An Ancient Peace by Tanya Huff Page A

say?”
    He shrugged. “This one is sorry for any offense. Could be a dialect problem.”
    â€œCould be.” But she doubted it. She remembered her first trip to Ventris Station, standing in the docking bay with sixty other raw recruits, many of them meeting a new species for the first time and seeing only that di’Taykan were too colorful and their eyes were weird and Krai were too short and their feet were weird and Humans were too soft and their noses were weird. Finding the similarities came later. But without the Corps to emphasize a Marine is a Marine, how long did it take civilians to get to the point where they realized the similarities far outweighed the differences? Or, she wondered, watching the adult Rakva shift around until their bodies blocked their hatchling’s view of the Younger Races, was it a realization not everyone bothered to reach?
    During boarding, the Rakva had taken seats as far from Torin and her team as possible, even though it put them closer to the half dozen Niln who’d clearly been drinking and were skirting the obnoxious edge of boisterous. If it came to the vote Colonel Hurrs feared, would the Rakva vote to turf the Younger Races out of the Confederation?
    Dragging her hands back through her hair, she exhaled and cursed the colonel. This was why she never bothered with politics. Even if these particular Rakva never managed to get past the differences, they didn’t speak for their entire species.
    â€œDeep thoughts?” Craig asked, bouncing his shoulder off hers.
    â€œI’m remembering the doctor who was with us on Silsvah.” An environmental research physician thrown into combat, Dr. Leor had done everything possible to keep her Marines alive. “He had the same coloring as mama bird over there.”
    â€œCould be related. You should go ask.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œBecause you don’t care?”
    â€œBecause there’s a billion Rakva with the same coloring and the odds are very high they’re no relation.”
    â€œNever change.” He leaned in, aiming for her mouth—she assumed—kissed the side of her nose, and went back to his game.
    â€œSo, Boss, if you and Craig aren’t going to play,” Alamber began, dropping into the seat on her right. “You and I could . . . Kidding!” he assured her when she turned to face him, waving off any reply she might have made, the other hand dramatically clutching his masker. “You have made your opinion on sexing up the subordinates absolutely clear. Besides,” he added, hair moving in a self-satisfied arc, “I don’t need you; the Niln offered.”
    â€œAll six . . . five of them?” The sixth was framed in the open hatch of a species neutral refresher, puking into what Torin hoped was a toilet.
    â€œI think they wanted research sex.” When Torin turned to face him . . .
    â€œHey, I was leaning on that shoulder,” Craig muttered, shifting his weight without looking up.
    . . . Alamber grinned. “See, this whole group of short and scaly are grad students heading back after a break. I think they said they’re studying cultural anthropology, but that sparkly red-and-gold one, she’s got an accent I can barely get my head around.” Stretching out long legs, he admired the
fragile
stickers on the toes of his boots. They’d been free at check-in and Alamber had happily taken a couple. “Anyway, they’ve studied up on members of the Confederation and a couple of them have heard things from a friend who knew someone who’d gone out of the Core, but they’ve never seen a di’Taykan before. Or a Krai for that matter.” He snickered, eyes lightening. “Actually, for an entirely different matter as having research sex with short, cranky, and disproportionate never came up.”
    Torin had no intention of asking him to clarify what he meant by