The hallway of the ship was fairly standard, barred with the gray logo of the Administration. It looked a lot like the hallway of Sava’s own ship, except that hers was better laid out, more personalized. This ship gave an impression of newness, of emptiness, of recentness…
The young woman’s mood darkened when she remembered what her ship had undergone. Was there still a single intact trace of her personal arrangements?
“Tell me, what condition is my ship in?”
The man stopped and turned to look at her, but his gaze quickly averted.
“What ship?”
He started walking again. The answer was eloquent enough to break Sava's heart. She had passed the Administration exams at a very young age and had lived for a few years in this ship, her home across the stars. To think that all that had gone...
With a solemn gesture, the Hom ordered the opening of a door that most certainly led to the living quarters. He entered triumphantly into a large room decorated with fake wood. A long table occupied the center, laden with food and drink worthy of a king's table, in a fairy tale.
With a great movement of his cape, Libre Lhom turned, bending slightly in two to indicate a vacant chair with a grandiloquent gesture. When had he put on this cape? Sava had not noticed. Mechanically, she sat down in the designated place, noticing in passing that the Hom was floating slightly above the ground by some antigravity effects… just enough to appear visibly taller than her.
Sava barely suppressed a smile. Theatrical mannerisms generating a supposed impression of strength and mystery: this was indeed the manner of the men of her people. Most Ham appreciated the opposite role of brutally bringing them back to earth, or else enjoyed following their delusions to see to what extremes they could push them. However, she could not deny feeling slightly charmed by this attitude.
Apparently, this Hom had chosen to adopt a stereotypical “bad guy” role and, when he sat down at the other end of the table (on a slightly higher and more ornate chair), organ music accompanied his movement for a moment. With a graceful gesture, he pointed to the many victuals.
“Help yourself and don't be fussed: you really need some strength after your... ordeals.”
She didn't need to be asked twice: grabbing a spoon and a gripper, she began to move the dishes to her plate, then to her mouth. Perhaps they were poisoned or stuffed with nano-drones? In any case, he could have done the same thing to her during her operation: who knows, maybe she already had a bomb implanted in her skull?
While eating, as dignified as her appetite would allow, she discreetly glanced at her dangerous savior. He brought to his lips a cup probably filled with a mixture of white wine and astic'hom juice, with a dignity that seemed more feigned than usual.
Obviously, Lhom was as wary of her as she was of him. He had decided to play his role of “big villain” to the fullest, but that didn't mean he wasn't really one. His manners, more exaggerated than the ordinary Hom, suggested that he was a homtest, an intellectual social class in their society, well-known for its way of distorting the truth. Wasn't that what he had said, by the way? At that moment, the help of her AI would have been very valuable to discreetly obtain information and reminders.
The food was delicious, although most certainly drawn from a synthesizer... apart from the astic’hom which were authentic. Like the majority of Homs, he must have had a breeding somewhere in his ship. A legacy from their ancestors, during the ancient era when they were nomads traveling a space desperately devoid of life.
How had they managed not to encounter viable planets in several millennia of travel? Perhaps they lived in a zone devoid of them? Rumor had it that habitable planets were increasingly rare in the expansion zone, as if there was a limit to the expansion of life in the universe... Of course, one could always create artificial atmospheres, but they were expensive to build and maintain...
Her thoughts turned to the Zcarbbs. One of the theories about their aggressiveness towards the Administration was that they too had finally encountered a limit of colonizable planets, thus putting them in competition with the administered for control of the remaining ones, or the taking of those already occupied.
“You look very tired. Perhaps you should go and rest?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Sava forced herself to smile and straighten up, chasing from her mind the thoughts that were taking her away from the present moment. Discreetly, under the table, she pinched herself, hoping that the pain would allow her to appear more awake. Of course, Lhom must have scattered nanobots to spy on her and would know about it, but reporting it without having seen it visually would be shameful on his part.
“I am fully awake, thank you.”
Don't show weakness. Dominate the situation. Watch your words while leaving some clues about what the other wants to discover. Hom social rules were complicated: this was the “Little Game”, as opposed to the “Great Game” which involved a political issue. The “Little Game” was a way of studying an unknown person or exchanging with an opponent. If she had expressed the desire to retire to rest herself, he would have been obliged to accept. However, if she accepted the same thing, from his proposal, she would show weakness and would start to slowly lose this little game. She therefore had to overcome the fatigue and subtly extract information from her opponent.
“Perfect, if you are awake, you will have no problem telling me your epic story. I am certain that your drifting, half dead, in the middle of your wreck, is the result of some tasty plots.”
“You don’t know? I stumble upon the most wanted man in the universe, and he doesn’t know how I got there?”
For a moment, the Hom’s face showed his annoyance, but he quickly resumed his haughty smile.
“Hey, what do you want? My enemies sent me a charming letter with your coordinate. What else could I do but save you?”
“The… The Administration informed you of my location?”
“Why do you immediately assume that it’s the Administration?”
Sava bit her lip: she had spoken too quickly, without taking enough time to think. However, subtle changes in the features of her interlocutor made her realize that she had perhaps not made a big mistake. As well trained in psychology as he was, she detected a real interest behind this mocking question.
“Well,” she tried, “since you're a renegade, isn't that your main enemy?”
He stared at hers for a long time and she held his gaze. Subtle changes in their features during this little duel told them a lot about each other... Unless the other had managed to fake some information. Sava decided to take the initiative of the attack.
“Are you going to pretend to be innocent? It's rather of the most banal cliché.”
“I am innocent!”
The Hom had lost his composure for a brief moment and grimaced in anger at the Ham's smirk. He decided to regain his composure by playing fair:
“Well, I see that you are gifted in the Game.”
“On the contrary, I fear I lack training. My last exercise consisted of a diplomatic visit to a tyrant in the Utela galaxy.”
“You don't seem to be talking about the Zcarbbs.”
“I think you already have all the necessary data on my latest activities, don't you?”
They continued to exchange like this for a long time, extracting bits of information from each other. Sava was beginning to have the impression that this guy was indeed innocent, the victim of a set-up by some mysterious secret organization… Or at least, he was playing the role well.
She herself avoided revealing too many details of her time with the Zcarbbs, or her suspicions concerning the presence of corrupt agents within the Administration. After all, perhaps he was one of them, trying to discreetly discover what she had learned of their shenanigans.
“So, Mr. Lhom, what are your plans, if you are as innocent as you say?”
Her eyes were beginning to burn after all these battles of glances and controlled reactions. Fortunately, the adversary seemed to have partially relaxed his guard. Either he was telling the truth, or he thought she had swallowed his lies.
“You can just call me Lhom, or even Libre. My plans… well, I plan to temporarily cooperate with the terrorists responsible for my problems. Unless you have some other ideas that could get me out of this mess?”
Sava hesitated. Could she tell this guy about her investigation? Or at least the fact that she was looking for the master geneticist Zoghoze? There was little chance that the group that tried to have her assassinated had anything to do with someone who was simply trying to interrogate her… But to trust him… At the same time, the story he had subtly revealed, that of a sabotaged ship that had forced him to attack the administered forces… Well, considering that she herself was looking for traces of corruption within the Administration, it was possible that events that seemed impossible, like this sabotage, had really taken place. In any case, it made no sense for a recently promoted agent to start using his ship to help with an escape: there were plenty of other ways. Letting an agent infiltrate the Administration for longer, rather than blowing his cover like that, would have been smarter on the part of a terrorist group…
Yes, she had to tell him about it. After all, what could go wrong: if he was one of her enemies, she wouldn’t be getting out of here alive anyway… Deep down, he seemed like an honest person…
Domeria’s head slowly sank onto her arm, which she had folded on the table to form a pillow. Her gesture had been so natural that she must not have realized she had fallen asleep.
Libre nodded mechanically. Yes: she was much more tired than he had initially thought. After their intense verbal joust, the operation she had recently undergone, and the digestion of the meal, she had quickly exhausted all her energy.
The nano-drones confirmed that she was sound asleep. Delicately, Libre lifted her up and carried her in his arms to one of the free rooms, laid her on a bed, and ordered a robot to tuck her in. As the latter complied, he observed the young Ham’s features, soothed by sleep.
Even though she was an alpha-level administrative agent with advanced psychic barriers, he had to admit that he was rather impressed by her resistance to the truth serum he had injected into her…