Free Transgalactic by James Gunn Page A

and though you could have them all killed, you could not be sure that some word has not escaped these walls, and these many deaths could not be explained, and all of this would damage your mission beyond repair.”
    â€œMy mission?” the Ambassador demanded. “What does an insignificant human know of my mission?”
    â€œThe only possible reason for your presence on this planet is to guide these people into interstellar capability and then to Federation citizenship.”
    If a Dorian face could express discouragement, the Ambassador’s face might have done so. Perhaps it was indicated by the droop of his trunk. “That is an impossible task,” he said. “They are a frustrating people, perhaps like us Dorians”—he seemed revulsed by his own comparison—“before we are driven from our fertile plains to the mountain city of Grandor. They are too happy, too content with their petty lives, too pleased with their lack of wars and personal strife.”
    â€œAnd too terrified of the night sky.”
    â€œThat, too,” the Ambassador said. “I see no way to succeed.”
    â€œYou accept defeat?” Asha asked. “To a Dorian that is suicide. Or worse, disgrace.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat is why you will give me a ship.”
    â€œThat is impossible,” the Ambassador said. “My ship is not departing until my mission is completed, and that may not happen in my lifetime.” The last seemed to come with a measure of despair.
    â€œBut you could provide a boat with interstellar capability,” Asha said. “The Captain’s Barge, perhaps.”
    â€œRemind me why I should do that?”
    â€œBecause I will save your mission.”
    The Ambassador looked at Asha for a long moment as if wondering how this slender, misshapen creature standing in front of him could presume to accomplish what he could not. “And how do you plan to do that?”
    â€œThe Squeal people plan for me to choose one of them for a mate or consort or scapegoat—whatever they have in their mythology. We are supposed to participate in some kind of ceremony in the ancient artifact in the plaza fountain. Instead, you are going to bring the Captain’s Barge down to the plaza in the night. I will pick a suitor, but instead of the fountain we will go to the Captain’s Barge and depart. That single event, with everyone forced to look at the sky and envision the royal pair ascending into the heavens, will alter the psychology of the Squeal people, provide therapy for their aversion to space, and begin their journey to the stars.”
    The Ambassador stared at Asha out of rounded eyes. A stronger scent of methane filled the air.
    â€œAnd give you great honor,” Asha said.
    And that is how Asha found herself, dressed in ceremonial finery, in the entrance of a compact spaceboat, a shivering Squeal person beside her, waving her hands ceremonially toward the plaza filled with Squeal people. She took the four-fingered hand of the Squeal person beside her, now with fully developed male genitalia hidden under finery equal to her own, and turned to enter the ship.
    The Squeal person was the third suitor, who had at least some clue as to how to court a stranger from the magical artifact. She didn’t know what she was going to do with him.
    But she would think of something.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    Riley felt a movement behind him and heard the rasp of breath that wasn’t his. He turned. Behind him was Rory, shivering with terror, his red eyes wide and flickering from side to side. It looked ridiculous for a dinosaur, but Riley understood it, and understood the courage it took for Rory to follow him through a magical doorway into this demonic artifact. But all that didn’t change the impossibility of the situation.
    â€œGo back!” Riley said in his pidgin dinosaur vocabulary.
    Rory moved his head. Riley didn’t know whether that was a refusal