“I know, bai,” Juna replied with a rueful smile. “I know.” She stood, brushing a few stray leaves off her uniform. “You’re right. Things can’t get much worse than this,” she said with sudden resolve. “I’ll do it as soon as Bruce can get us a comm line out.”
“It’s all right to go ahead and call your aunt Analin,” Bruce told her two mornings later at breakfast.
“But— ” Juna began, then realized what he was saying. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Do I have to do anything special?”
“No, my friend fixed it so that the security system cuts out when you talk to her. Just get us all off of this ship.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Juna promised, her stomach tightening. She managed to force down a couple more bites of her breakfast roll, then grabbed a glass of juice and headed for her cabin. Moki followed her.
Juna sat down at the computer, turned it on, and before she lost her nerve, typed in Analin Goudrian’s comm code. Moki, sensing his sitik’s nervousness, brushed her shoulder and rippled encouragement at her.
She sat there while the comm rang.
It was answered by a video. A message in Dutch, and then in Standard, said: “Greetings, this is Analin Goudrian, I can’t answer the comm now, please leave a message.” Juna noticed that she pronounced her name “Howdrian” with a soft H sound rather than a hard G.
“Hello, Ms. Goudrian? This is Dr. Juna Saari.”
“Dr. Saari, please hold while I page Ms. Goudrian,” the comm told her. “She would prefer to speak with you directly.”
Analin was awakened by a priority-one page. Someone in the headlines wanted to speak *with her. She forced herself out of bed and stumbled to the comm unit, raking her fingers through her hair. Her eyes widened and she swore incredulously in Dutch when she saw the caller’s name blinking on the comm screen.
She sat down, took a deep breath and let it out, and told the comm to open a link to her caller.
“Hello, Dr. Saari. It’s good to meet you. I’m afraid you caught me at the tail end of a nap,” she said. Dr. Saari looked much younger than she had expected, but the face peering over the explorer’s shoulder was undeniably that of an alien, so this was no hoax.
Analin’s face creased in a broad smile of wonder. “Or perhaps I am still dreaming. Is that a Tendu looking over your shoulder?”
“This is my adopted son, Moki,” Dr. Saari said. Despite her dark skin, Dr. Saari had a faint Scandinavian accent, and Analin remembered that her father was Finnish.
“I’m pleased and honored to meet you, Moki,” Analin said to the alien. The alien was smaller than she’d anticipated, fine-boned and spidery, like one of those long-armed monkeys in the zoo. “Congratulations on your release from quarantine. I had not heard— ”
“We’re still on board the Homa Darabi Maru. The quarantine has not been lifted. Officially we’re not supposed to be talking to you,” Dr. Saari said. She peered over her shoulder as though afraid of being overheard.
A surge of excitement tightened Analin’s throat. This was a major story. “I see. Then we should get right to the point. To what do I owe the honor of this phone call?”
Dr. Saari began to explain, and after a couple of sentences Analin stopped her. “This is important. Have I your permission to record this conversation? It will be kept confidential, unless you agree to its release.”
Dr. Saari nodded, and Analin pressed the Record, and the little microphone telltale began blinking in the upper left-hand corner.
Dr. Saari explained their dilemma, with Moki occasionally adding a detail or an observation. The reporter listened with growing excitement, so caught up in the story that she forgot to ask questions. The Survey was holding the entire crew of a starship prisoner, on the increasingly flimsy excuse that the Tendu represented a health threat. According to Juna Saari, the quarantine was slowly killing the Tendu. Who was behind this quarantine? And more importantly, could she find independent proof of Dr. Saari’s claims?
“All right,” she said when Dr. Saari had finished. “What do you want me to do?”
Juna Saari shrugged her shoulders. “I was hoping that some publicity would force the Survey to let us go.”
Analin kept her face neutral. Dr. Saari clearly had not dealt much with politics or politicians. But then, she was a Survey researcher. She had spent most of her life on the frontiers of known space. Why should she know? And clearly no one in the Survey was lifting a finger to help her. Analin suddenly felt very angry.
“Dr. Saari— Juna— what you’re proposing to do is very risky. You understand that, yes?”
Dr. Saari nodded. She looked scared, but then she was risking her career, her reputation, everything, by making this call.
“Why did you call me?” Analin asked. “There are reporters who have given the Tendu much more positive coverage.”
Dr. Saari rolled her eyes. “Most of it was pretty awful. The other journalists were reporting what they wanted to be true. You reported only what you knew to be true. That’s what made me think I could trust you.”
Analin glanced down in sudden embarrassment. “Thank you, I’ll have to work pretty hard to live up to your impression of my work.”
“Then you will help us?” Moki said. He turned the most remarkable shade of blue. It was almost magical, watching his skin change color like that.
“Of course I’ll help you. It’s a very important story, Moki. I’m lucky that you asked me to tell it.”
She looked at Juna Saari. “The trick will be finding proof to back up your claims. Let me do a little digging, and see what I can find out. Can you call me back in about twelve hours?”
Juna nodded.
“Good,” Goudrian said. “I’ll want an exclusive follow-up interview after you’re released from quarantine. Will that be all right?”
“Of course.”
“And can you get me a copy of the medical officer’s report on the Tendu?”
“I’ll download that now. Is there anything else you can think of?”
“Not yet,” Analin said. “But probably later, after I know more. Thank you, Dr. Saari, for trusting me with this. I’ll do my best to find out who’s behind this.”
Dr. Saari nodded. “I appreciate that, and so does Moki.”
Analin nodded and signed off. She sat back, feeling limp and tired. This was the story of the year, and a total stranger had just handed it to her on a plate. She got up, shaking her head, and headed for the shower. She had a lot of work to do.
Juna glanced at the clock on the screen before signing off. They had talked for over two hours! No wonder she was so tired. She stood up and stretched. What she needed was a good hot bath to soak out all the kinks in her muscles.
“I’m going to take a bath in the osento,” she told Moki. “Would you like to join me?”
“I think I’ll go to the garden instead,” Moki said. “Giselle needs some help planting out a crop of lettuce transplants and I need to check on Ukatonen.” He laid a reassuring hand on her arm. “I liked the reporter, siti. I think we can trust her.”
Juna felt some of the tension leave her. “Thank you, bai.”
Mold’s skin flared turquoise with pleasure at the implied compliment. “Let’s link after lunch.”
“Thank you, Moki, I’d like that,” Juna said. She brushed his shoulder with her knuckles, and went off to the baths.
She let herself drift in the warm water, thinking over the morning’s conversation. Suddenly her head bumped up against something. She opened her eyes. It was Bruce.
“Hello there,” she said with a smile. “Are the baths closed for maintenance?”
“No, should they be?”