“Hey, answer the question,” Talis said, giving the iron bars a kick to jar his attention. He looked back at her, almost reluctantly.
“As you’ve locked me in this kennel…” He looked up at her, his eyes partially focused, mouth creased at one corner. Eyebrows up. The bastard looked bored. “. . . You’ll have to tell me what it was you saw.”
“We saw your ships,” Dug said, and Talis felt the bass of his voice through the floorboards beneath her feet. “Imperial ships, waving new colors.”
The look that Hankirk gave Dug could have melted glass.
“Answer him,” Talis said. “We don’t have time for your brooding hero nonsense. Why did your ships form a welcome committee for the Yu’Nyun fleet?”
But Hankirk only glared at Dug and sat down on the alien coffers, which he’d pushed together against the bulkhead to form a bench. He slouched back and crossed his arms over his chest. Brought one ankle up on the other knee.
“What’s the matter,” she asked, “can’t monologue in front of a crowd? Don’t you want me to know about your grand plan so I can be so impressed that I have no choice but to join you?”
Hankirk inhaled through his nose, as if he was about to speak.
“He does not know,” said Meran, and she slipped from her perch, as fluid as water.
He turned his head sharply to look at Meran. His mouth hung open under the weight of words unspoken. There was a twitch in his eyebrows. It was plain that she was right.
“His intent and his desires are a perfume in the air. They come off him in waves.” Meran looked to Talis, then to Dug. “Yours as well.”
Meran paced around the small cage. Relaxed, slow. Predatory.
“This man is a child. A figurehead bound to the prow of his company’s ship. He makes no decisions, only makes appearances. He has influence over nothing.”
“No,” said Hankirk, sitting up. “No. They sent me to find the ring. They gave me a new ship, a full crew of seasoned officers.”
“You have been indulged,” she said, dismissively. “That crew was your chaperone. Your mission was of no account.”
Dug chuckled softly. “We would not say that you are of no account.”
Meran graced him with a smile and a nod. “True, but his organization is a hive of buzzing insects. All mission, no vision. They do not see the world at large, for the paths they have set out upon are a concrete bridge, not open air.”
She ran a finger along the cage’s horizontal crossbar at shoulder height. “This man.” She tapped one of her almond-shaped fingernails against the metal, eliciting a soft ping. “This man has vision. He represents their dogma, but he would change it.”
Hankirk watched her. No twitches, no denials. His muscles stiff.
“You set him free, and he will change the world.”
Hankirk stood, as though that were an invitation.
“Uh-uh.” Talis uncrossed her arms and put her hands on her hips, near enough to the gun holstered there as to be a warning. He wasn’t getting out of there before this mess was over. Up to him if he got out of there alive. “We aren’t in favor of what changes he’s got in mind.”
Meran slinked back from the cage to stand very close at Talis’s side. Their shoulders touched.
“You already change the world, but do so blindly.”
Talis preferred when the woman was mocking Hankirk.
“I don’t claim to know what’s best for Peridot,” she protested. “I don’t make plans bigger than my ship. But he—” she jutted her chin at Hankirk. “He got us into this mess. And the mess just keeps getting bigger.”
Meran nodded, then stepped toward Dug. He shifted uncomfortably. She ran her fingers from the crook of his neck down one arm. He looked at her. His nostrils flared.
“This one would raze it all to the ground for you,” she said, her eyes flashing at Talis.
Dug’s eyelids lowered and he inhaled deeply. He looked intoxicated as he leaned toward the smaller woman who cupped his chin. But Meran looked to Hankirk.
“As would he.”
“Great,” Talis said. “That’s just great.” She took a step toward the bulkhead, waved a hand at it. “But we have two armadas headed for Nexus and they definitely both have plans to kill our remaining four gods. So can we leave off the subject of who wants to burn what for me, and get some answers?”
“These are your answers,” Meran said.
“Can you just—” Talis put the outstretched hand on her forehead, rubbed at the tension headache that was starting behind one eye. “Meran, I’m sorry, could you just excuse us for a bit?”
“You do not wear the ring, yet you command me.”
Talis looked up in time to catch sight of the realization that flitted across Hankirk’s face. Oh, hells.
“You want me to put it on? Fine. Right after this.”
“I would also burn the planet to dust for you.”
“Absolutely! Let’s burn it all to flotsam. Brilliant plan. Right after this. Meran, please.”
Meran gave her one last considering stare before she nodded. She looked back to Hankirk, whose eyes had locked on her again. Then she glided from the room, her bare feet silent against the floorboards.
Dug’s expression sobered. He cleared his throat and stood firm again.
Hankirk took a step back and resettled himself on his makeshift bench.
Talis wished she had a chair. Her legs were engaged to run. Instead she turned to Hankirk.
“Your people,” she said, beginning the sentence in a sighing exhalation, “they must know the aliens want to take over our world. Its resources.”
Hankirk looked at her. Meran had laid his cards on the table, and now something shifted in his eyes. He adjusted his shoulders and his whole demeanor softened.
“Come on, you rotted bastard, that puts them in direct competition with your precious Veritors.”
“Or direct alignment,” he admitted. “It
