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didn't abduct me, though. Will that soften his sentence?” She hoped not.
    Vakeri shook his head. “Don't worry, he'll pay for what he did to you. What do you recall of your original abduction?”
    She forced herself to get comfortable, deliberately relaxing muscles that wanted to tense up. “Not very much. One minute I remember sitting in a deck chair, reading, and the next, I was in some kind of strange glass box. There were sounds all around me, like I was in a jungle, and I fought to wake up properly, but if I did, I don't remember it. It happened a few times, half-waking, fighting to get conscious, not remembering again.” She shuddered. “And feathers.” She said the last in a whisper.
    Vakeri leaned forward. “Feathers?”
    Her hands clenched on her thighs. “The thought of them makes me want to cringe.”
    He nodded, as if she'd said something helpful, and she forced her hands open again.
    “What does that mean to you?”
    “That you were abducted by the Tecran and kept in a holding cell under sedation.” He rubbed a hand through that spiky hair as if weighed down by the information.
    “The Tecran?” It explained her strange dislike of the language on her handheld. She must have subconsciously heard her abductors speaking.
    “They're theoretically our allies, but we're in a delicate position of near-war with them at the moment.” He held her gaze and then looked away, contemplative. As if she were a new problem to factor in to his already difficult workload.
    She felt a grudging sense of outrage, because she hadn't wanted any of this, and was hardly here by choice, but then the sight through the rear wall erased that from her mind——she was too busy staring at the massive, sleek spaceship. “What is that?” she breathed.
    “The Illium ,” Vakeri said. “Welcome to my ship.”

5
    T here was a lot going on here she didn't understand, but Fee was prepared to be patient. She had enough on her plate coming to grips with her new change in circumstances. She could wait to get to the bottom of why people looked at her and more or less tore at their hair or broke into a sweat.
    She walked side by side with Vakeri down the ramp, but slowed and let him go ahead when she saw how many Grihan soldiers were waiting for them, all gazes locked on her.
    The captain stopped as soon as she fell back, looked at her over his shoulder. “No one will harm you here.”
    His face was impassive, an expression he seemed to be good at, and he spoke in the rough, staccato way all the Grih seemed to have. She appreciated that there was no hint of impatience in his demeanor.
    He was so striking, she had to force her gaze away from his face.
    The intense eyes. The ears.
    He'd kept his helmet off since the meeting on Tak's ship, but he was the only Grih on the Garmman trader who had. Now, as she made herself look at the other Grih in the launch bay, she saw pointy ears and short, spiky hair seemed to be the Grih norm.
    And they were all big.
    “Captain?” A woman made her way through the loose grouping of armed soldiers, and although she'd addressed Vakeri, like everyone else, her eyes were very much on Fee. She was as tall as any other of the crew, and her hair was almost silver white, her eyes a dazzling, tropical blue.
    Vakeri made some kind of signal with his hand, and the soldiers moved back. He stepped off the ramp and gestured to the woman approaching them. “Fiona, this is Doctor Jasa. She'll take you to the med chamber and take a more thorough look at the injury Rial patched up, and see what else needs fixing.” He glanced at her hip, and out of habit, Fee rubbed it.
    She took a cautious step off the ramp and onto the launch bay floor.
    He gave a formal bow. “I have operational matters to see to, but you'll be in good hands with Jasa.”
    A look passed between him and the doctor, and then he was striding away, most of the soldiers following behind him.
    There were a few who stayed behind, though, shockguns in