Captive Surrender by Linda Mooney Page A

good.”
    “All right. I’ll take your word for it.” She dug in with her two-tined utensil, shoved some of the blue-green stuff into her mouth and paused to let her taste buds vote. Give the Neris food critic a pat on the back. “You’re right. It’s tasty. Sooo, I take it you’re the Neris Orgoran?”
    The Ellinod resumed his stance. “I’m here strictly as a courtesy, Joramansu.”
    She continued to plow into her bowl of joolis but remained acutely aware of everything the Ellinod did or said, including the fact that he used her official calling and status. Or thought he did. The beast intended to follow the letter of the law by obeying rank. If that was the way he wanted to play, so be it.
    “I’m not a Joramansu, Neris. I’m a Jurasu Roja. That trumps your Orgoran.”
    The Ellinod’s eyes widened at her announcement. For a moment she got a whiff of the beast’s shock. She also sensed his commitment to his position. But there was something else. Something diseased. Something dirty. No, not dirty. Stained. Permanently stained and beyond redemption.
    She finished eating and set the bowl to the side. Might as well get to the bone of the matter. “I want to see Safan.”
    From the black scowl reappearing on the Neris’s face, she could tell he was prepared for this argument. What the poor fool didn’t realize was that she would eventually win. She always won.
    “The Orgoran is currently awaiting deportation and is not allowed visitors.”
    “Why not?”
    A tiny smile came over the beast’s face at her surprise. “Safan broke Law Thirteen. His title has been stripped of him and he is awaiting word of further punishment.”
    “What’s Law Thirteen?” As soon as she asked, she knew.
    “Fornication with another species.”
    “We were prisoners.” She almost yelled him. Almost. At the last second, she sat up in bed and glared at him. “Our lives were at stake. We were punished if we refused. Didn’t you see the vids?”
    The creature’s face went pasty gray. Apparently he had. She wondered if the Ellinod had been a subscriber or if Vol Brod had deliberately beamed a feed to the planet just for the purpose of degrading Safan.
    For that matter, had he beamed one to Headquarters too?
    No, she couldn’t think about that now.
    She tried to reason with him. “What would you have done in that instance?”
    “He should have refused.”
    “He did refuse! And he nearly died.”
    “Then he would have died.”
    Maurra gave the beast an incredulous look as another sensation of something impure wafted over to her. A spark went off in her head. The Ellinod was thinking of her. Of her and Safan. They were now considered the unclean ones, no longer fit to mingle with the rest of the populace. Because of what they’d done, what they’d been forced to do, they had become pariahs.
    “Our credo is to save lives, not take them! Yes, I know that my job obligates me to sacrifice myself to save others if there’s no other solution, but you can’t tell me that he should have let himself be killed over a simple fuck!”
    The Neris’s face went a shade paler but he remained resolute. “The law states—”
    “What? That law says what? That you kill yourself before you fuck another species?”
    “You don’t understand our ways.” He growled in frustration.
    “Apparently your ways have no regard for the sanctity of life.”
    The Neris turned and started to depart. He was silently declaring an end to the conversation, but she wasn’t ready for him to go. Not yet.
    “I demand to see Safan, and I demand the opportunity to approach those who would pronounce judgment on him.”
    The Ellinod paused near the doorway and glanced back at her, waiting.
    “By my right as an interstellar council, and by right of the treaty that recognizes my status as a Jurasu Roja, I so will it, and you must obey.” His gaze moved upward, then back down to her face. Her psi powers had begun to glow. As her strength returned, so did her