“Stop. We’ll talk after you dock. I’m putting together a team to take these creatures—you say there are two of them? They’ll take them back to wherever they came from. And that’s going to be the end of it. Is that clear?”

Derek glared out at the stars.

Zhang wasn’t finished. “Barry, are you there?” he asked.

“Yes, Director.”

“Any use of the Eiferman transmitter will be limited exclusively to connect with Union Ops or with me.”

“Understood.”

“In addition, Barry, any conversation between you and anyone on the Eiferman will be recorded and forwarded to me.”

•  •  •

Arin was standing in the doorway. “Is he the chief authority?” he asked.

“No,” said Derek. “Give us time. We just have to get to the right people.”

Arin stayed quietly where he was. He looked stricken. “It’s okay,” Hutch said. “We’ll manage it.”

“I’m sorry. We did not realize we were going to get you into so much trouble.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it. You probably have cranks back on the islands, too.”

Arin closed his eyes, opened them again, and retreated inside, where he began talking with the others. Ken came up next. “Was it really that bad?”

“It wasn’t good,” said Derek. He turned to Hutch. “What was that business about Barry not allowing any communications?”

“Zhang’s concerned that we’ll bypass him to get the story out.”

“I didn’t think they’d be happy about this,” said Ken. “But this is something of an overreaction.”

Derek got out of his chair but stood, holding on to it. “Hutch, they’re going to need you to take them back.”

“No, they don’t. What they’ll probably do is have Barry take them.”

“Not if we shut him down.”

“I don’t care much for that idea.” She turned in her seat so she could see him. “In any case, they certainly don’t need me.” She got up. Ken backed out of the way and she left the bridge. She passed through the passenger cabin and took the down ramp to the cargo bay.

After a minute or so Derek followed her. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I need to think this out. Our only real chance to win this is to get Arin and Kwylla some media attention. That’s not going to happen as long as we’re in Zhang’s hands. He figures, or knows, the Chinese aren’t going to want to get involved in this any more than Proctor does. So, he’s going to keep us quiet until Kwylla and Arin are safely on their way back to Volaria. The WSA will probably claim there was evidence of a disease or something.”

“Wait a minute—”

“Derek, we have to connect with the outside world. When we get close to Union, we can put Arin and Kwylla on board the lander and head down.”