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Updated: June 17, 2025
Ringg added. "You know that Mentorian the young one, the medic's assistant?" "I've seen her. Her name's Meta, I think." Suddenly, Bart wished the Mentorian girl were with him here. It would be nice to hear a human voice. "Oh, is it a female? Mentorians all look alike to me," Ringg said, while Bart controlled his face with an effort.
The green stuff tasted a little brackish, but Bart got it down all right. He didn't much like the idea of drinking a solution of "germs," but he knew that was silly. There was a big difference between disease germs and helpful bacteria. Another Mentorian official, this one a young woman, gave him a key with a numbered tag, and a small booklet with WELCOME ABOARD printed on the cover.
Not a Mentorian assistant, half-trusted, half-tolerated, but one of the crew themselves. If I'm lucky, he reminded himself grimly. There was Lhari, in the black-banded officer's cloak, at the doorway. He glanced at Ringg's papers. "Friend of mine," Ringg said, and Bart proffered his folder. The Lhari gave it a casual glance, handed it back. "Old Baldy on board?" Ringg asked. "Where else?"
Bart fought to keep his face perfectly straight. "Did anyone come into your cabin?" The Lhari asked in Universal. "Only the steward. Why? Is something wrong?" "There iss some thought that a stowaway might be on boarrd. Of courrrse we could not allow that, anyone not prrroperly prrotected would die in the first shift into warp-drive." "Just the steward," Bart said again. "A Mentorian."
While the medic was professionally reassuring him and strapping him in his bunk, Bart wondered what humans would do with the Lhari star-drive if they had it. Well, he supposed they could use automation in their ships. The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. "Do you wish to be wakened for the week we shall spend in each of the Proxima, Sirius and Pollux systems, sir?
He stepped back and looked Bart over from head to foot, whistling. "Raynor Three is a genius! Claws and everything! What a deuce of a risk to take though!" "You know my name," Bart said, "but who are you?" Suspicion came back into the dark eyes. "Does that Mentorian cloak mean you've lost your memories, too?" "No," said Bart, "it's simpler than that. I'm not Rupert Steele.
Bart blinked, feeling as if he had stepped into pitch darkness. Only slowly did his eyes adapt and he became aware that he was standing in a city street, in the full glow of Procyon sunlight, and apparently outside the Lhari spaceport entirely. He'd better get to cover! He took off the Mentorian cloak, thrust it under his arm.
With his hand on the door, he hesitated. Was it, after all, the right Eight Colors? But it was a family saying; hardly the sort of thing you'd be apt to hear outside. He pushed the door and went in. The room was filled with brighter light than the Procyon sun outdoors, the edges of the furniture rimmed with neon in the Mentorian fashion.
Reviewing his knowledge of the construction of spaceports, he remembered that one side was the terminal, where humans and visitors and passengers were freely admitted; the other side, for Lhari and their Mentorian employees only, contained along with business offices of many sorts a sort of arcade with amusement centers, shops and restaurants catering to the personnel of the Lhari ships.
"I wish medic would find a way to keep them alive through warp," he said. "My Mentorian assistant could watch that frequency-shift as we got near the bottom of the arc, and I'll bet she could see it. They can see the changes in intensity faster than I can plot them on the photometer!" Bart felt goosebumps break out on his skin. Rugel spoke as if the certain death of humans, Mentorians, was a fact.
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