed my course and transcript to Mitzep when he relieved me.

"Better draw a set of heavy gloves from supply before you report to the gym."

"Oh?"

"Yup. The nurse is still out, so you've got cub-sitting duty."

"You know I hate cats-present company excepted, of course, ma'am." I amended hastily to the XO, who bopped me with her tail as I crawled past her station.

"Is OK. I tell Klassti when we get back. You very rude." She exaggerated her accent, laughing, but mention of my wife's name reminded me how far we still had to go before we were home again.

The Captain was still with Nurse Berypt in medical, the young male jaguar sitting at her bedside.

"She's still pretty heavily sedated. Those were military-strength tranquilizer darts. It's a good thing we were on a station instead of the planet, because slug-throwers would have ripped her in half. She's breathing normally, though. This young fur has volunteered to sit with her until she wakes up, so I'm going to relieve H'raawl-Hrkh on the bridge. I need you to check on the younger cubs down in the gym. Let them play until they're tired, then put them in a bunk for their nap. Then get some rest yourself, because we're going to be watch-and-watch until we make our jump." He rubbed the jaguar on the ear, then we both went out into the passageway.

"That one is hurt, maybe a cracked shoulder. But he won't let anyone but her treat him. He and I cleaned up both the cubs (none of the blood on them was theirs) and I sent them to the gym by themselves. I gave them directions, I hope they're not in engineering or one of the holds by mistake."

They were both in the gym, asleep on an exercise mat, with a tattered blanket not much bigger than a napkin covering both their heads. Rather than wake them, I backed out of the room, returning as quietly as I could with two more blankets. One I spread over the cubs, the other I used myself. I got three and a half hours of quality sleep.

The next week was a monotonous cycle of watches. When Berypt recovered, she and the cubs took over routine housekeeping and the kitchen, feeding the crew an endless stream of soup and sandwiches. As the only crewmember with children of my own, I spent many of my rest periods entertaining the younger cubs with half-remembered stories, leading games and activities. They were nice enough kids, maybe a little more solemn than my own were at that age. They both were certainly bigger; I'm not a very tall fox, and both were nearly my own height. I left more strenuous play for Mitzep and the captain, never mind Berypt's reassurances.

Once we were out of range of the inner station's radar, we changed course for the jump to earth and went on radio listening silence, except for rare, short sweeps ahead of us. As we entered the zone of the outer patrols we ceased even those, relying on passive sensors. On the eighth day, we spotted a drive plume against the background stars.

"Commander, do you want me to ping him?" H'raawl-Hrkh squinted at the grainy camera image.

"No. We'll stay silent. If they're in a tight formation with that ship, they might miss us altogether. If there is a straggler out there, he might be doing the same to our drive. You've got the better eyes: What kind of ship is that one, ship or fighter?"

"I think it's a ship. Any fighter out this far is oing to be using strap-on boosters, and I don't think they'd still be accelerating until someone else finds us."

"You're probably right. I'd be coasting along, waiting for us. Probably over there more." She pointed.

"Why there?" I looked at the star chart on my plotting board. "Oh."

"Yes, the Awlroo system jump is only a few degrees off this course. That would split the difference." Suddenly the radar warning receiver snarled a warning, before I reached over and killed the speaker.

"Well, that settles that. Do you think they got a return off of us with that sweep? Seems pretty far out, still."

"No. It'll take a pretty good operator, as weak as that signal was. Remember, we get a lot stronger signal than his return is going to be. If he locks his sweep, I'll be more concerned." It was another two hours before it was obvious he had a radar lock-on. I started my own search once that happened, locating another ship, or a fighter with a large auxiliary tank, in the position she'd predicted. The first ship altered course to intercept, and we began a series of small course corrections to put off any unguided missiles headed our way. When the other ship was 90 minutes out, the lone fighter finally lit off the biggest booster rocket I've seen, angling for an intercept. 30 minutes out, the ship contacted the Captain by radio, insisting that he shut down our drive and surrender, as ridiculous as that would have been at our current velocity. We'd have still reached jump distance in another two days.

Several minutes after Captain Chopka's refusal, I picked up a radar return.

"He's launched his own fighter."

"Right. Damn it, somebody's going to get hurt here. We can probably stay out of range of the ship, but one of those two fighters is going to get a missile off." He thought for a minute. "Mitzep. Come on up to the bridge." While the XO took the helm, the three of us crowded into the navigation compartment over the plotting board.

"Look at this. We need to fight our way through, preferably without destroying that ship, the fighters too, if I can help it."

"That's keeping both hands behind our backs."

"We've still got the best countermeasures in the fleet. What I want to do is blind the ship as we go by and disable both fighters. Here's what I want."

Ten minutes later, we launched Mitzep's fighter, along with a large cloud of chaff, and executed a 45 degree course alteration toward the first fighter, meanwhile activating our radar jammer. Mitzep coasted, silent, along our original course toward the rapidly approaching ship and fighter, buried in a sea of junk returns. The captain launched an antiradiation seeker toward the fighter and began firing carefully aimed laser bursts at the approaching craft, which bravely altered course to intercept. At the last minute, I fired a volley of four of the new medium range missiles we now carried, which the quick-witted pilot of the fighter easily dodged. The maneuver brought him side-on to us for a moment, but it was enough time for the captain to burn through his auxiliary fuel tank. He barely managed to jettison it before it exploded. We altered course parallel to our original track.

Meanwhile, Mitzep drifted toward the other ship. As they turned to avoid shooting harmlessly past us, he was able to fire both his own short-range missiles, one another ARM that took out their radar, the other a sand caster to fog their optics. They other fighter engaged him in a head-on pass. Neither ship altered course, and we waited anxiously for the inevitable explosion. Now past the other ship at a velocity beyond his ability to reverse on us, we plotted a converging course with Mitzep's silent fighter.

I felt a jolt through the hull, but no pressure alarms sounded. Doing a quick sweep, I decided the first fighter had recovered sufficiently to hit us at max range from behind with his laser. Just in case, I launched the last ARM at him. His fire control radar shut down, long before it should have reached him. They were learning, but we were through. Now, it was just a matter of adding up the cost.

Five minutes later, Mitzep's voice came over the radio.

"You folks want to pick me up before you hit jump? Earth's about a two hundred-fifty year trip the speed I'm going." He was unharmed; his ship had only minor damage, but had blown a main breaker. Our own damage, whatever it was, would have to wait until after we jumped.

Mitzep:

The engineering console was a Christmas tree of flashing lights, each indicating some sort of system failure or at least the potential for one. Still, our damaged starship made the jump into hyperspace without exploding, or imploding, or what ever the heck it was supposed to do when one didn't make it; nobody had ever come back to tell. We knew it was hurt someplace, but didn't know where. As soon as we jumped, Captain Chopka came on the intercom and told us to find out.

"We've made a good jump, anyway. Normal watch schedule, effective now. Lossp, take the bridge; all off-duty crew on damage control. Passengers, stay in your cabin. Mitzep, stand by in engineering for the XO." He shut off the intercom with a chirp! of feedback, and I unsnapped from my seat harness. Commander H'raawl-Hrkh met in me at the door with a hug, then handed me a toolkit and flashlight.

"Grab your pressure suit. Gauges say the oxygen generation system ruptured; I need you to crawl up into the access way along the outer hull and see if it's really true, or just a wire got shorted. I'll kill power to that area when you're ready." The two of us hadn't had more than a minute or two alone since the battle and I admired her restraint while I stripped down in front of her and donned the suit; although she insisted on stuffing my tail into the suit's pouch herself. Another lick on the nose before she sealed my helmet.

"And be careful." She boosted me up into the access way. Gummy emergency sealant balloons stuck where they'd caught on sharp edges, most already turning chalky and hardening as their chemicals broke down in oxygen. I found several bigger wads of the stuff plugging small rents in the outer hull and sprayed them with epoxy resin to make them more permanent. A check of the gauge on my cuff showed above average cabin pressure. It was not hard to find the reason why: The laser beams that punched the holes melted the pressure reduction valve on one of our three main liquid oxygen tanks, causing it to rupture and spraying shrapnel through what used to be the primary air mixing plant. The now lower pressured leaking oxygen continued to deliquesce after the patch sealed the hull, raising pressure, replacing the air in the compartment with almost pure oxygen. Good thing H'raawl-Hrkh shut off power; a spark might blow this entire compartment into space. The patches were all holding, so I carefully returned to the main engineering deck and told her what I'd discovered.

"Is not good. That was the fullest of the three tanks. If these instruments read right, we've vented more than half our liquid oxygen. Maybe nine days left."

"That's not enough to make it home." The Captain walked into engineering as she stated the obvious.

"I just hope that's the worst of it. We lost pressure aft of hold number one, also. How much will it help if you pump air from two and three back into the crew areas?"

"Maybe another day from that. The problem isn't as much the amount of oxygen; the loss of the mixing plant took out the CO2 scrubbers. If it gets too bad, we have some candles as well."

"I hadn't thought of those. With all that, can we stretch it to make a second jump from Earth back home?"

"With eight people on board; almost certainly no. Maybe with two or three."

"You mean leave someone on Earth. Who goes?" As the pilot, I'd be staying. If she stayed too, she'd be in charge of the passengers instead of me.

"Me. I have to tell the council, keep you all out of jail. I want one of the cubs with me, probably the boy. He's my evidence. Lossp." He ticked each off on a clawtip.

The XO asked, "Why not me?"

"Could have been either one of you. He's smaller, breathes less air." She considered for a moment, nodded. Meanwhile, I had a thought.

"You know we could get more oxygen from earth."

"We don't have a refrigeration unit anymore. We could never store enough in gaseous state."

"I'll bet the humans sell LOX to order. Dave could buy it and I could ferry it up to orbit."

"And then, there is that." He smiled for the first time since we took the hit. "OK, maybe we all make it home this time. Let's hope Dave hasn't spent all that gold yet."

During the rest of the time in jump, we made inside repairs, kept the cubs entertained (Doubly hard, since they weren't allowed to run, in order to conserve oxygen.) and planned what we would do both in the solar system, and whenever we made it home. It was clear that, no matter what we did to hurry, we wouldn't make it back home before a ship from Nurnkh. Chopka would have to convince a council that was already prejudiced by whatever they had been told.

The cubs still enjoyed themselves. Berypt explained it as the result of the austere environment of the lab, and the hostility of their guards. She kept the two young cubs busy with her, but Kirron could be found throughout the ship. For instance, one time I had pulled a damaged landing strut off the shuttle and brought it inside for repair. I was underneath it, cursing and trying to loosen a bolt, when I became aware of something brushing against my tail tip. I sat up to find the cub watching me intently, his spotted face inches over my own shoulder, whiskers twitching with interest.

"Eeep! Don't sneak up on people like that!" He pulled back in surprise at my sudden outburst, and I jerked back the opposite direction, banging my head on a panel.

"I'm sorry, 'tennant Mitzep. Whatcha doin'?" I laughed at myself as I rubbed my head: When will I learn to wear a padded helmet while working under things? He settled down in a crouch beside me, watching intently. Kirron was in love with mechanical devices, tools, and most of all, wanted to be a pilot. Much as any Diyim'yi his age; this was not my first surprise audience. He was an attentive listener even when he didn't quite know the words, so I leaned back under the panel and narrated as I worked.

"…So now I'm unhooking this pressure coupling from the strut, and once I get it off, I'm going to replace the rubber seal up on the end there. Kirron, hand me that big clamp." With the new seal in place, I couldn't quite clip the o-ring washer back on the assembly. I could go to the tool bin for a bigger clamp, but my new assistant's almost three-foot long, densely muscled forearm gave me an idea.

"I need you to reach in here and grab that. Yeah. Right there. Now pull hard." His upper arm strength might not compare to a human's but he easily compressed the strut that extra little bit. "That's good! Thank you." We carried it back to the shuttle bay together, where I bolted it back into place while answering almost a hundred questions about piloting. We were almost done when Berypt tracked him down for his lessons, giving me a dirty look when she saw the grease on his fur.

We fixed most of the minor interior damage during the jump; then did some outside work while we decelerated toward Saturn. Drive radiation kept us well forward, and we just hoped nothing serious broke aft. The air plant was hopeless. The remaining auxiliary scrubber and mixer couldn't run constantly without overheating, and the number two tank wasn't meant to feed either one. The Captain decided to keep pressure and mixture normal until we reached Earth, so it wasn't apparent how fast we were using it up unless you checked the gauges. By the time we'd reached Saturn, we had fixed everything we were going to.

Scoop fuelling was actually easier the faster one entered the atmosphere, provided you didn't burn up or smack a rock, of course. The loud 'clang' of marble-sized chips of frozen methane was bad enough, and several antennas resembled bent coat hangers before we'd finished. Again, because of our backwards attitude, there was no telling what the drive end looked like-I had images of a giant crumpled tailpipe. But less than a quarter circumference track served to collect enough reaction mass to accelerate us out of this system and, more importantly, decelerate us if we made it home.

Four days later, we passed inside the orbit of the Earth's moon and the Captain called the entire crew to the bridge while Berypt kept the cubs out of the way. It was time to do our best to find out what the humans were doing. Lossp and I doubled up on sensors and H'raawl-Hrkh piloted. Once we could assure we were safe, the Chopka would try to contact Dave by radio. We hoped the previous arrangements still worked, because it was a pretty big planet for me to search by myself (the backup plan). Lossp's radio and radar direction finders swept our path for anything trying to bounce a signal off us, while I scanned with the telescope. He turned on the active radar, but wasn't pointing it near earth yet. It quickly found the nearest of the geosynch satellites and one of the deep space ones. There didn't seem to be many more than previous, but the ones we'd blasted last visit had been replaced. Much closer in, I spotted a large object in orbit.

"Captain, I've got a big, low orbiter. A lot bigger than a reccesat."

"That's Mir. Remember the Russian manned platform? Hard to believe that one is still up."

I played back the video again, watching the brilliant object drop over the horizon.

"I think this one's new, sir. The solar panels are much brighter, and I think they were less centered before." Mitzep cut in.

"Captain, we need a radar sweep before our orbital burn. Can I do it now?"

"Do it. Mitzep, watch that other when it comes back around. Anything else?"

"No, sir. All I can really make out is stuff crossing the horizon on camera. A bunch of those small comsats: three or four in Molinya orbit, plus the usual equatorial stuff."

"Lossp?"

"No change, but I wish out catalog tracked more of the smaller debris. I think he's right about a new platform, unless they've shifted Mir to a new orbit. It's gone."

"Any manned activity? What about the radio?"

"Leakage from an early warning radar, Russians, almost certainly. Also sounds like they've got a manned mission up here someplace. Maybe that's Mir's replacement. NASA is pretty quiet. Boss, I'm getting a lot more encrypted and digital signals. Some could be voice traffic, and I just don't know it."

"Any chance of breaking it?"

"No way. It's higher freq than the good radio: Microwave stuff; I'm only detecting it on the RWR rig. Even if I could, the only digital signals we can even translate is commercial cell phone."

"Speaking of which, let's park this thing. Lossp, shut down that radar, go to RLS." We transitioned into a 1000km high, nearly circular orbit, hopefully far enough out to avoid visitors, but close enough to keep from burning too much shuttle fuel. "And hand me the phone."

Not surprisingly, our Iridium cell phone got a 'no such subscriber' message, since we hadn't paid the bill on it. The backup link through the ham radio satellite repeater to a phone patch got us through to one of the call services in Chicago. We waited an anxious four hours before Chessec returned our call.

"Brother, is that you?" It was definitely her. She spoke more fluent English than any Diyim'yi except Marie (who didn't count), but her accent was still of the highlands. "You are a few days early, aren't you?" This puzzled all of us on the bridge, and I asked her what she meant. "Well, the next scheduled arrival is on the fourth. I can't believe somebody back home forgot!"

"Sis, we're not exactly scheduled, and we're in kind of a bind. Can you meet us someplace, and take a few guests?"

"Let's work something out. Dave and I are traveling; I'm calling from a motel right now. Can you wait until tomorrow? I'll call back when we find you a place to land. We weren't expecting guests. How many?"

"Six, at least. Maybe seven. We can't wait more than ten or twelve hours, I don't want to discuss it on the phone."

"Well, I can't argue with that. Talk to you then."

"Bye sis." The Captain reached over and shut down the transmitter.

"It sounds like something's going on. Did she sound worried?"

"No. If anything, puzzled."

H'raawl-Hrkh, who'd been quiet to this point, commented, "I think another ship is due in a few days, one she'd been expecting. They're probably going to a prearranged landing site."

"We'll find out tomorrow. OK, everybody. Get your stuff packed. Mitzep, you'll land everybody except Lossp and me. Make sure the shuttle is fully fuelled and provisioned, then get some rest. Take the cub; Berypt can watch him until you bring him back with the last oxygen load.