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Mott with the intelligence garnered from my would-be lover, for whom I had little special ardor — I simply found her unappealing as a mate, even a temporary one — but quickly dismissed that idea. Commander Mott would have no other recourse except to take action, which placed me in the unenviable, even dangerous, position of being fingered as an informant. If Mina Li couldn’t keep her mouth shut to me, what made me think she could keep it shut to others? As a half-breed, I was only nominally accepted by the Zentadon to begin with.
    Besides, the Homelanders had no way of getting past security to sabotage the
Tsutsumi
. Unless …
    I decided to have another cocktail. I liked “Happy Hour,” which is what the Humans called this time of day. While my drink was being mixed and presented to me by the smartass barkeep and his tail, another party of Kutaran joined the mating couple and a stag Ztura stuck his square yellow head inside while the rest of him remained outside on the end of a slender two-meter-long neck. The Market District of the Galaxia Capital, which was all the city was every called, was a port district where anything or anybody could show up and be accorded only a passing glance.
    “Kadar, you will not tell Mishal I informed …”
    “I will not if you will not. Now hush and let me think.”
    I went back to
unless
. The Homelanders couldn’t get past security
unless
, and I had to consider this, unless the Homelanders had a plant, a contact, a sleeper inside military security to provide them with the codes to bypass the various electronic and robotic defenses that shielded the military space port.
    I took a sip of my drink, then sat up straight as though jolted by the potency of the alcohol. My ears flicked.
    Rumors about a Blob threat had circulated for so long that official statements were now often looked upon as so much government propaganda to keep the populace of restless Zentadon, and even more restless Human prolies pacified and controllable. Menace outside the gates and all that. Homelanders were not concerned with Blobs. Crazies like Mishal were so myopic, so intent on the one issue of Zentadon autonomy that they failed to see the Big Picture, as Human army officers were fond of saying. The Big Picture was, the Blobs would kick our Zentadon tail-dragging butts without the support of the Galaxia Republic military. If the Blobs made serious incursions into the Tau Ceti Cluster, Ganesh would be one of the first worlds to fall under the onslaught. Most Zentadon, like our former Indowy masters of today, were no longer warriors. Zentadon were incapable of killing other sentients without committing suicide in the process. You couldn’t fight a war if you died in the same numbers as your enemy — and there were far fewer of you to begin with.
    But Zentadon could make war against objects. Blow up and destroy things. I had to assume, therefore, that Homelanders possessed the intel, the planning, and the contacts to blow up the targeted dreadnought. What disturbed me was the realization that if they sabotaged the
Tsutsumi
, higher-higher in the Galaxia military would suspect another Zentadon as the insider informant. Currently, I was the only Zentadon working on a pending mission, one that involved use of the
Tsutsumi
. Who could be a more likely suspect?
    I had to put a stop to the action, tonight, and I couldn’t go to higher authority for help without presenting myself as a future Homelander target.
    My ears were going involuntarily crazy. I was no hero. I was merely a Sen, and not an exceptionally good one at that. I looked at my fresh cocktail, then downed courage in a single gulp.
    “Mina Li, go to my cubicle,” I ordered.
    She brightened. “You want me to prepare it instead of my place for our future conjoining?”
    “Mina Li, conjoin yourself. I want you to wait there until I tell you to leave. I will order my SecLocks to provide you entry. You should not be hanging around these old bars and