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elders."
    The Captain took a deep breath and looked away. When she met his eyes again she seemed calmer. "You have to realize ... I knew the people who died on Trinity. They were friends of mine."
    K'heera couldn't tolerate this human female's official kindness. At least her own people treated her like the outcast she was right from the start.
    "Honored Captain," she growled, waiting until the female lifted her wrist voder where she could hear it easily, "you will not have to suffer my presence. I believe it will serve everyone if I stay in my cabin hereafter."
    "For the whole trip?" Jib seemed astonished. "It'll feel like a prison after a few days!"
    K'heera wanted to stuff his mouth full of Pp'hhh'tttkkk, anything, just so he'd shut up. "It is my preference."
    The Captain bowed slightly to her. "Perhaps that'll be for the best. I promise you'll lack for nothing."
    The Captain had accepted her offer with humiliating readiness, but K'heera would not rescind it. Public humiliation was part of life as a Harkk'ett.
    "As I said earlier," the Simiu told Jib, "I should've stayed in my quarters. I will go there now, and remain." He seemed stricken, but did not attempt to stop her. Mortified, furious, and totally miserable, K'heera forced her crest and tail to stand tall as she strode from the room.
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Chapter 3
Jib
    "You promised Tesa!" Meg insisted. The gray-haired biologist turned to the fiftyish man sitting beside her. "So bury that resentment before we pick those kids up, Bruce."
    Easing the shuttle Patuxent into the empty bay of the Singing Crane, she closed the lock. The second shuttle, the Bamboo, was parked beside it.
    The weatherman sighed as he shut down all systems. "Just tell me how baby-sitting a Simiu kid is supposed to 'make reparations' for what happened here?" He unsnapped his harness and stood, shrugging his dark jumpsuit into place. Seeing Meg's exasperated expression, he held up a hand. "I've never broken a promise to Tesa yet. I'll be Mr. Charming!"
    "To think I've lived long enough to see that!" Meg grumbled.
    "They'll be docking soon. Think I'll spend the time .. ."
    "Checking out the equipment," Meg finished for him. "Going to scan for that sunken meteor again?"
    "May as well, since we'll be diving for it next week. Lot of big life-forms nearby. They might've moved it, who knows?"
    An hour later, when the S.V. Norton finally mated airlocks, Bruce joined the older woman beside the sealed doors. "How's this face, old girl?" he asked in a low voice.
    She glanced sideways at him. He appeared pleasantly neutral, and had even freshened his appearance. "Don't call me 'old girl'!" she growled, making him grin.
    The locks finished cycling, then opened. First through was Steve Manohar, the cargo master, who handed Meg a computerized bill. "Well, we've got more than supplies for you today," the portly young man told them matter-of-factly. "But the cargo's ready. Okay if we bring it in?"
    "Sure, Steve," Meg said. "Have the recruits been up long?"
    "Oh, yeah. We woke 'em yesterday."
    Bruce and Meg exchanged a look. "I'm ... surprised they're not here," she remarked. "Everything okay?"
    The attendant dropped his eyes to his lading list as two others
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    pulled a-grav sleds loaded with containers into the Crane. "Far as I know,"
    he said noncommittally.
    Bruce leaned forward conspiratorially. "What happened? The Simiu challenge everyone on two legs?"
    Steve glanced up, then shrugged. "All I know is she hasn't been out of her quarters since the first night. Sign here, Meg."
    The Russian woman felt a knot of worry coil in her chest as she pressed her thumb to the bill. Why hadn't Captain Stepp come down to say hello? Then she caught sight of a tall, dark head bobbing toward them down the Norton's corridor.
    "Here they come," Steve said pleasantly.
    Meg finally spotted the Simiu marching beside the young man as the two StarBridge students drew near. "Sorry we're late, mum," Jib said in heavily accented English.
    "No