Intake on First Port Call. A visiting linguist-ship docks and will not speak.

Maren Pell is twenty-six and the only rated speaker on the ring. The addendum is short. The ship's language organ needs a human mouth for one night or the treaty fails and the dock seizes the hull.

She signs. The envoy stays in the isolation berth because the organ will not seat without him. What they called a translator plug is alive. It wants speech. It will not let her file a softer word.

By morning the dock will have its swear. Maren will still know the shape.

A First Port Call standalone-in-series. Book 1 of 4. Explicit adult alien erotica.