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its weapon systems appropriated have you?" he hissed, hoisting his shell up at the front until it was almost vertical. "Cannot that do you: an envoy of the Greld am I!"
Vicki cast a quick glance to either side. They were surrounded by Jamarians - etiolated figures that had emerged from the shadows of the ship's hold to encircle them. Most of them were carrying devices that trailed wires behind them, as if they had just been removed from the ship's hull.
The lead Jamarian stepped forward from the group in the doorway. "The Greld, the Greld, the all-powerful, all-arrogant, all-greedy Greld," it snarled. "When the revolution comes, your sort will be first up against the bulkhead."
"What is your name?" Albrellian said. "About this will hear Braxiatel."
"My name is Szaratak," the alien replied, and spat on the ground between Albrellian's front pair of claws. "Do what you will - Braxiatel is nothing to us. He has served his purpose. We don't need him any more."
Vicki felt a pang of sadness. She had liked Irving Braxiatel. He had believed that what he was doing might actually help, and now it was going to come crashing down in flames around his ears. Poor man.
"Purpose?" Albrellian reeled backwards. "What purpose?"
Vicki reached out and patted his shell. "Mr Braxiatel brought all the envoys together, didn't he?" she asked, directing her comments more at the Jamarians than at the Greld envoy. "And he persuaded them to leave all their ships unguarded on the moon as a gesture of good faith. Their heavily armed ships, ready to be taken apart for their secrets." Something suddenly occurred to her, and she turned to the Jamarian. "It was you that tried to kill Galileo, wasn't it? He was the only person capable of seeing that you were going to and from the moon. Braxiatel just tried to stop him from seeing anything, but you tried to kill him."
Albrellian was silent for a moment. "Very clever have been they," he said finally in a very quiet, very flat voice. "Badly undere
