Iago looked at the return message from Kai Yong Fan. Pirra had forwarded his message to her, though he’d requested it go to the Captain. Apparently, Kai had not felt it was actually worthy enough to go that far.

At least, that was how it seemed to him, as he read her response. He could hear Kai’s words in there, transposed into Pirra’s own thoughts.

Kessissiin’s idea – that he’d typed up in his own words, though of course crediting the Dessei – were, apparently, not important.

“At this time we have no reason to believe the P’G’Maig will attempt any hostile action against the Craton or its crew. Our mission requires us to be present in the system, therefore the unlikely threat of an attempt to capture the vessel is not sufficient cause to violate our orders.”

He’s forwarded it to Kessissiin, who had accepted it with seemingly no problem.

“They did give praise for our initiative in modelling such scenarios,” he’d pointed out.

But he didn’t know Kai enough to understand the rudeness of her dismissal.

Sure, they couldn’t just abandon the mission, but that wasn’t his recommendation! He’d just suggested pulling further out towards the fringe, to forestall an enemy attack. Any one of the large Kuiper Belt objects could have provided cover.

He felt drained.

There were not many people in the canteen at this early hour, and Elliot was sitting next to him, holding a toy dinosaur that kept attacking his fries.

“Ahhhh!” he cried, as the raptor’s mechanical jaws crushed a piece. “Not the crunchy bits, they’re the best part!”

The sight of his son playing was the best thing he’d seen lately, and while normally he didn’t want Elliot to have toys at the table, he would not even consider stopping him now.

Someone else walked into the canteen, and he looked up sharply.

It was Apollonia Nor, the Cerebral Reader they’d picked up on New Vitriol.

He’d only met the woman in passing, though he had heard that she’d volunteered. He could respect that, though he’d also heard some rumors that her performance was far below par.

The woman had looked at him, then looked around. She started to come over.

He found his stomach falling as she came closer, and a pall of gloom seemed to close in. She must have wanted to talk to him, and he couldn’t fathom why.

“Hey, are you Iago Caraval?” she asked. She seemed nervous, but something about her made him think that she was trying to seem that way. Trying to get him to let his guard down.

“Yeah,” he said shortly. Elliot looked up at her, but then back down as his raptor took a piece of bun from his hamburger.

“Could I, uh, ask you some questions?” she said, stumbling over the words.

It seemed a calculated level of it, he thought.

“What about?” he said, feigning ignorance.

“I just thought I’d ask for any tips. To being in Response, I mean! I know I’m not in the big leagues, but you’ve also been leader of the field teams for a long time, right?”

“I was,” he said. “Nowadays, I’m just a volunteer like you.”

So that was it; she was trying to learn classified secrets of his Response teams. The only question was why and who for . . .

Part of him wanted to report her. But, he thought bitterly, who would listen to him? Kai had made clear already she didn’t trust his judgment anymore.

“Oh,” she said. “Well that’s good – I mean, you don’t have to risk your life anymore, right?” She fidgeted awkwardly a second. “I’m just doing really badly. I want to do my part – you know, each according to their ability and stuff?”

Suddenly Iago felt uncertain. Apollonia was . . . a kid. Not even long out of her teens. What if she was just honestly coming to him, an old hand – even if a washed-up one – and asking for advice?

He suddenly found that he couldn’t come up with any words.

“Listen to your non-coms, trust your team, and don’t take unnecessary risks,” Elliot chimed in. “That’s what Dad always says to me! Well, he tells me teachers, not non-coms, but I know that’s what he’d tell you.”

Elliot beamed at him, and Iago’s confusion shattered into a pride and joy he’d not felt in a long time.

“That’s right,” he finally said to her. “Just like that. Your non-commissioned officers are old hands – they know how to get things done and how to keep people safe. And your team are your lifeline. Each according to their ability, yes, but it is together that we accomplish great things. And . . . yeah, don’t be a hero. We have more than enough names in our list of dead. The goal is to save lives, not to try for glory.”

Stolen story; please report.

The words came out easily, and he felt a lightening of his heart as he said them. His eyes glazed over as, for a moment, he felt like himself.

“Excuse me!” a new, cold voice said. It had a cheeriness in it, but devoid of life, and he knew that it was Dr. Y.

“Doctor,” he said curtly. He’d let his guard down and the doctor had snuck up on them.

His pulse rate increased and he felt his cheeks flush.

“Oh, Y, hi!” Apollonia said, smiling brightly.

Ah, of course she was close to him, Iago thought. The Doctor was oh-so friendly to everyone. To the point that it had always rankled him.

“I am sorry to intrude on your conversation and meal, but I have a request from you both,” he said. “It is not for medical reasons, merely for a personal science project.”

“What is it?” Apollonia asked.

“I require some of your blood,” Y said.

“Oh,” Apollonia replied. “You just took some from me the other day . . .”

“Yes, well, that was for medical reasons,” he said. “Ethically, I cannot use it for a personal project – nor can I command you. I can only-“

“I LIKE BLOOD!” Elliot said, holding up his dinosaur, the long-extinct animal’s jaws moving precisely as if it was speaking the words.

“Oh, naturally,” Y replied. “Zhenyuanlong suni was almost certainly a hypercarnivore and therefore would have enjoyed quite a bit of blood, I am sure! Much more than french fries.”

“But they are sooo delicious!” Elliot added, sticking another fry in its mouth, which it obligingly chewed.

Apollonia laughed, but Iago cleared his throat loudly.

“I’m afraid not, Doctor,” he told the machine. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to enjoy the rest of my dinner in peace.”

Dr. Y bowed and shuffled away. Apollonia rose to follow him.

“Sorry to have bothered you,” she muttered. “Thank you for the advice.”

She ran off after Dr. Y, and Iago couldn’t help but wonder if they had planned together to get a blood sample from him.

He just didn’t know why.

----------------------------------------

The P’G’Maig shuttle looked nothing like a standard shuttle. Nothing about it was reasonable or practical.

It was triangular, with spikes that extended from each angle. They were over ten meters long, and made the whole craft unnecessarily large.

But that was surely the point, Brooks thought.

It certainly helped that the ship was plated in gold and platinum, shined to an almost mirror-like finish. It was over the top, and very consciously so.

“Good for reflecting lasers, I suppose,” Urle noted over the live feed back to the Craton.

“I’m sure it has other defenses as well,” Brooks commented.

“Captain, we should not be discussing such things,” Decinus chided.

Brooks nodded to the other ship – only under magnification was it visible to the naked eye. “I guarantee you that Ks’Kull is noting our shuttle’s defenses as well.”

Decinus frowned, but said nothing else.

Their destination was visible, if just barely. Ks’Kull would not agree to board the Craton, no matter the guarantee, and Brooks would not let himself or Decinus go onto the Hev flagship. So they’d had to compromise.

The small floating station was as close to neutral ground as could be had. It was little more than a boxy rectangle, shielded against radiation, that contained a single room and two airlocks. It had the barest minimum of computers, maneuvering thrusters, and general mass, so each side could be as reasonably certain as possible that it was not a trap.

He’d brought it, but allowed Ks’Kull to send in his troops to check it under supervision. So many layers of potential tricks and traps . . .

Ks’Kull had had a list of demands that had to be appeased prior to agreeing to a face-to-face. Only four members to each delegation, no weapons, and N’Keeea was not to come.

Brooks had been fine with all but the last, but N’Keeea himself had shrugged it off.

“It is wise,” he had said. “If Ks’Kull was there, I would try to kill him myself. And if I was there he would wish for me to be killed. Anything else would be foolish.”

He’d actually demanded an open recording made, which Brooks was happy to allow. Let anyone see; it would help make everything as transparent as possible. Not that anything about this would be secret; they all would be recording for posterity. It was the only way to be sure nothing underhanded was done, and that everyone’s word was honored afterward.

The most odious part to him, though, was Ks’Kull’s final demand.

“I will not make deals with one who has not killed. Your diplomat is nothing to me – it would insult me to speak with it. But you, Captain Ian Brooks, your reputation is known. You do not approach my greatness – but you have known blood. Therefore you will speak on behalf of your people and the disgusting, reviled, traitorous, filthy T’H’Tul.”

“Very well,” he’d agreed. It wasn’t like he had a choice.

It was not his forte, and not where he wanted to be. But Decinus had wisely pointed out something; “I may be the diplomat, Brooks, but you seem to know the Hev far better than I. Therefore it may be best if I simply assist you.”

For the rest of his party he’d picked Logus and Kell. Or, at least, the latter had asked.

“Absolutely not,” Brooks had said. “This is going to be an extremely delicate matter, Kell. I mean no offense, but you have a tendency to be far too blunt for me to even-“

“Do you trust the Hev?” Kell asked.

Brooks paused. “No,” he admitted.

“That is why I must go. He will not play by the rules that have been set. Why should you be so foolish?”

“There is,” Decinus said carefully, “The issue of your . . . presence, Ambassador Kell. While I understand other species do not feel it as keenly as humans, it will be detrimental if Ks’Kull felt threatened by your presence.”

“Then he will not feel it,” Kell said.

And as he said the words, the unnerving pressure that they felt simply was gone.

Brooks found himself almost uncomfortable with the feeling of normality. “Is this difficult for you?” he asked Kell.

“It is an effort,” he admitted. “But difficult? No.”

Brooks looked to Decinus, then back to Kell. “So long as you swear you will not speak unless I directly speak to you and will follow all my cues, I will welcome your presence, Kell.”

“I give my word,” Kell replied.

And now Kell did not even look like himself. He had taken the guise of a different person, one heavyset with a balding pate, and wore the uniform of a Response Officer, sans unit insignia.

Logus seemed fascinated by it. “Did anyone see him change?” he asked the others. “Kell, how hard is it for you to do that?”

“To change shape is the natural state of a Shoggoth,” Kell told him. “It is holding it the same that takes effort.”

“Remarkable,” Logus muttered.

Their shuttle was now approaching the meeting room. Brooks scanned it again, and Urle fed him the results of his own scans from the Craton.

“Still detecting nothing suspicious on their ship or in the meeting cube. Once you dock, though, we are incommunicado. Best of skill, Captain.”

“Thank you,” Brooks said.

He looked to the others. “Initiating docking procedures.”

The shuttle docked without incident, and Brooks stepped into the antechamber leading to the meeting room. His system indicated that Ks’Kull’s shuttle was still docking, but everything seemed normal.

“Ambassador Decinus, I would appreciate it if you take our gift forward,” Brooks said.

Decinus nodded, taking their diplomatic gift; a meeting with Hev demanded such an offering, and theoretically Ks’Kull would offer one in return. Just what he would offer would indicate highly how he viewed the coming meeting.