Stella Naasko was called into the courtroom of the Galactic Federation to witness to the Board of Inquiry. She stopped at the barrier and took a long look around the room to gain time to muster her courage. Like all purebred Eldres, she was tall, with white skin, small, round ears, and, though mammalian, had blond hair barely adequate to cover her head and almost no eyebrows. In a few years, like other Eldres, she would probably be bald.

What she saw in the court was not reassuring. Hanging ominously above her head was a glass bell large enough to enclose the witness box entirely, and there were menacing tubes and instruments beside it.

Her right hand moved involuntarily to the zipper at the throat of her shining, aluminized unif and she steadied herself with her other hand at the railing.

"Do not be afraid of the paraphernalia at the box," a synthesized voice said. "We must be prepared for witnesses from species all over the galaxy. Some of them cannot breathe this atmosphere and must be enclosed. As a native Eldre you do not need the bell. Please come forward."

Stella looked at the raised platform where the voice came from.

She was relieved that one of them was an Eldre like herself. At least he was mammalian, with only two arms, a single head, and air breathing. His judge’s hood had been dropped back on his shoulders to accommodate a headset that was set carelessly over one ear. His age was uncertain--Stella had difficulty determining the age of anyone over thirty.

The judge at her left was not as easy to look at--a Trinian. The only Trinian she had seen before was in a hologram in a textbook at school. She had read that their diet consisted mostly of a garlic-like root eaten raw with the dirt on, which gave Trinians unpleasant bad breath. This Trinian was, fortunately, too far away for her to smell his breath. Like all Trinians, he was blue, had hairless, leathery skin, and deeply sunken yellow eyes that glowed in the depths of his eye sockets.

The third judge was a Stygian, an aquatic creature from a dark, cold planet with a liquid surface that did not freeze even at minus 20 centigrade. The Stygian had to be kept immersed in a chilled, translucent cylinder. The humidity of the courtroom had condensed on the cold surface of the cylinder and turned to frost near the pipes that entered it at the side.

Stella could make out movement of something sinister inside and saw a lidless eye on a stalk press briefly against the surface to get a look at her before retreating into the darkness of its tank. The life support system supplying the cylinder hissed softly and rumbled as a compressor came on and a jet of vapor escaped from a valve and condensed on the icy surface.

It was a formidable panel of judges.

The Eldre judge beaconed for Stella to step into the witness box.

"You are Stella Naasko?"

"Yes."

"Do you know why you have been called here?"

"No."

There was a bubbling and movement inside the Stygian’s cylinder and an odd synthesized voice asked, "You are the companion female to Jesse Bram, yes/no?"

Stella blushed. Companion female sounded to her like a live-in arrangement. It did not sound like the appropriate description for Jesse’s steady girlfriend.

"She means to ask if you are engaged to Jesse Bram."

"We are going together. We’re not engaged, but..."

She was interruped by the Trinian’s gravelly voice. "If this witness is in love with Jesse Bram, she can hardly be expected to speak the truth about him. Naturally she will protest his loyalty to the Federation. I cannot see what use this is."

The Stygian moved again inside the cylinder. "I wish to know this. You are the companion, the comrade to Jesse Bram, yes/no?"

"Yes. Can you tell me where he is? I haven’t heard anything in so long. Not since... it’s not fair not to tell me--"

"We ask the questions," the Eldre interrupted. "Our purpose is to find out how loyal Jesse Bram is to the Federation."

Stella’s legs felt suddenly weak and she grasped the railing to steady herself. "He’s very loyal. Why wouldn’t he be?"

The Trinian’s sunken eyes glowed with a menacing intensity. "That’s what we’re trying to find out. What are his views of other species?"

The Stygian bubbled. The sound was untranslatable.

"Jesse is not specist, if that’s what you mean. He was picked as a cadet in the diplomatic corps because he is tolerant. He gets along well with everyone." Stella felt her breath quickening and her voice rising. "Some of his best friends are furry. Even his roommate at the academy is a rodent."

"Furry! Indeed..." The Trinian leaned forward and hissed, an exhalation strong enough to reach her with its strong garlic odor. "Jesse might be so sensitive to the feelings of other species that he might let his sympathy interfere with his duty. Would that be possible?"

Stella wiped her damp palms on the shiny unif. "He would never break his oath to the Federation. As soon as he graduates, we’ll... well." She wondered if she had said too much. If Jesse had done something disloyal, maybe she would be regarded with suspicion, too. Maybe she should be more equivocal. If he really were guilty of something, how would that affect her? If Jesse were convicted of something, would she stick with him? What was all this about, anyway? Did she dare ask?

"Did you know that Jesse Bram is of mixed species? Did you know that Jesse’s grandmother was not an Eldre?"

The Trinian sat back with a blue smirk. "I can see the intentions of some of those behind this investigation. It’s miscegenation once removed."

To Stella, the Eldre judge seemed to ignore the veiled accusation. "Stella, do you know what planet Jesse’s grandmother came from?"

"No. He never said. I know that he was very close to his grandmother but he never said where she came from."

"Did you ever meet his grandmother?"

"Not actually." How odd that they would ask that. She had never met Jesse’s grandmother. He had talked about her in a roundabout way. She had made her home at the Bram family retreat at the lake. Stella had been there many times, but Jesse’s grandmother had stayed in her room in isolation. Occasionally Stella had glimpsed the grandmother at an upstairs window, a wrinkled face with what looked like an oxygen tube at her nose. Stella had always assumed the grandmother had a respiratory ailment that prevented her from joining them at dinners and picnics. It was impolite to ask.

Jesse’s mother had explained that the grandmother was withdrawn into a world of her own, and Stella had assumed it was depression. Why was Jesse’s grandmother, long since dead, important now?

Stella felt a sudden surge of fear of the motives behind all this questioning. Why bring her all this way? Were they trying to implicate her in some imagined betrayal?

Stella was relieved when the Stygian gurgled again and the synthesized, badly translated voice said, "She know no more. Free her."

"What’s happened to Jesse? Has he been arrested?"

"You may wait in the lounge with the other witnesses. You are excused."

She had traveled a long distance for a very short interview.

It was puzzling. First she got the letter from Jesse saying he had just his final exam to do. Then silence. Had he failed? If he had, what would happen to their own plans? Just when she was beginning to despair and thought of writing to Jesse’s father, the order came from the Court. Jesse must have done something terrible.

It could not be a school prank. Jesse was too serious for that. And why the questions about Jesse’s grandmother? That did that have to do with this?

The solution to the mystery might be found in the witnesses’ lounge. She hurried out of the courtroom. Behind her she could hear the gravelly voice of the Trinian judge. "Who is the next witness?"