Tugging on the fingers of his gloves, Inlan glanced at the clock.

Only one chip past the last time you checked it, he thought.

Clementine was supposed to have contacted him four chips ago to let him know she was in position to convey, but she had yet to dial him. He was beginning to understand Tierney's insistence on extreme punctuality.

A knock sounded, and without thinking he pounced on his sightscreen, but it was, of course, still black. The knock had come from the hatch to his lodge.

His chaperone.

Inlan's excitement faded, replaced by heart pounding anxiety. What if the chaperone realized Inlan was attracted to Clementine? What if she acted too familiar with him -- giving him one of those sporadic, intimate embraces, for example -- and the chaperone thought Inlan had already engaged in unsanctioned pairing with her?

Having a chaperone while Clementine was on board was actually Inlan's suggestion, but only because he knew the commander would have required it anyway. Inlan wasn't sure who Hoff would send, and a small part of him hoped it would be Lutari, though he knew it unlikely. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it mattered to him that Lutari like Clementine. It was an absurd thought -- they were so similar, why wouldn't she like her? -- but it had been weighing on him ever since the commander approved the visit. Although, Lutari could read him better than anyone. What if she recognized his desire?

Another few knocks sounded -- harder, and more insistent. That didn't sound like Lutari, but perhaps she was impatient to eat; it was lunchtime.

After a deep, calming breath, Inlan opened his hatch.

"Onaka?"

The Stratum Protection Officer pushed his way in. After a quick survey of the empty room, he said, "The Earthan's tardy, I see. Another example of their lack of respect."

Inlan almost pointed out that Onaka, too, was tardy, but instead asked, "Why are you here?"

Onaka whipped his head around to give him a scathing look, and Inlan added, "A lower ranking officer seems a better fit for such a menial job as chaperoning."

Evidently accepting Inlan's addendum as sincere, Onaka relaxed, sauntering over to the jarhal. Inlan winced as he plucked a string. "The commander asked me to assign a Tin from Protection, but I volunteered. These Earthans need a reminder that --"

Inlan's sightscreen chimed, and it took all of his will power not to run across the room to respond. Onaka hung back, out of view, and Inlan recognized the ambush tactic for what it was. He was surely aware of how his unusual appearance would affect an Earthan, and was waiting until Clementine was there in person to show himself.

Or was he trying to catch Inlan in wrongdoing by making Clementine think he was alone? The thought stilled his hand over the blank sightscreen, a mist of anger swirling and expanding inside him. Onaka must think Inlan had already succumbed to his debased bronze nature, and observing the two of them together would prove it.

This revelation only increased Inlan's determination to resist temptation. Once and for all he would prove to Onaka and his crewmates that he was just as disciplined as they were.

"Accept," ordered Onaka, as the sightscreen chimed again.

Inlan did so, and Clementine appeared, standing beside the table and staring up at the screen.

"Hey there," she said.

"Fair sparking," he said in Relican. Onaka would be able to understand him even if he spoke in English, but using the translator was another barrier, another way to distance himself from Clementine. "Are you prepared to convey?"

"When will she be back?" asked a woman Inlan hadn't noticed, standing at the head of the oval table and watching him with evident suspicion.

"Mom," said Clementine with a wry smile, "this is First Tin Inlan of the Relican Squad. Inlan, meet Mona Dawson, my mom. And no, I'm not adopted. I've asked. Many times."

He could see why she felt the need to clarify. Her mom was like an older version of Tierney, with hair and eyes the rich brown color of the nican tree, although Miss Dawson's complexion was slightly darker than Tierney's. They also shared the same rippling body shape, like rolling desert dunes.

"I'm still not convinced either."

The edge to Clementine's tone drew his gaze back to her. She was staring at her mother, the half smile on her lips not brightening her eyes as usual.

"I anticipate her return within a maximum of two hours," Inlan answered. Clementine sent a smirk his way and he realized he was speaking in his... what had she called it? His Relican Squad voice.

"I would like to accompany her."

Another chaperone?

Clementine rolled her eyes and mouthed something at him, but without the vocals his internal translator remained silent.

"Unfortunately I've only secured approval for one Earthan to board the Irral," he said, "and even that has required extensive planning. As a member of the Relican Squad, I guarantee her safety."

His proclamation had no effect on Miss Dawson's skeptical frown.

"Caretaker Dawson," said Onaka, stepping into view. Both Clementine and her mother started at the unexpected addition to their conversation, but other than a wary appraisal of Onaka's strange features, neither had an overt reaction.

Onaka must have been disappointed by their responses, because he made a show of scratching his chin, flaunting the spikes on the backs of his hands. "I am Stratum Protection Officer Onaka, and I will be present throughout Ms. Dawson's stay, ensuring her safe and expedient return to the cart."

If anything, Onaka's presence seemed to have heightened Miss Dawson's unease. "Is there a reason you can't bring the instruments down here?" she asked.

"Mom, it'll be fine," groaned Clementine. "Bringing a slew of musical instruments down is way more complicated than sending one of me up."

But before her mother could respond, Clementine said, "All set."

Inlan began to enter the conveyance command, but stopped to give Miss Dawson a questioning look. Earthan parents were territorial regarding their offspring, and he sensed that respecting her authority over Clementine would go a long way towards securing her approval of him -- so she would feel comfortable sending Clementine up to visit, that is.

Miss Dawson's lips were drawn thin, but she nodded her head and said, "You'll call before she returns?"

"If you wish it," he said.

Her frown softened. "Thank you."

"Entering the command now," he said, pressing the button on his control screen.

"I love you," said Clementine.

Inlan's eyes snapped back to the sightscreen. Clementine was grinning at her mother.

"Love you, too," replied Miss Dawson. "Be safe."

Heart racing, Inlan chided himself.

Like she'd ever say that to you. Even if she did, you can't do anything about it.

"End transmission," he said, switching off the sightscreen.

He turned to face the temporary conveyance pad Trajectory had installed in his lodge.

"They engage in romantic relations with their parents?" asked Onaka in disgust.

"What?" Inlan looked back at the screen, as if that would explain why Onaka had drawn that disturbing conclusion.

"Isn't that how they express libidinous intentions?"

"Oh -- you mean because they said they love each other?"

A fog had appeared a few feet away, and Inlan knew he only had a few moments to explain.

"Earthans use the same word to describe different types of interpersonal attachments," he said, watching Clementine's form begin to take shape. "Love can refer to both carnal and platonic relationships."

Onaka exhaled in relief. "Thank the Great Metalsmith. Though you probably wouldn't care where you bore your mine, eh bronze?"

Inlan scowled, but at least Clementine was still materializing, so she wouldn't have heard the insult. He watched as she appeared before him. Compared to Relican women, everything about her was small -- thin arms and legs, narrow body -- except for her breasts. Relican women's chests were hardly bigger than males, even when they were gestating. But Clementine's reminded him of the bucket tree from the Softlands, with its round, protruding knots that bulged with stored water. Though he'd never seen tree bark that looked as soft and supple...

Tearing his gaze away, he scrubbed his mind of unchaste thoughts. He had to control his urges. Onaka was already suspicious enough. It would take little more than a smile in Clementine's direction to make the Stratum Protection Officer condemn him.

Once again Hoff's warning rang through his mind, reminding Inlan that it wasn't only his future that depended on his behavior -- his entire race could be condemned.

Weightless, Clementine sensed her body reconnecting with her mind. Her molecules swayed and swirled, searching for their partners to join in the dance.

The sensation of buoyancy lessened, and too soon she became aware of her surroundings. A soft, mechanical hum whispered in her ears and vibrated her feet. The same scent of metal that was everywhere in the cart tunnels told her she was in the presence of Relican architecture. Warm air -- even warmer than the cart's constant 70 degrees -- licked her skin.

Inlan stood before her, looking rested, but grave. His usually laughing eyes were hard, his dark, shimmering lips set firmly together.

Clementine held in her sigh.

Yep. Still gorgeous.

Stretching on her tiptoes, she said, "I love conveying. It makes you feel so light and bouncy."

A soft snort drew her attention to the other Relican in the room. Though she had spoken, his eyes -- silver, like Tausson's -- were on Inlan. A neck nearly as thick as his head stuck out of a dark gray mechasuit. Tierney had said that there were four types of Relicans: the males could be silver, bronze, or gold, and all the females were black. Apparently she hadn't seen this guy and his muddy red skin color.

"It's nothing special to you guys, I guess," she said, feeling silly for saying anything. Taking in the narrow bed beside her, she asked, "Is this your room?"

"It is. Here are the instruments." Inlan extended an arm towards the other end of the small room, where a wide array of fascinating objects were displayed. Roughly half sat on a table as wide as the room itself, while the rest either hung on the wall or were set on the floor.

Clementine stepped off the dimming platform, but before indulging her curiosity, she looked at Inlan and said, "Sorry about that craziness with Sanford's wife. It was all over the news."

He cringed, and she was regretted bringing it up. As the last person to see Sanford, Inlan had been forced to go with the police to give a statement. Luckily Khaled, one of the clarinetists, was a lawyer, and went with him. A journalist was at the station when they arrived, and with Sanford's wife wailing about how he had killed her husband, the news that evening was full of headlines about a Relican accused of murder. The fact that Sanford was discovered in a hospital in sector ten the next day didn't get half as much coverage. He'd been dumped there after being beat up by a thief who stole his violin.

"You didn't get in trouble with your commander, did you?" she asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Staring past her, he said, "Commander Hoff was certain of my innocence. Sanford's testimony that an Earthan assaulted him was required to convince your enforcers of the same."

He was as emotionless as his translator. Where was the friendly guy from rehearsal? Clementine's gaze flickered to the red Relican, who was standing nearby, watching them intently. Was he the reason Inlan was acting so stiff? Onaka was certainly forbidding enough, stretching his fingers to make sure she saw the needle-like spikes on the backs of his hands. Were those part of his mechasuit? No, there was a hole in his glove, revealing the red skin they grew out of. But Inlan wouldn't be intimidated by one of his own crewmates, would he?

"Well Sanford's violin is still missing, so he won't be returning to the orchestra. He needs at least a month to recover anyway."

"That is unfortunate," was all Inlan said.

Heading to the table, she said, "We set a date for the concert. It's in three months. I wanted two, since we're meeting three times a week instead of just one, but I was overruled. I guess that makes sense, though, since I haven't even written the concerto yet."

He didn't reply, so she ceased her attempts at conversation and turned her attention to the instruments. She remembered Inlan saying that Relican instrumentation was similar to standard Western instruments, and that assessment certainly held true. She could easily pick out the woodwinds, strings, and percussion; there were even some that would probably classify as "brass," although they were a fiery orange metal instead of gold.

Eager to identify ones that could be integrated into the concerto, she started with the closest one. A wooden cone served as the centerpiece for a set of fifteen glass rings, decreasing in thickness as they ascended from the wide base to the narrow tip. Each ring was attached to the cone by a single metal mount in the back that left about half an inch of space between it and the cone, which made sense, as the ring would need to vibrate freely to make a decent sound.

"This is beautiful," she said. The glass was crystal clear, enabling easy viewing of the delicate carvings of floral vines that covered the wooden cone. "I didn't think you guys even had trees."

"They grow in abundance in the Softlands," said Inlan, "but can only be used for carving if they fall naturally and the seeds are collected. Karmantui with wooden centers are rare; most are made with metal now. A wood artist named Uba lived near the home where I grew up. I visited her every day."

His stiffness diminished the more he spoke, giving way to his passion for the subject. He even dared to take a few steps closer. But on his last word Onaka cleared his throat, and although Inlan hadn't seemed like he was finished talking, he straightened up and fell silent.

"She made this one?" Clementine asked, admiring the decorations. The lifelike lattice of interwoven vines cascaded down the wood, each home to a different type of flower. Some even had tiny buds, or flowers that were only half-open.

"She taught me much, and oversaw my work."

Clementine gaped at him. "You made this?" The intricate pattern continued all the way down, even as the cone flattened out at the bottom, spreading in all directions for another few inches, ostensibly to keep it very stable while on someone's lap. Or was it played on the floor? A table?

He kept his eyes on the instrument as he said, "I did."

"Holy... Wow," she said, editing herself. From what she knew about the Relicans, Inlan's laid back attitude was uncommon in their extremely formal society, at least when it pertained to other species. The angry red Relican might not appreciate such language.

Drawing out the wooden mallet that formed the apex of the hollow cone, she turned to Inlan. "Can you play it?"

He had been staring at the floor, and only glanced at her briefly before stepping forward and silently accepting the mallet. Picking up the instrument, which was as tall as his arms, he went over to a wide bench at the foot of his bed and straddled it, his back to Clementine. Setting the instrument on the bench in front of him, he secured it in place by putting his legs on top of the the flat part of the base.

"What's it called?" she asked, skirting past Onaka so she could see Inlan's hands. "You said it before. Kar... something?"

"Karmantui," he answered, though his translator said, "Sky bells."

Using the mallet, he gently tapped the rings in order from bottom to top, eliciting a delicate, ethereal tone from each -- sky bells indeed. After hearing the nubla, she wasn't surprised at the different tuning, but as he progressed further up the rings and then back down, she started to hear a pattern.

"Is that your scale?" she asked, when he was done.

He started to turn around, but stopped before looking at her. "Scale?" he asked, using the English word.

"Sequence of notes," she explained. "The basis for musical harmonies. Western music is based on octaves, but yours sounds like it could be based on a pentatonic scale -- five notes."

He glanced up at Onaka, who was still watching him with narrowed eyes.

"Yes," he said, turning his back on her again. "Our yaqi, our... scale, is based on four intervals -- five pitches. The sky bells holds three yaqi."

"Can you play a song on it -- or at least part of one? It would be helpful to see and hear how it's used."

Resuming his position, he began to play. He gently struck a ring, then either let the sound continue ringing as he tapped another, or used his free hand to stop the vibrations and therefore silence the note. Soon his simple melody became more complex, the fingers on his left hand rising and falling as if he were playing the piano, while his right hand danced the mallet up and down the rings.

Is he getting different tones from the same ring?

Clementine crouched to get a better view of the instrument.

Following the movements of the mallet, she realized that the rings weren't only different thicknesses in relation to each other, but to themselves as well, narrowing as they completed the circle. If he tapped in one spot he got one note, but if he struck the same ring an inch in either direction, he elicited a different note.

She closed her eyes to focus on the music. At first the notes had sounded too foreign and disconnected to her ears to produce any coherent harmony. But as she gave herself over to the music, opening her mind and allowing the piece to speak to her, she began to hear the pattern again. The melody he'd been playing at first was still there, but it had taken a backseat to a new melody -- no, a countermelody. It was a fugue! Both motifs interlaced with one another, complementing and expanding, forming intricate and dense harmonies that made Clementine's hair stand on end. When she'd asked if he could play something, she hadn't expected it to be so advanced.

The piece ended abruptly, without any conclusion to the musical ideas, and she opened her eyes to see Inlan staring down at her. Her smile -- when had she started grinning? -- began to fade, however, when she saw the sadness in his eyes. The music hadn't seemed sad to her, but maybe that was the equivalent of a Relican minor scale?

"That instrument is way more complicated than I thought," she said. "How long did it take you to learn?"

Inlan stood and returned the karmantui to the table. "I'm still only a novice," he said. "The sky bells can play almost any note, and it takes a true master to assemble the harmonies properly."

"That was not the playing of a novice, my friend," she said, following him back to the table. She surveyed the myriad instruments, trying to decide which to try next, when a realization struck her. At first she'd thought this collection had been assembled from different people all over the ship. But...

"Are all of these yours?" she asked.

Inlan nodded.

"And you can play them? All? As well as you can the karmantui?"

He glanced at her, perhaps surprised she used the Relican name, and she caught a glimmer of pride in his eyes before he looked away again.

"Some are better than others," he said.

"Holy shit," said Clementine, forgetting to censor herself as she took in the spread before her. "There are... twenty-six instruments here!"

"Many of the breathers use the same fingering pattern," he said, his cheeks darkening.

"Breathers? You mean these?" She gestured to the instruments that resembled woodwinds, hanging on the wall above the table.

He nodded.

"Yeah, but they probably use different embouchure -- mouth positioning," she added at his confusion.

He started to reply, but was cut off when the floor lurched upwards. A terrifying, cavernous groan erupted from the ship. Clementine grabbed the table to keep from falling over.

"Did we bump into something?" she asked, only half-joking as she reached for the karmantui. It had slid precariously close to the edge of the table. But as her fingers grazed against the wood base, the floor lurched again, this time dipping violently behind her.

"The karmantui!" she yelped as she herself was thrown backwards. Inlan dove for her, catching her in the same instant that the glass instrument shattered on the floor.

"I would have been fine!" she protested as he helped her upright, though a distant part of her brain acknowledged how nice it was to be in his arms. "The karmantui -- it's wrecked!"

A surprised half smile tickled his lips, and he nodded his head toward where she would have fallen. She looked behind her and saw the metal bench.

"It wouldn't have felt very good," she admitted, rubbing her head where it probably would have hit the bench. Gesturing to the glass carnage, she added, "But that feels even worse."

A speaker somewhere in the ceiling chimed, followed by a calm but firm voice.

"Tibaham. Ta vreem ih jamjua ta rasi. Eraka hamato."

There was another tremor, but it was mild, and instead of the screeching groan there was merely a distant thud. The announcement started repeating again, and Onaka turned to Inlan and said, "You stay with the Earthan. Convey her back to the cart as soon as you can."

"What's going on?" asked Clementine.

Inlan was about to respond when Onaka, stepping through the hatch, said, "Did you arrange all this just to be alone with her, bronze?" With a laugh, he slammed the submarine hatch-like door shut behind him.

His words seemed to bounce and echo off the metal walls, although it might have just been in Clementine's head.

What did that mean? Had Inlan said something to him about liking her? That didn't seem possible, considering the strict code of conduct for Relicans. Was Onaka teasing him? That seemed equally impossible, for the same reason.

"The Vreem are attacking the fleet," said Inlan.

"Attacking?" she squeaked, fear for her life overtaking her curiosity at Onaka's statement. "That's what made the ship jerk like that?"

Another tremor punctuated her words.

He nodded, his face tight with worry. "It's not unexpected. They track us throughout the universe and attempt to purloin members of the races we relocate."

Clementine's stomach lurched as if the ship had been hit, although the floor remained perfectly still. "What do they do with them? With us?"

"The Relican Squad is bound to protect you and your people. We will do our utmost to keep you from harm."

That wasn't an answer. "What do they do, Inlan?"

His concerned, warm eyes searched hers.

"If you don't tell me I'll have to come up with my own theories," she said, "which are probably way worse than reality. Please tell me."

His gaze flickered to her lips as she spoke, and despite the gruesome circumstances, Clementine couldn't help the quiver in her chest at the thought that he might kiss her.

Of course he wouldn't. Relicans didn't do that.

Tausson did.

Would Inlan?

But his next words dampened her inappropriate romantic notions.

"They use you as slaves."