Me too! It's the kind of face an innocent prisoner makes when you barge into her cell, interrupt her nap, and start talking at her, but all she wants to do is be left alone until she can speak with somebody from home and get the hell out of here.

... I do wonder whether Raharrs have a custom similar to our knocking on a door before entering ...

(Also, since you mention the possibility of Nea having been asleep, what are the chances that they have a 24h rhythm like ours? I suppose that if they do, Nea has had enough time to de-spacecraftlag to Protagonistan's local timezone, but.)

Sleepcycles is a strange thing. It something we just take for granted. Until a British researcher stumbles over crimejournals from the 1600´s stored in the Public records and notice the subject of "between 1 and second sleep".

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep

Turns out Biphasic Sleep was the norm , so normal it was not written down anywhere.

All of a sudden we know , that we know nothing.

Not to mention that our sleep cycle probably could be broken up in a number of other ways, as long as the basic 90 minute block remains respected. But on the other hand - and as far as we humans are concerned -, the major influential factor was artificial lighting, and that's something astronauts have even more of than us mere crust crawlers; I thus have little doubt that space-faring humans will stick to monophasic sleep habits.

(No doubt they would have a circadian period somewhat different from 24h once they travel to deep space, though.)

But once we're talking about aliens, woohoohoo expect to see surprises. Quantum might well be the easiest to guess ...

"You are not the Major."

"I'm taking over for him!"

"Then we have nothing to discuss."

Comparing this one to page 63, it seems that they simply procured a longer ... table. And some blankets for cushioning. I get that a table's height is more appropriate for a Raharr's much higher knee, but that can't be very comfortable ... even more so if they're used to sleeping in reduced "gravity" / centrifugal force ...

So far, whenever we've seen the outside of that room, there have been armed guards. Which means that Iskra is not outright prevented from contact with Nea (but apparently hasn't made use of that before now??), and was indeed "only"¹ complaining about not having access to the "artifacts" that came with her - which likely won't "talk" much to anyone not bringing some advanced lab equipment, anyway. I wonder why she did not mention that she'd like to (be allowed to) talk to the actual scientists working on those.

¹ Well, that and Nea being temporarily off the base without her knowing, but apart from that being a subject she might now bring up with Nea herself, there's not much that can be done about it after the fact, I guess.

Raharrs may not be used (much) to several independent nations getting involved, but the concept of different organizations not exactly working in unison shouldn't be alien to her. And she's military herself, so chances are that she'll find the major and his ilk easier to level with than the strange political beast that is the UN ... just look at those three lines of text it took you to explain to us what you're even talking about ... maybe we'll learn on the next page what the Raharr equivalent of "TL;DR" is.

There was that external amplifier device, not to mention the shuttle as a whole and whatever outright military equipment she might have had in pockets etc., but for stuff one might find useful in an everyday scenario, "not allowing the Raharr to keep it" sounds a lot like you'll have to whip out a scalpel to do that ...

I was more referring to Iskra being allowed to keep a recording device. Something as simple as a smart phone with camera could be used to record Nea at this point

Iskra is simply the U.N. appointed agent to lead the UN agents at the base which have jurisdiction over contact with Nea (presumably not only Granted by the U.N. but allowed by Protagistan). Judging by her initial use of a specialist following a methodology with pictures and such it seems like she's generally a stickler for the process and procedures. But once the Major showed his better existing rapport with Nea it seems she's likely decided to work through him or may have had her specialists adopt a less strict approach if they're still communicating with her. Whatever the case, I suspect Iskra simply didn't see the need to talk with Nea directly before now. The need now being that Protagistan are seemingly not adhering to the commitments they made to the U.N. and Nea is Iskra's best chance of determining if thats not the case.

As you noted, Nea might not get all the ins and outs of the situation (although I would note that the Alliance consists of several different planets/people which can likely have conflicting interests at times) and Nea and the Major are both soldiers... But they are soldiers on different sides. Even in her message Nea still acknowledged she is technically being held captive. Nea understands that soldiers follow their duty, orders and mission which might not be in her best interests. Nea certainly has no reason to trust Iskra, but she doesn't have loyalty to the Major, she will assess what Iskra tells her and give responses she believes are in the best interest of her own mission and the Fleet. If Iskra mentions communication with an alien missing a "back eye" then Nea could likely confirm that would be their fleet commander.

The one positive Iskra might have is that when the Major initially refused Nea's suggestion to drive around searching for Gharr, it was Iskra's voice Nea heard which requested to speak with the Major on it.

Oh my god, that can mean only one thing ...

Some bad cop human grilled the prisoner!