"Probably so."
Becker looked down at RK, still in his harness in the seat between them, and said, "Looks like no shore leave for you, mate. I don't suppose there will be any fuzzy hussies we can smuggle aboard either. Sorry, old man."
RK glared up at him, then dropped his chin to his paws. By this time they were well outside the atmosphere, trailing along in the wake of the Arkansas Traveler, floating through space in the tractor beam's embrace like a patchwork ballerina.
Acorna passed the journey to Nadhari and RK's home planet learning Makahomian with the help of her friends and the LAANYE. Since Acorna was a quick study with languages, she seldom needed to absorb them in her sleep, as most Linyaari did. By the time Captain MacDonald towed them within sight of Makahomia, Acorna and Nadhari were conversing easily in the warrior woman's native tongue.
Their first sight of the planet was impressive. Makahomia was redder than Mars ever had been, a rich rusty orange red, with two moons and two suns.
"A lot of iron in your soil," Acorna remarked to Nadhari.
"Yes. Our iron makes excellent weapons, especially when alloyed with some of the many other metals so abundant on our planet."
Even the clouds were reddish and swirled at high speeds over the face of the planet.
Nadhari confirmed with Scar the landing zone coordinates, and he made initial contact with the planet, asking for landing permission and stating that he had answered a Mayday call and had a disabled Federation-registered ship in tow.
The Condor's crew audited the exchange over the com unit but, out of consideration for Nadhari and RK, left the vid screen off. Nadhari nodded to Acorna, scooped up RK, and exchanged seats with her, moving RK's tether harness to her own seat.
"The disabled ship will please identify itself," came a clipped and sober voice.
Becker gave his name, ship's name, and registration.
"Passengers and crew?" the voice demanded.
"Yes, we have those, too," Becker said. "Do you need their names and origins now?"
"That will not be necessary. Officials will be boarding your ship when you land. We will tight-beam immediately the list of documents you will need to show us. Please have the relevant papers ready."
"We aren't going to stay long," Becker said. "Just till I can repair my ship and we can refuel." But no one seemed to be listening to him. The resulting com silence was deafening.
"Not a friendly place you're from, Nadhari, sweetie," he said to her after retrieving the list and scanning it.
"How surprising. After all, I am such an amiable sort myself," she said.
"Compared to that guy, you're the life of the party," Becker grumbled. "But there shouldn't be any problem, should there? We've got all the papers they want. We're landing right where they said to. The place is perfectly safe, right?"
"It was when I left, yes," Nadhari said.
Acorna punched into the com unit and leaned forward to fill the vid screen. "Your pardon, good sirs. I am the Linyaari Ambassador Acorna Harakamian-Li. I was sent by my people to make inquiries regarding the history of a certain Makahomian life form. Could you give me the name of the ruling head of this area, so that I may address my written request for an audience with that person appropriately?"
It appeared that someone was listening, after all.
"The Federation commanding officer in charge is Lieutenant Commander Dsu Macostut," a clipped voice answered on the com, "and he is the one who will need to approve your request before it is passed along to the High Priest of Hissim and the Aridimi Plateau, Mulzar Edu Kando sach Pilau dom Mog-Gim. We will apprise the lieutenant commander of your arrival."
"Ahhh," Acorna said in what she hoped was an elite ambassadorial tone. "Many thanks, good sir."
"Edu?" Nadhari asked when the com unit was safely off. "Edu is in charge?"
"Glad you're on a first-name basis with the guy, sweetie," Becker said. "Can I just call him Ed? I can't remember the rest of that stuff."
"No," Nadhari said, emerging from her preoccupation long enough to touch his cheek fondly. "Just like you can't remember the star maps from most of the known universe including uncharted wormholes, black holes, and other spatial features the regular physicists haven't named yet. You've got the best memory of anybody I know - until you hit something you don't want to remember. The name is actually very simple, Jonas. 'Mulzar' is the Mog-Gimin title taken by the high priest who is also the warlord of the plateau. The current Mulzar is Edu Kando, who is what you might call my cousin - or in the local parlance, my steppe-cousin. His father was captured by my mother's sister on a raid the Felihari made before I was born. So like me, he is a Kando, of the rainforest. The 'sach' indicates his paternity, usually from a captive. My father, when captured by my mother's people, became Murgad Div from Kando, to indicate his ties to my mother's family. As he was never captured or fostered on the Plateau, he had no ardo name. I, on the other hand, am actually known here as Nadhari Kando sach Div ardo Rek. This indicates my mother's surname, my father's clan in the steppes, where I was taken after my mother's death, and the name of the Mog-Gimin clan to whom I was sold after my capture."
"Oh, well, sure, it's simple when you put it that way," Becker said. "Sach means your steppe-name, and that other word-"
"Ardo," she supplied.
"Means your desert affiliation. But his affiliation wasn't ardo - it was some other word."
"Dom," she said. "No one from the Mog-Gim Plateau captured him-he conquered the plateau."
"Of course. I knew that," Becker said. "Absolutely nothing to it when you get used to it. And hey, what luck is that anyway that he's one of your family! He'll probably want to have a big ol' reunion. We can say we didn't tell the Feds about you because we wanted to surprise him or something."
She nodded, the muscles in her jaw rippling slightly. "He will be glad to see me," she said tersely. Acorna looked at her sharply, but Nadhari's jaw had relaxed and a rueful smile hovered around her lips. The warrior's mind was once more opaque, but Acorna noticed that Nadhari had omitted saying whether or not she would be glad to see her cousin.
Becker didn't seem to notice, however. He just charged ahead at the verbal equivalent of light speed. "Well, that's great, then. If one of your own people is in charge, we shouldn't have any problem. Otherwise, I guess we'd have to hide you or rename you and dummy up some good papers, or at least you'd need to stay aboard while we made repairs. This way, maybe we can maybe do a little looking around while we're here, visit the garden spots, gawk at the Temples, stuff like that."
"Yes," Acorna said, her tone innocent but with an underlying question in it. "If your kinsman is the high priest, perhaps he can assist me in carrying out the aagronis' errand to discover a possible relationship between pahaantiyirs and your Temple cats."
"Yes, perhaps," Nadhari said, though her apparent agreement was belied by her tone of voice.
Becker said anxiously, "Maybe he'll even understand about RK, but you think maybe we should hide my buddy until we find out, huh?"
At that moment, Captain MacDonald announced that they were entering Makahomia's orbit. "You reckon if I turn you loose now you can land under your own power, Captain Becker? Otherwise, it'll be a little tricky setting 'er down with you still wagging behind me like the tail of Mary's little lamb."
"Of course we can land," Becker said. "We're not exactly invalids out here-though you couldn't prove it in that mud puddle. Turn us loose and go ahead. We'll be right behind you."
"Jonas, we should report in to Hafiz."
"Good idea. He'll need to know about this little detour," Becker agreed. But when he tried to access Manganos Moonbase for relay to MOO, the com unit remained blank and dumb. "I was afraid of that," he said. "Can't do the long-range stuff with the computers screwed up."