The A'jeii halted. “It is time to try and initiate contact with the Mozehna. Arrangements have been made.”

“Tough.” Reed stepped forward. “No send-off, no cooperation.”

Runoyii regarded the small group of humans. “Negotiations with the Mozehna can proceed without you. This option has already been discussed. However, if you refuse to participate there may be repercussions.”

The implied threat was unmistakable. Dev had been expecting it and was certain the same was true of his colleagues. After all, the crew of the purloined ship were not philanthropists. But he held his ground.

“It won’t take long,” Zimmer told the A'jeii. “Then Dev will assist you without hesitation.”

Runoyii pondered a moment. Raising his right arm, he spoke in the direction of his wrist, then paused as if listening to an unseen instrument. There followed a good deal of additional wrist chatter interspersed with listening before he once more eyed the quartet of bipeds.

“Syrenii has acceded to your request, but we must hurry. The Mozehna are assembling their contact team and must be met in a timely fashion.” The technician eyed the motionless form on the bed. “May I propose recycling? Among my kind it is the generally accepted method of passing on the physical portion of the …”

Reed interrupted the A'jeii. “No, you may not. Diana’s body gets consigned to the void. Intact.” He looked over at the Zimmers. “Like Jakob said, it won’t take long.”

“A waste of time and energy,” remarked Runoyii. “But we knew your customs and culture were strange when we studied them in the course of our approach. In the interest of saving time, it will be as you wish.” Once more he eyed the weighty corpse. “I will arrange conveyance. Unless you insist on carrying the deceased yourselves.”

“No. Help with conveyance would be welcome,” Dev admitted. Even with Reed’s strength, manhandling the limp, heavy body of their dead colleague would be difficult. Dev was no weightlifter, and the elderly Zimmers could not be counted on to, as it were, hold up their end. Besides, they didn’t know how far it was from their living quarters to the nearest airlock.

Not far, as it developed. Nor was there an airlock in the traditional sense. Threading a path through a chamber nearly filled to the ceiling with bulbous containers, Runoyii led the somber procession to a far wall. As Dev and his colleagues looked in vain for a doorway, controls, conduits, and anything halfway familiar that might indicate the location of a lock, the A'jeii technician ran his fingers over a section of curving wall in a complex pattern that was familiar in its execution but alien in its design. Katou-Zimmer was not the only one who gasped when a circular section of wall some twenty feet in diameter suddenly appeared to vanish in front of them.