“There was a kit involved?” Door Man sounded shocked, but Tika nodded.

  “That was what Jellybean wanted to show me. He’d gotten stuck on a lowel leaf and was drifting in the middle of the lake.”

  “A what?” The woman sounded annoyed rather than curious.

  “A lowel…” Tika sighed, realizing none of them would know the names for any of the planet’s flora. “It’s like a giant lily pad, and sometimes the extella…big plant-eating fish, eat through the stems and set them adrift. Anyway, I swam out and towed him back to shore.”

  She paused, smiling at the memory of the yellow-furred kit bounding onto the bank, the relief obvious on his feline face. “I thought I was rescuing the cub of a new feline species.”

  The woman grimaced, and the expression on the face of the man by the door twisted with distaste.

  “Not so new,” he muttered, and pushed off the wall. “I’d better go and explain…before someone does something rash.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” The woman hurried toward him, seizing him by the arm and pulling him further into the room. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re needed much more here.”

  “But…”

  The woman kept going, heading out into the corridor. “Pritchard and I will explain the mix-up.”

  The man beside Tika sighed and squeezed her shoulders, again, before getting up and heading for the door. “I’d better go and make sure she doesn’t start another diplomatic incident. It was nice to meet you, Tika.”

  That statement startled her. “You know my name?”

  Pritchard paused and looked back. “It’s attached to your DNA records in the colony database…well, most of it is.” He gestured at the man Catriona had dragged into the room. “Donovan will explain.”

  He didn’t stay long enough for Donovan to argue, but hurried after the woman, palming the door closed behind him.

  For a long moment, Tika stared at Donovan and the closed door…and Donovan looked back. He seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes on her, and kept looking at the floor, the ceiling, her face, the cupboard door. Finally, Tika had had enough.

  “What is it?” she demanded, and he started as though she’d slapped him.

  “I’m lupine,” he said, and his skin darkened as though he hadn’t meant to make the admission.

  “So?” Tika had heard of the wolf shifters of Lunar One. Why it should be a problem, she didn’t understand.

  He gestured helplessly in her direction.

  “You’re a cat.”

  Now, that was ridiculous.

  “Nope,” she told him. “I’m just human.”

  She waved a hand up and down her front. “See?”

  He frowned, puzzlement written across his features. “Not cat?”

  Tika stamped her foot. “Human! Out of Toska in Verushta’s Arc.”

  Donovan cocked his head. “So your records say, but your scent…”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I spent a few hours in a cave with some shifters, are you surprised?”

  “You spent a month in a regen tank surrounded by chemicals,” he countered, taking a pace closer and cocking his head the other way. “You should smell of nothing but over-washed human.”

  He took another pace forward, inhaling deeply as he did so. “You do not.”

  Tika rolled her eyes. She’d truly had enough of this.

  “Isn’t my family waiting?” she countered, changing the subject. “The Dream should be just about here by now.”

  “The Explorer’s Dream is heading for the jump point to Verushta’s Arc,” the wolf replied, his eyes gleaming silver. He came to a halt in front of Tika and sniffed the air between them, “And you still stink of cat.”

  “Hey!” she protested, slamming both palms into his chest. Twice. “Back. Off.”

  She shoved him back twice more. On the third hit, his clothes tore and a growl rumbled through the cabin.

  Tika recoiled, leaping up and back and landing on top of the pod, her own growl twining around them. Claws sprouted from her fingers and fur covered her forearms as she sprang forward and swiped him across the snout.

  He yelped, bounding back in surprise, and Tika raced past him slapping the door controls as she reached them.

  The door did not respond, but an alarm woke, sending out short whoops of distress.

  Tika slapped the door controls again, and the casing fell off, but she didn’t stop to see what she’d done. The wolf had recovered and looked ready to wreak some vengeance over its bleeding nose. How was she going to tell him she hadn’t meant it?

  He bounded toward her, and she squalled in fright, slipping past him and looking for something to put between them. The closet beckoned…or the pod…

  She’d already spent too much time in the second, so she tried the first. This time the control panel responded and the door opened. It wasn’t a closet after all, but a san unit.

  Well, she could have used one of those before. Now? Not so much…unless the door locked.

  Tika turned, only to find the wolf had made it to the door. He advanced a step into the room, and she hunched, not seeing a way past him. A second step, had her taking a step back…and then another…and one more.

  “Why are you smiling?” she wondered, happy to hear her voice had returned and she wasn’t yowling anymore.

  “Because cats hate water,” he replied, slapping the control for the shower bay.

  Warm water spilled over her and she lost her humanity for a second time. Giving a cat-like screech, she reached out of the shower bay, grabbed the wolf by his chest hair and spun around him, leaving him under the water as she made a break for the cabin.

  Laughter followed in her wake, and she glanced over her shoulder. To her surprise, he wasn’t chasing her. Well…good.

  She heard the cabin door release and spun toward it.

  “Donovan, this had better not be…” was all the time the blonde woman had, before Tika bowled her over and bolted for the open space beyond.

  Pritchard was faster. He stuck out a foot, catching Tika’s shins as she passed—and then he dived on top of her and tried to pin her down when she fell.

  “Easy, Tika. It’s okay.”

  “Is not okay!” Tika shouted back, throwing him into a wall, and scrabbling to her feet.

  She made it into the corridor and stopped. Her fur was wet and she was breathing hard…but she could think, now that the stench of dog wasn’t drowning her senses. She pivoted to face the cabin and leant against the nearest wall, looking left and right.

  I’m on a ship, she thought, and sighed.

  “Where exactly am I going to go, anyway?” she asked, and watched as the fur on her arms sank back into her skin.

  Inside the room, Donovan finally stopped laughing, and Delight picked herself up off the floor. Pritchard did the same and came to the door, leaning on the frame as he spoke.

  “You never said the karovi were interested in co-habitation,” he said, and Tika glared at him.

  “You never asked.” Being in the corridor was okay. She could handle that. Tika relaxed a little, and then frowned. “Is that what you call the cat-people?”

  “It’s what they call themselves.” The woman had come to stand beside Pritchard, and Donovan emerged behind them…still looking like a cross between a wolf and a man.

  “And what are you supposed to be?” Tika snapped.

  Donovan gave her an unrepentant wolfish grin. “Not naked,” he answered succinctly, and Tika looked down.

  And then she looked up. “Where are my clothes?” she demanded, and then added, “Is that why the corridor is empty?”

  The woman opened her mouth to reply, but Donovan interrupted.

  He pointed to the ceiling. “Except for surveillance.”

  The woman and Pritchard followed the direction of his finger, and groaned in unison. “Donovan…”

  Tika couldn’t see the problem. So, she was on surveillance. She’d just spent a month in a regen tank, and that had probably been under surveillance, too. It wasn’t like the team on watch was seeing anything it hadn’t seen before.

  “Except me in fur,” she muttered, blushing as that thought hit the air waves. She glared at the lupar. “You…” she began, but was interrupted by the sound of boots coming from one end of the passage.

  Pritchard shook his head and held out his hand. “You’d better come over here,” he advised her.

  “Why?” Tika asked, just as the scent of wolf hit her nose.