Another voice came over the speaker. Ryo recognized this one as belonging to the Eint elder human.

“Seeker, this is Dr. Rijseen, in charge of the direct contact branch of the special xenology project here at the station. We have discovered that the alien is absent from his quarters. A thorough search has been made of the station. While it may be that he is hiding somewhere, we have every reason to believe that he is on the Seeker, and not as a stowaway. We will continue to operate on that assumption unless we can be persuaded otherwise.”

The young xenologist moved forward. Sanchez gave him a stare, then nodded slowly. Bhadravati spoke toward the pickup.

“Ryozenzuzex is aboard, Maarten.”

“Jahan, is that you? I wondered where the hell you got to when the alarms went off. What’s going on?”

“Well, you know, it’s a funny thing,” the young researcher began. Ryo could see that he was very nervous and uncertain. No hint of this surfaced in his voice, but it was evident in his posture and movements, to which Ryo was more sensitive than most humans. “But the bug, as many refer to him, once saved the lives of every crew member on this ship.”

“All that’s well known. What has it to do with the crew’s unauthorized action?” The elder spoke with feigned ignorance that would have been admirable to an AAnn, Ryo thought

Taourit looked over at the captain. “There’s a ship dotaching from the station.”

“Supralight?”

The cocontroller shook his head. “Too small. Intersystem capability only.”

She nodded once, listened as Bhadravati replied to Rijseen’s question.

“It’s not right to dissect an intelligent being, no matter that he might be understanding about it. That’s the remarkable thing about this, you know. Ryo sympathizes with the staff’s majority viewpoint. He knows about your intentions, you see.”

“You didn’t have to tell him that,” Davis’ voice said.

Bhadravati laughed. “You’re quite right, Colonel. We didn’t. He already knew. Found his file in the station bank.”

“That’s impossible!” The colonel sounded upset.

“You didn’t put a strong enough block on it He was rummaging through and came across it himself, did the necessary bypass all by his lonesome. The Thranx are superb logicians and excellent with computers. That’s in his records too.”

The channel was silent for a while. When Davis responded it was in a gentler, more reasoning tone. “Bhadravati, there is more at stake here than you know. I admit that this Ryo individual seems friendly enough, but you cannot positively deny the possibility that his ‘escape’ from his home world might simply have been a ploy to get him to a human system.”

“If it’s a ploy, Colonel,” Sanchez said into the pickup, “it’s working damn well. Better than yours.”