The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 58 —

The crew of the Sveldrov Traveler were unfriendly but surprisingly cautious. They isolated the hold and that was that, initially.

The Traveler broke off the Web at the first anchor point up, made station, then the crew surged in and tossed the stowaways out dockside. Then the Traveler scooted before Station Master or STASIS could act. It refused anything but responder communication.

Turtle was baffled. He could think of nothing that would explain such behavior.

"Remain calm," he told Midnight. STASIS personnel and dock workers eyed them warily. "Let me do the talking. Don't say anything if you can help it. If you can't, don't contradict me. I'm going to blow smoke in their faces." He looked at Amber Soul, no longer in a coma but certainly in a fugue of some sort, lying on the deckplates, panting, changing external appearances as though trying to find one that would protect her from what she feared.

What the hell had it been about that Traveler?

He told Midnight, "Just pretend you're too stupid to understand their questions." There were advantages to belonging to the underclasses. One was that you never disappointed the master race by being stupid.

Bureaucracy ground slowly where for ages it had had no need to handle the unusual. Turtle had plenty of time to rehearse an elaborate fable.