She had moved over to her office and followed up the group discussion with a more private call.
„Secretary Tike, thank you for joining me.“
„My pleasure, President Vance.“, he replied. She could see that he was sitting in a more comfortable position with a glass of water in his hands.
„We all could not fail to notice that dissonance between you and Hallows.“, she began, „And I’d like to know more about that. Even given the recent developments, my instinct tells me that there is more to it than just those. Am I right? Can you enlighten me on that? I’m asking because in the current crisis, every detail could matter.“
Ansom Tike leaned back and took a sip from his glass. He gave the matter a few seconds to think about and only then replied: „You are right. There is a bit of history with Nicodemus Hallows. Did you know that he was living on Dephyr fifteen years ago?“
Amara raised her eyebrows. She had of course, as was the normal course of action, been handed a dossier on Nico when she started interacting with him, but it was sparse in details. Erulas had no insights into the pirate outpost and society.
„I did not.“, she said.
Tike nodded and continued: „Not just an ordinary citizen as well. Hallows was a regional administrator in the Norsca Republic. That was before the unification, of course. Ambitious and at times with questionable ethics. He left Dephyr and disappeared for three years, then suddenly appeared again as the pirate chief.“
Amara was listening with interest, but also noticed that Tike had dodged her actual question. So she asked in a more direct way: „Interesting. But your exchange did seem more personal than that, unless I am completely mistaken.“
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„Slightly“, Tike admitted, „I was working in that same government at the time, just starting my career. Hallows was known for being ambitious and careless about the toes he was stepping on. Needless to say, he left not on the best terms, and he left us a parting gift. He had been fairly successful in his governing, but in unconventional ways that only he fully understood. Together with three others, I spent the better part of a year just to clean up the mess and understand what was going on in his region. We got the blame for things going wrong when it was really his fragile construction. We managed to turn things around in the end, but I was more than a bit worried for my career for the entire time.“
Amara eyed the hologram of Tike for a bit. Then she kept going: „That explains the dislike. But holding a grudge for a decade over administrative style differences? Secretary, I am pressing you because Binary Bloom is the epicenter of this crisis. Every small detail might matter.“
Tike appeared to be in thoughts for a moment before he answered her: „No big reveal there. Sorry to disappoint if you expected one. From what I saw, he had been unconventional but largely straight and honest. I keep a grudge because it was so obvious to me at the time that he had intentionally set up a system that would collapse without him. Made himself hard to replace, and it took four people working long days and weekends to put things right. It had a major impact on how I aspire to do things. Very differently, to be sure.“
„Thank you, Secretary Tike“, Amara concluded her questioning, „for giving me the time and transparency. I’m sure we have not seen the last of Hallows.“
„My pleasure.“, Tike said again. They closed the call and Amara was left alone in her office. She was wondering about connections and allegiances. Dephyr had what, two hundred million people now? What were the chances of Tike and Hallows meeting again after all these years? Or was Tike just one of the many toes that Hallows had stepped on, and it was more difficult to find someone within the government of Dephyr he had not annoyed than someone neutral? Then again, of the three people from the Dephyr government in the call, only Tike seemed to care about the pirate governor.
She shook herself. Too many questions and not enough facts to find an answer. She fired of a quick message for her intelligence service to find out more about Hallows, then she went back to her desk to continue her daily routine work.