“Try your ID code,” Felicia suggested.

Every cadet was assigned an identity code to be used throughout their years at the Academy. Will nodded and entered his code onto the keypad. This was met by a whirring noise, and a previously invisible slot appeared on the cylinder. From the slot, a new strip of paper emerged.

“What does it say?” Felicia asked with excitement.

“ ‘Congratulations, Zeta Squadron,’ ” Will read. “ ‘You’ve achieved checkpoint number one. Your next challenge will be to span the globe to find an artist, who will direct you from there.’ ”

“An artist?” Felicia frowned. “What does thatmean?”

Will shrugged, palms up. “Beats me,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the other part of their team, still climbing the second peak unaware of the discovery. “But I guess we can tell the others to come down now. Unless you want to let Boon hike around and grumble a while longer.”

Chapter 9

The captain’s office was dimly lit and suffused with a burning rubber smell that reminded Kyle of old skunk. He found himself wanting to hold his breath, but knew that was impractical. Anyway, he’d have to get used to the odor since he was going to be on the ship for a while. The captain was a Kreel’n, he’d been told. Without that small warning he wouldn’t have known what to expect, and having never met a Kreel’n—rumors, of course, but that was all—he was still barely prepared for the reality of it.

“Captain?” he asked hesitantly when he entered. He had been told to enter but he couldn’t see her anywhere when he went in. Unlike the neat and tidy equivalents he had seen on Starfleet vessels, this room was barely contained chaos; seemingly a storeroom for old electronic parts, a workspace, a library, and an office all in one, with no apparent division between one function and another.

“Come in, Mr. Barrow,” a voice like a rusted hinge squeaked at him. “I am here, at my desk.”

Kyle tried to follow the voice through the gloom and clutter. He had chosen the pseudonym Barrow, on a whim, because it was both an Alaskan city he had visited on a few occasions and the name of one of the most infamous fugitives in American history, Clyde Barrow, better known in association with his partner Bonnie Parker. If you’re going to be on the lam,he’d thought, you might as well make the best of it.So he had become Kyle Barrow, man of mystery.

Finally, he saw a flat surface—mostly buried under stacks of objects whose purposes he could only make the wildest guess at—and behind the stacks, a pair of black, lifeless eyes in an oddly shaped head. He stepped forward and more of the captain came into view. Her head most closely resembled, in Kyle’s experience, a pickle or a cucumber, but larger, with a greater diameter. Her skin was a dark green, and her eyes, half a dozen of them, encircled most of her head at about three-quarters of its height. Above them were nodes and ridges running lengthwise; below the eyes some perforations that might have been aural, olfactory, or some other type of organs, and below those a definite mouth, unlipped and toothless but with a tongue capable of speaking English, though with an unpleasant rasp.

“Welcome to the Morning Star,Mr. Barrow,” she said, rising from her seat and extending a hand toward Kyle. “I’m Captain S’K’lee.”

Kyle stepped forward and took the proffered hand, shaking and then releasing it. It had, as far as he could tell, ten fingers, maybe a dozen, all narrow and wormlike, with no apparent joints. Like her head, it was a dark green, or seemed to be in the dim light. Her uniform was a simple pale green tunic, belted at what must have been her waist, though there was only a third of her entire height below it. He couldn’t see her legs, or whatever was beneath the belt, and she quickly lowered herself back down behind the desk.

“Thank you for the welcome, and for the berth,” Kyle said. “I appreciate your fitting me in at short notice.”

“Better to have a passenger than not have a passenger, right?” S’K’lee asked. “Especially a paying one.”

Kyle was not used to such blatant discussion of finances, but he understood that, primitive as it was, some races still functioned on a monetary basis. He had already arranged the transfer of the agreed-upon number of credits, through an intermediary suggested by the agent back at the freight company to assure anonymity. “I trust the payment was satisfactory?” he asked.

“Yes, quite. If it hadn’t been, you would not now be aboard my ship,” she said. “You do understand that this may be quite a long trip with a number of stops?”

“I do.”

“May I ask your ultimate destination?”

“You can ask,” Kyle said. “But I can’t answer. And I wouldn’t even if I had one in mind.”

“Understood,” S’K’lee said quickly. “Then I suppose it would be pointless to ask what the purpose of your journey is, or if, by taking you, I am opening myself up to any possible legal actions?”

“You’d be correct,” Kyle told her, “in that it would be pointless to ask. Is that a problem?”

“Not at all, not at all.” S’K’lee shook her head rapidly, which had the effect of making her many black eyes seem to blur into a single oval shape. “I simply like to know where things stand.”

“Of course,” Kyle said. He had expected discretion, and was relieved to have his expectation confirmed.

“Have you seen your quarters?”

“Not yet,” Kyle replied. “But I’m sure they’ll be fine.” After the shuttle had docked at the orbital platform, Kyle had arranged for some changes of clothes and personal grooming items, then had come straight to the Morning Star.He still held in his left hand the bundle he had acquired.

“You’ll be escorted there directly,” S’K’lee assured him. “Cargo areas, engineering, environmental, and tactical operations areas are off limits to passengers. The bridge is accessible to you only by special request. Otherwise, you are free to move about the ship at will.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’d like to disembark at any stop, simply tell a member of the crew and arrangements will be made.”

“Sounds good,” Kyle said. “I look forward to the trip.”

“It won’t be comfortable, but it’ll be long,” S’K’lee told him with a grating, huffing noise that he guessed was her version of laughter. When she finished, she asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to know, about the ship? About me?”

There was, in fact, but he was hesitant to bring it up. She had already evidenced her sensitivity to his privacy; he didn’t want to disregard hers.

“There is one thing,” she said, “that most of your kind seems to want to know about Kreel’n ships’ captains. If you’re curious, feel free to ask. I assure you it isn’t a problem for me to talk about.”

“I’m sure we will,” he answered. “At a later date.”

She made a grimace that he could only assume was a smile. “Very well, very well. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Barrow. I trust you’ll have as pleasant a voyage as is possible, under the circumstances. I need to prepare myself now—I like to pilot out of the dock myself. I’ll arrange for someone to escort you to your quarters.”

“Thank you, Captain S’K’lee,” Kyle said. Behind him, the door shushed open and he knew he was dismissed. He stepped through it and there was already a crewman coming toward him. This was also a Kreel’n, a male he guessed, though he wasn’t at all sure, with a deeper chest and broader shoulders and a head that was more squash-shaped than cucumber. He saw now that the Kreel’n did indeed have very short legs for their body size—this one was as tall as he was, but its legs were no longer than his were from the knee down.

“Right this way, Mr. Barrow,” it said, sweeping its wriggling mass of fingers in the direction from which it had just waddled.

Unlike the captain—and this was what he so desperately wanted to ask her about, though he had sensed, and apparently correctly, that in spite of her invitation it was really something that ought to wait until he knew her better—this Kreel’n’s eyes had the glimmer of life and intelligence in them. The stories he had heard about Kreel’n captains, which he had been unwilling to credit until just now, seemed to be true, though he couldn’t imagine why it would be a good idea.