Then maybe Briscoe would still be alive. And now it was too late.
A warning siren went off in the ship, rising to hysterical intensity.
Bart thought, incredulously, _this is really happening_. It felt like a
nightmare. His father a fugitive from the Lhari. Briscoe dead. He
himself traveling, with forged papers, to a star he'd never seen.
He braced himself, knowing the siren was the last warning before
takeoff. First there would be the hum of great turbines deep in the
ship, then the crushing surge of acceleration. He had made a dozen trips
inside the solar system, but no matter how often he did it, there was
the strange excitement, the little pinpoint of fear, like an exotic
taste, that was almost pleasant.
The door opened and Bart grabbed a fistful of bed-ticking as two Lhari
came into the room.
One of them said, in their strange shrill speech, "This boy is the right
age."
Bart froze.
"You're seeing spies in every corner, Ransell," said the other, then in
Universal, "Could we trrouble you for your paperesses, sirr?"
Bart, strapped down and helpless, moved his head toward the drawer,
hoping his face did not betray his fear. He watched the two Lhari riffle
through his papers with their odd pointed claws.
"What isss your planet?"