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themselves would spot the differences
in short order. The same goes for people from Tramadair trying to pass for an
indigene on Dennsee. Sure, both people have green skin and hair, but the facial
shapes and relative lengths of arms and legs differ but too much.”
    Park was still deep in thought
when the blast of an alarm siren filled his cabin. Forgetting he had refused
command of Independent , Park ran
pell-mell on to the bridge and demanded to know what was happening. Marisea and
Cousin appeared just behind him. Iris was already at her weapons console.
    “We’ve picked up a suspicious
blip on the scope, Admiral,” Tina replied. “We hailed it as per standard
protocol and received no reply, and so have turned to investigate.”
    “How far away is it?” Park asked.
    “Less than two light-minutes,”
Tina replied. “That’s part of the problem, though. At first reading we thought
it was much farther away and it kept jumping around, but nothing moves that
fast”
    “How fast?” Park requested.
    “At least two times the speed of
light,” Tina replied. Park’s jaw dropped and Tina chuckled, “Like I said,
‘Nothing moves that fast.’ At Iris’ suggestion we returned our sensors to a
different frequency and the blip settled down. There’s only one thing we know
that screws up the sensors like that, though.”
    “A Dark Ship,” Park concluded,
“but we’ve never had that sort of trouble with them before.”
    “No, but the rest of the Alliance
has,” Iris spoke up. “That’s why we switched frequencies. I’m still not sure
our readings are entirely accurate but at least that blip isn’t jumping around
at accelerations that would leave rocks looking like jelly. It’s a good thing
Ronnie designed our sensors to be tunable on the fly, though.”
    “I just hope whatever passes for
Dark Ship stealthing technology is not as adaptable,” Park remarked. He looked
around and finally returned to the seat beside the navigator’s station while
Marisea sat next to the Mer at Communications. Cousin strolled around the
perimeter of the busy bridge and eventually curled up and went to sleep in one
of the corners.
    “It just blipped out,” Tragackack
announced.
    “Can we give chase?” Park asked.
    “Calculating,” the Atackack
replied. Two years earlier, Veronica Sheetz had discovered a means by which a
ship could be followed through Hyperspace, although until now there had not
been much chance to use it. “I have a trajectory,” he added a moment later.
    “Sir?” Tina asked Park.
    “If the Dark Ships are back,” he
replied, “we don’t want to let any of them get away.”
    “Aye aye, sir,” Tina replied. She
gave a series of orders and Independent slipped
back into Hyperspace, hot on the heels of the unknown ship.
    “Any idea of where we are
headed?” Park asked during the transference.
    “A small system about one hundred
and four light years to galactic west and inward a bit, sir,” Tragackack
replied. Do you want the precise coordinates?”
    “Just the name of the syst…” Park
started to reply just as they broke back out into normal space.
    “We’re being hailed,” the Mer at
the communications board informed them. Tina gave him a signal that he took to
mean he should pipe the incoming message to the speaker.
    “Attention, unknown ships!” a
voice called in the standard Alliance diplomatic language. “This is a
restricted system. Stand down and prepare to be boarded by the authority of the
Iztapel Ruling Committee.”

Four

    “Iztapel?” Tina wondered. “Where
have I heard that name before?”
    “May have been in one of my
reports” Park told her. “Iztapel has to be the most paranoid culture I have
ever encountered. The major condition to their membership in the Alliance is
that no one enter their system without prior permission. They reserve the right
to destroy any ships who enter unannounced.”
    “Comply with the request,” Tina
told her pilot. “Let’s see if we can