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The naked person in the pod closed eir eyes Gasped a few ti settled

“Are you all right?” asked Ingray In Bantia this tih she was fairly sure Pahlad Budrakim would have understood Yiir, which Captain Uisine had used

Captain Uisine shook the blanket out and laid it around the naked person’s shoulders

“Where ah with cold or fear or so else

“We’re on Tyr Siilas Station, in Tyr Systeray, and then, to Captain Uisine, “E asked where e was, and I told em ere on Tyr Siilas”

“How did I get here?” asked the person sitting in the suspension pod, in Bantia By now the blue fluid had all drained away to some reservoir in the pod itself

“I paid sohskold”

The person opened eir eyes then “Who?”

Well, Ingray had never really met Pahlad Budrakim in person And e was ten or more years older than she was, and not likely to have noticed a very young Aughskold foster-daughter, not likely to have known her name when she had still been a child, let alone her adult naone into Cohskold’s children,” said Ingray

“Why,” e asked, eir voice gaining strength, “would one of Representative Aughskold’s children bring me anywhere?”

Ingray tried to think of a simple way to explain, and settled, finally, for, “You’re Pahlad Budrakim”

E gave a little shake of eir head, a frown “Who?”

Ingray suppressed a start as another spider-e cup of stea liquid, which it passed to Captain Uisine before it spun and returned to the ship “Here, excellency,” he said, in Yiir, offering it to the person still sitting in the pod “Can you hold this?”

“Here,” said the first spider-mech, in a thin, thready voice, in Bantia “Can you hold this?”

“Aren’t you Pahlad Budrakiely nuut, as though she was not capable of feeling any more despair or fear than she already had today The Facilitator had said this was Pahlad No, e’d said e’d examined the payment and the merchandise and both hat they should have been But surely that was the sa