But Purple Ateil moved smoothly to block her way, and Yellow silently moved in behind her. Ferret swore silently. “Something is wrong?” she asked carefully.
“We would question you.”
Damnation. Ferret tightened a clawed hand about the tool. “Perhaps. What of?”
“Why dares the human hate us?”
That was the last thing she would have expected. “Dares?” Ferret echoed helplessly, not at all sure where this was heading.
“Yes! It is not of honor for one of no status to show such strong emotion to the True People. And for one who is colored with that evil hair shade to do such, especially when we cannot of honor slay him—there is no balance left for any!”
Ferret blinked. Complicated statement, yes! If she understood it correctly, Purple Ateil was telling her that by allowing someone who was too inferior to be legally slain to insult their honor by daring to show anger to them, they were trapped without a way to restore their status.
Ek. Still complicated. Humans and I, two species but we understand each other. These, no. Avian sapiens, Red calls them. More like avian stupid, I think. If being is too inferior to be noted, then surely is too inferior for his anger to be noted.
Suddenly she wanted nothing but to get off this ship as quickly as possible. “Wanting to know why Red hates you?” she snapped, utterly disgusted with everything Ateil. “So be it. Killing his shipmates, you.”
Quickly she summarized the story Red had told her, and saw Ateil crests rise, but whether it was in anger or surprise, she couldn’t tell. “So?” Ferret asked. “Does that not give good reason for his anger?”
Purple Ateil was definitely upset, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. If he’d had true feathers, Ferret thought, they would have been puffed up. “Not enough. Not enough. It does not restore honor or balance.”
“Sorry am I,” Ferret retorted, “but frankly speaking, that is not my affair. Stand aside, please.” Or I swing this tool and damage more of you than your honor.
“This is not possible. Status must be settled.”
“Ek, nonsense. I am not human, not same species.”
“Status must be settled. You are partnered with the human creature. Not exact balance, but it serves.”
“Hell, not!”
Just then, a familiar voice drawled, “Everything all right?”
Before the Ateil could say anything, Ferret called out to Red, “Not letting me pass!”
“You know,” Red told the Ateil, “it’s really not a good idea to keep a hostage. Particularly not a mech. Don’t want to get the mechs’ union after you.”
The Ateil said nothing. But Ferret took advantage of the moment of uncertainty to slip under Purple Ateil’s arm and escape. “Good thing you came along when you did.”
“Figured you might need a hand. You all right?”
“Ek, yes. Bar!” Ferret added emphatically.
The mechs’ bar was small and crowded with as many chairs and tables as could be fit in without forcing out customers. There were quite a few station mechs there, off shift or between jobs, but Ferret wriggled in between to find Red and herself a place to sit.
Quite a few station hours later, they were still sitting with the latest round of drinks, luxuriating in the time off. Then Red asked, not quite offhandedly, “What did the Ateil want?”
“Strangeness.” With a shrug, Ferret told Red about the convoluted honor and status system of the Ateil. “Their problem,” Ferret concluded.
“Hell, they deserve it.” Red eyed his drink moodily. “Let ’em all die, the universe wouldn’t care.”
“Their credits pay for our drinks. And—heh, what now?”
Red straightened, eyeing the two humans in their crisp blue uniforms with suspicion. “Station Security.”
“Coming this way.”
Stopping in front of them, in fact. “Red Collins?” They made a mangled attempt at Ferret’s whole name, and she cut them off with a curt, “Ferret.”
“You know who we are,” Red said. “What’s the problem?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About?”
“You were just working on the Ateil ship, were you not?”
“Hell, yes. Finished the job some time ago and decided to take a break. Which we were doing, thank you, when you interrupted us.”
“We’ll try not to take up too much more of your time,” one agent said dryly. “But it seems that there was a little accident on board their ship. A small explosion in a console-one on which you were working.”
“Oh, hell,” Red said helplessly.
“There’s more. One of the Ateil was killed in the explosion. And just to make things even more interesting, the others say that he was someone pretty high ranking, too.”
“Not possible!” Ferret protested. “Explosion? No. Good work we do!”
“She’s right,” Red said. “Check our records.”
“We already have. Apparently you, Ser Collins, had an encounter with the Ateil once before.”
“That was Standard years ago!”
“Of course. You’ll come with us, please.”
“What about Ateil ship?” Ferret asked frantically. “Who has examined that?”
The security agents had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“No one!” Ferret cried in realization. “True, yes? Ateil have not let you on board!”
One guard muttered something about “sovereign territory.”
“Is nonsense!” Ferret returned. “If they call crime, they forfeit right to sovereignty claim!”
Red gave her a how the hell do you know that? look. Ferret gave him a lip-curl of a grin in return. “Travel much, learn much.”
The security agents weren’t so impressed. “Sorry. You’ll get a chance to explain everything in our office.”
They were turned over to the grim, solid human head of Station Security, Captain Vazkez. “Sit down,” he said without preamble. “I want you to watch this.”
The chairs were human-sized, but a guard found a cushion to make things a little more comfortable for Ferret. She sat dangling her feet, feeling ridiculously like a cub. At Vazkez’s signal, another guard switched on a viewing console and started playing a security tape.
“From the Ateil,” Vazkez said tersely.
Together, Red and Ferret watched Purple Ateil touch a control. “One that you two replaced,” Vazkez told them unnecessarily. “Now watch what happens when he switches it on.”
Ferret winced at the sight of the explosion that followed.
“Good-bye, Purple,” Red said without much regret.
But Ferret all at once sat forward in her too-large chair, frowning. “Know it? Something odd there.”
“Oh, sure,” Red agreed. “It’s damned odd, what with all the species out there using all kinds of tech, that the Ateil should just happen to use a data format compatible to what humans use.”
“They come in and out of this station pretty often,” Vazkez retorted. “Probably switched over to this format because it’s more convenient.”
“Convenient for whom? Humans? Never knew the Ateil to care much about anything to do with humans.”
Ferret stared at the console. “Show record again,” she insisted. “Slowly this time slowly… there! Freeze it!”
Springing up from her seat, ignoring the guards’ start, Ferret studied the image, nose nearly touching the console screen. “Something funny, yes. Something hidden… not seeing what Purple did with his left hand. See? Something in it, but not seeing what.”