We didn't have to wait nearly as long this time. Another Ilrivian came into the corridor just a few minutes after our escorts finished their call, and he quickly opened the door.

I caught a shift in the expressions and postures of each of the Kymari. After more than a week of delays and pointless arguments, they could all tell something unusual had happened. The Ilrivians were more than happy for me to spend all day searching a room with a ktari in it, but they wanted me to leave this room as quickly as possible.

I fanned my wings out and prepared to search the room, but Minna's father held up a hand before she could give me the go ahead. "Hold on. Let me look through it first."

Minna nodded and stepped back while her father went into the room. He disappeared out of sight for several minutes, and I heard him rummaging around... but after a minute he came back into the hallway and shook his head. "Nothing obvious. It looks safe."

My ear tufts fell a little at his words. I had been half hoping he would find a cage full of crawlers stuffed underneath the bed. Still, the Ilrivians were practically radiating unease as they watched us, so there must be something. Right?

"Okay Nate. Go seek." I jumped into the air at Minna's words and flew into the room.

I spent the next fifteen minutes climbing over every bit of that room. And I spent the next fifteen minutes finding absolutely nothing at all.

This room was perfectly normal. It had basic furnishings, but that was it. It didn't even have the simple refrigerated cabinet that I had seen in the rooms with the ktari; there was no food kept in this room, so there was no need to take up space with a machine to keep the food cool and fresh. The space under the bed was clear, the simple closet held nothing but clothes, the tiny bathroom held nothing but the odd alien plumbing, and so on. There was nothing to find.

There were no scents of crawlers. Not even the scent of ktari, other than what wafted in through the open doorway.

But the Ilrivians had gotten even more nervous the longer I searched. The three of them had all given up trying to stand still after the first five minutes and now fidgeted and paced in the hallway.

I dropped down to perch on the back of the simple chair in the room and took another long look around the room. There was nothing. But there had to be something. Didn't there? I finished looking around the room and settled on glancing at the simple vent covering near the top of the room. Come on, Nate, think. What's in this room that they don't want you to find?

I inhaled deeply and tried to search for any other scrap of scent to give me a clue. But there was still nothing.

A noise came from the hallway and I jerked my head, turning away from staring at the vent to look at the source of the noise. Two of the Ilrivians had bumped into each other. Their aimless fidgeting must have made them clumsy.

I narrowed my eyes and took a closer look at them. Or... had it? The third alien was standing off to the side with his hand very close to the weapon at his side. The one that had bumped into the other had his hands up, while the one he had bumped into had his hands at his side, like the other. Near his weapon.

Hrm...

Had one of them just tried to go for their weapon? Had the other one bumped into him on purpose, to keep him from overreacting?

But... what would have spooked him? Why was the third one still so nervous? I hadn't actually found anything. I had just been staring at... what had it been?

The vent.

I looked back at it and tried to think. What was it they were so worried about? It looked just like every other vent I had seen on this ship. It led to the room next door, and there was a vent just like it on the opposite wall that led further off into the ship. There was nothing special about it. There weren't even any odd smells coming from it, not even the...

I hissed as I felt a sudden sense of triumph. Gotcha.

The vent connected with the room next door - supposedly. The air flowing through it should have all the smells that were in that room. And I knew there was a ktari in that room. But that smell was entirely absent in the air coming from the vent. I could only pick up the ktari's scent when I was near the door, and air came in from the hallway. The air coming from the direct path to the other room, the air that should have a stronger scent of ktari in it, was entirely clean. Nothing but that awful chemical smell.

There was something in between these two rooms. Something the Ilrivians did not want us to find.

Now I just needed to figure out a way to clue Minna in on it.

I flew around the room a few more times while I tried to think. I half hoped that Minna might figure it out on her own if I flew around enough... but without a dragonet's scent of smell to help her, I doubted that was going to happen.

The simplest solution would be to just tell her, and... if I didn't come up with anything else, I had a nasty feeling that I might have to. But I wasn't sure how she would react if I started talking to her here, in the middle of her guards - who as far as I knew I wasn't supposed to let in on the secret that dragonets were smart and could talk - and I was still nervous about how she would react to my intelligence just in general.

If I had to do that I would, but... I hoped I could think of something else first.

I flew near the vent a few times, but each time I did I saw the Ilrivians tense up. I was growing more and more worried about what they might do if they knew I was onto them. I had to find some way to get the Kymari to figure it out without the Ilrivians knowing, or else... who knew what would happen.

Would they actually try and attack us? They were badly outnumbered. And there were two heavily armed ships alongside the freighter. If they tried anything, those ships would...

Of course. The military ships. I mentally kicked myself for being so stupid.

"Ivy, I think I've found something. There's something off about these rooms. The airflow isn't right with the rooms that have the ktari in them; I searched the room next door and the ktari's scent isn't coming through the vent. I think there's something in between these rooms that they want to keep hidden, something airtight." I gave a quick explanation to the green dragonet.

I felt a sudden sense of alertness from Ivy as she reached back to me over the mindlink. "What did you find? Is it a sicora?"

"I don't know yet. I haven't figured out how to get to it, and I don't want to give anything away. The Ilrivians with us have been extremely on edge since I came into this room. I'm starting to get worried about what they'll do if I find something." I hesitated and snuck a glance at the weapons each of them wore at their sides. "They wouldn't try and shoot us, would they?"

Ivy grew quiet for a moment. When her voice returned there was an edge of fear in it. "They might. Taureen - Tasha's handler - was shot once when he discovered a ship smuggling crawlers on it. If they are hiding something, they might be desperate enough to attack to keep you from exposing it. Can you get out of there?"

I looked back around the room. The only exit was back into the hallway... and even if I did leave, the Ilrivians would just come with us. "I don't think that will help much. They'll just follow us. And I want to find out what they're hiding; I bet it's the source of those crawler scents."

A sense of agitation came across the mindlink. "Ughhh." She went silent, then sighed. "I understand."

None of us were comfortable with the idea of just leaving when there were crawlers around. At least, not until we were sure they were dead. That was something as instinctive as the urge to spread our wings when we were falling.

"Can you do anything? I don't know how to tell Minna I've found something without letting the aliens know."

"Just tell her. It's been three months."

"She's surrounded by guards. We can't have much of a conversation like this." And I'm terrified of how she will take the discovery that I'm not what she thinks.

I carefully avoided sending Ivy that last thought.

Ivy went quiet for another long moment. When she finally responded she sounded frustrated. "I talked to Trenil but he can't think of anything. There's not really any plausible way he can call and tell her, 'By the way, check the walls of that particular room to see what's between them.'. You're going to have to think up something else. But I let him know; he's making sure everybody here is on alert just in case something happens."

"Thanks." I tried not to sound too disappointed. That wasn't very helpful... but... it was something. And Ivy was right; there wasn't really much Trenil or Ivy could do.

Okay. I'm just back on my own again. That's fine. I'm used to that.

I took another slow lap around the room and tried to think. There wasn't anything useful in this room. I needed more options. And something to distract the Ilrivians with. If they were occupied, it would be no trouble at all to just fly circles in front of the vent until Minna figured it out.

A sudden idea made me grin. The Ilrivians had given us a lot in the way of distractions... maybe I could make use of that.

I flew out of the room and went right to the door with the ktari. Minna was close behind me, and as soon as she was back in sight I started scratching at that door. She frowned at me, and I could see the gears spinning in her head. As far as she could tell I was still agitated by something, and I hadn't returned to the 'bored' expression I usually gave off when I cleared a room.

One of the Ilrivians started to speak, and I knew he was going to suggest sealing the room off behind us. I dashed back into the first room and flew in furious circles over the bed.

I had no idea what Minna would think I was doing with that, but it didn't really matter. As long as she thought there was still something wrong in that room, she would keep the Ilrivians from closing it back off.

Or at least, that was what I hoped.

Minna walked back into the doorway of the open room and just stared at me. Her expression all but screamed, 'What is wrong with you?', but she didn't say anything. She just watched me fly loops over the bed.

After the fifth or sixth loop I flew back to the other door and scratched on it again.

I saw recognition in Minna's eyes and thought I caught a quick nod from her. "We'll need to get into this room, too." She glanced at the Ilrivians. "Both of them."

Yes! I couldn't help but let out an excited chirp. This should give me a few more options...

I thought I would get at least a little time to do some more thinking - this was a room with a ktari in it, so I fully expected we would have to wait half an hour for whoever lived there to come let us in. Maybe it would even be enough time for Ivy to come aboard, and if that happened then there might be some excuse we could come up with to get Trenil to help. That would mean even more options.

The last thing I expected was for our escort to simply go and open the door for us.

A look of surprise went through the expression of every one of the Kymari. They clearly hadn't expected that, either. If there had been any doubt that there was something weird going on here, it was completely gone now.

A ktari was in the room, just like I had known it would be. It jerked to its feet and growled at us, but it was tied to a table by a short leash just like all the others. I ignored it.

The rest of the room looked just like the others had been.

Options. What are my options now? I tried to think. I had two rooms and a ktari to work with, but I was no closer to thinking up a way to alert the Kymari to what I had realized. The Ilrivians still had their attention firmly focused on me. The Kymari guards had their attention focused on the Ilrivians. And Minna...

Minna was looking at the ktari very thoughtfully. She watched it for a long moment, then looked slowly over at me.

I felt a sinking feeling and wondered what she must be thinking. It must have occurred to her that I had been deliberately ignoring the scent of the ktari this entire time. Which... would not fit in with her idea that I was just an animal reacting to instincts and training.

I would have to worry about that later.

Distraction. Get a distraction.

I took a deep breath... and launched myself straight towards the ktari.

The pest was as agitated and frightened as all the others I had run into. It did not want to be there, it did not want aliens so close to it, it did not want to be tied to a table. And it certainly did not want a strange winged lizard to dive at it with outstretched claws.

It panicked and fled to the far end of the table. It tried to go even further, but when it realized it couldn't get away it turned back to me. And in the time honored tradition of every cornered animal ever, it growled and lunged at me with cruel, gleaming teeth.

I banked to the side at the last second and passed through the air beside it. I felt the breeze of its snapping jaws against my tail and realized it had come much closer to biting me than I was comfortable with... then I felt my sharp claws connect with my actual target. The simple material offered no resistance at all, and I flew past the ktari without even slowing down.

I looped along the back wall of the room and angled back to the ktari. I slowed and rose higher into the air, doing my best to show off my own teeth and claws in as intimidating a display as I could manage. I added one of my best growls for good measure.

The ktari did not want anything at all to do with me.

What it wanted was to run and hide. To get away from the scary creatures always towering over it, and making it go places it didn't want to go, and forcing it to stay in rooms it didn't want to be in. To get away from the scary flying animal that was attacking it. More than anything else, it wanted to leave.

And now that I had severed the leash holding it to the table, it was more than happy to do exactly that.

I heard the Ilrivians yelp as the ktari jumped from the table and dashed down the corridor. I hadn't realized the creature could move that fast - though, in retrospect, it seemed pretty obvious that something with six legs would be able to get some serious momentum when it wanted to.

One of the Ilrivians started to run after the pest. The other two stared after him, and I was pretty sure they were trying to decide if they should run after the ktari or stay there.

Either way, they weren't watching me anymore.

In fact, in all the commotion, the only person still watching me was Minna. Even the other Kymari were moving down the hall towards the fleeing ktari, and they added another unwitting distraction that drew the Ilrivians' attention off of me.

I met Minna's eyes and glanced significantly towards the Ilrivians, then dashed towards the vent of the room. I did a quick loop around it, making sure she saw, then dashed back towards the other room.

Minna didn't react quickly enough and the short leash caught me before I could make it, but she recovered when she felt the leash tug her arm. She followed after me and we disappeared into the room next door.

We were unnoticed and out of sight, at least for the moment. Everyone was distracted by the panicked ktari, and I could make out the sound of it fighting with somebody near the far end of the corridor.

I flew several quick loops around the vent, then landed against it. I spread my wings for balance and clung tightly to the simple grille covering the opening, then scratched at it for all I was worth.

"There's something wrong with the vents?" I heard Minna's hurried whisper and hissed out what I hoped she would take as confirmation. My claws weren't doing much damage to whatever metal was making up the vent... which... was actually kind of odd, considering how sharp my claws were... but I kept scratching at it anyways. I didn't know how much time I had before the Ilrivians realized we were gone, and I wanted to make certain I got my message across.

I only stopped my efforts when I heard something make a series of rapid beeps. I looked up and saw that Minna had pulled a device out of one of the pockets built into her armor. She ran it along the wall... then frowned. "There's nothing back there. This should at least be reading the other room, but... nothing."

Yes! She got it.

She turned in a slow circle and held the device out in front of her. It beeped occasionally, but she didn't react until it let out a higher pitched beep. She looked up from it and frowned. "Something there is drawing power."

I followed her gaze. That corner of the room was empty. In the rooms with the ktari it had held the simple refrigerator, but there was nothing in this one. Just a simple power fixture.

Minna quickly crossed the room and began prodding the outlet. I saw her frown again, then she tugged on it. The cover came off with a short 'pop!' sound.

I caught sight of a simple panel now that the cover was gone. There were three buttons and some strange writing, though I couldn't tell what any of them did from where I was at. Minna seemed to have some idea of it, though. She reached back towards the panel and tapped the button on the left.

The wall I was perched on suddenly shuddered. I squawked in alarm and flew away from it. I pulled into a hover a short distance away and watched as the wall split apart. A space about a third the height of the room opened up in the wall, revealing a tiny closet of a room filled with a dozen narrow cylinders. The space above and below the cylinders was still sealed off, and I suspected the vent must have been crammed somewhere into the ceiling to lead upwards to another section of the ship. Somewhere enclosed, where air could go without bringing the smells of this compartment out through the rest of the ship. Behind the cylinders I could make out a seam in the far wall and knew that it must be able to open as well, and then lead into the neighboring room.

The cylinders reminded me of a giant thermos. They were larger than I was, and they had an odd top that seemed like it would screw open if turned. The base of each one had wires running out of it, all of them heading towards the panel Minna had discovered. The sides of the cylinders were clear, and the inside of it was filled with a murky yellow fluid.

And each one held a crawler sleeping inside.