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Updated: June 24, 2025
Are you sunstruck?" Bart stopped cold. Never once had it crossed his mind what he would say to Vorongil or how he would make the captain believe his story, without revealing Montano. He started to hold up his badge, realized the Lhari captain could not see color, and dropped it again, while Vorongil bent over to pick up the fallen gun. "Are you sunstruck or mad, Bartol? What's this babble?"
"Very well," Vorongil rapped, "see that you turn out next watch!" He spun round and walked out. His tone was no longer gently indulgent, but sharp and distant. Bart, at first surprised, suddenly understood. Not now a prisoner, a passenger, a guest on the Swiftwing. He was part of the crew again and Vorongil was his captain. The Lhari crew were oddly constrained at first.
"Time," he said briefly to Vorongil, "Fifteen seconds...." Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarred Lhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter how old you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. But relax, computers don't make mistakes." "Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready shift!"
Then the youngest, the only one of the eight with some trace of feathery crest on his high gray head, said "Captain Vorongil, you identify this person?" "I do," Vorongil said, and Bart saw him seated before the high Council. To Bart, the Lhari captain seemed a familiar, almost a friendly face.
Cargo amassed in the holds of the Swiftwing, from worlds beyond all dreams of strangeness. Bart grew, not bored, but hardened to the incredible. For days at a time, no word of human speech crossed his mind. The blackout at peak of each warp-shift persisted. Vorongil had given him permission to report off duty, but since the blackouts did not impair his efficiency, Bart had refused.
You must return with the Swiftwing to the planet where the violation originated " he consulted a memorandum "Procyon Alpha. There you and the man Raynor Three will face charges of unlawful conspiracy to board a Lhari ship, in violation of Intergalactic Trade treaties. Captain Vorongil, will you be responsible for him?" So I've lost, Bart thought drearily.
It's Lhari, but if you know that much, you know it won't hurt you." She came and inspected the needle in his wrist, and Bart caught her hand with his free one. "Meta, does anyone else know?" She looked down with a troubled smile. "I don't think so. I was off watch, waiting for cold-sleep we're just about to make the long jump when Vorongil came to my quarters. I was startled almost out of my wits.
Raynor Three let him take the controls as they flew back to the spaceport city; and a little before noon they entered the great crystal pylon that was the headquarters of the Federation Trade Bureau on Procyon Alpha. Men and Lhari were moving in the lobby; among them Bart saw Vorongil, Meta at his side. He smiled at her, received a wan smile in return.
"I don't like to run it that close." Vorongil's face was bitten deep with lines. He turned to Ramillis, head of Maintenance. "Do we need spare parts? Or just general repairs?" "Just repairs, sir. We have plenty of shielding metal. It's a long job to get through the hulls, but there's nothing we can't fix." Vorongil flexed his clawed hands nervously, stretching and retracting them.
You're going to accuse everybody on the Swiftwing, all the way from me to Vorongil, before you can admit a mistake, aren't you? If you want somebody to blame, look in a mirror!" "Listen, you!" Ringg's pent-up rage exploded. He seized Bart by the shoulder and Bart moved to throw him off, so that Ringg's outthrust claws raked only his forearm.
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