Squatting like a dog under a couch, I waited until Nox called for me. She was fussing with something on her smart-desk, so it took her a while. The whole time I was heating up, both physically and mentally. This kind of treatment of a guest was just plain wrong.
At last, Nox ordered her marines to haul me out of my hole. I stood up tall, and I was glad to note I was bigger than all of them—even her armored marines.
Nox looked me over. “The McGill creature… We meet again. This time, it is without pleasure.”
I mumbled and groaned. I was still wearing the mask the hogs had put on me down at Central.
She had her marines remove the hood and the mask—but not the chains. I stood proudly anyway.
“Good to see you again, kind Lady Nox.”
“I’m neither kind nor a lady,” she said. “If my interpreter has correctly deciphered your foul gruntings. Now, before you are dispatched for your crimes, you will solve a puzzle for me.”
“Anything I can do to help, sir.”
“What did you mean by your final statement?”
“Uh… when I said I wasn’t guilty?”
“No, imbecile! The… other matter.”
“About your kid?”
She stared at me sternly. I couldn’t read Mogwa emotions well, but I knew she looked pissed.
“That is a private matter. You’re not to go around making foul noises and sounds with your mouthparts about it.”
“I’m sorry, Governess. I truly am. But when I’m being interrogated and tortured and vivisected and all by the Skay… well… I’m probably going to talk. I’m going to talk about everything they might want to know.”
Nox paced around for about a minute. She was studying the deck and tramping with all those feet. Every now and then she tucked her floppy pouch in, but it kept slipping loose and hanging low again. I kind of figured she was embarrassed about it.
“Everyone out of the room!” she ordered suddenly.
The Nairbs and marines looked confused. Two of the marines grabbed me, and they began to drag me from the chamber.
“No! Not the McGill. Leave it here.”
“But Governess,” the Nairb prosecutor-guy complained. “This animal is dangerous. He’s an apex predator, and I can’t in good conscience—”
“Out! All of you! If he kills me, you can tear him apart and revive me.”
They all shuffled and humped out the door, and Nox and I were left alone. She regarded me the way a snake-trainer looks at a fresh-caught cobra.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me where you think my youngling is.”
“That’s pretty obvious. There’s no secret shame in it, Lady Nox. None at all. Every baby has to have a mommy and a daddy. Sometimes that daddy—well, he’ll probably want to see the kid. Right?”
She glowered at me. “You haven’t answered my question. Where do you think—?”
“Sateekas has him, of course. Your youngster is a boy, isn’t he? I bet old Sateekas wouldn’t have pulled strings to get partial custody of a baby girl. He’s old-fashioned that way.”
“How do you know all this?”
I blinked. “Well, to be honest, it’s just simple logic. I wasn’t even certain until you hauled me in here and as much as admitted everything.”
Nox paced some more. I could tell I wasn’t making her day.
“You must keep silent about this, McGill.”
“Maybe we could arrange that. I’m not a stubborn or gossipy man.”
“Incorrect. You’re both. Further, I’ve looked into arrangements such as you’ve suggested. A lobotomy should do the trick—it’s not certain, but it’s likely to succeed. However, I’m sure the Skay would notice and suspect we were hiding evidence… There’s no way to evade the thorough nature of their vivisectionists.”
“Uh… I wasn’t actually suggesting—”
“Silence. That’s what I want from you most of all. Silence. But first—how did you know Sateekas was the father? Did he tell you out of boastful pride?”
I blinked a few times. The way I figured it, if he’d been nailing Nox, I thought Sateekas probably would brag about it to a fellow like me. But that hadn’t happened, and claiming that it did wouldn’t buy me anything, so I shook my head.
“No, Lady. You told me. We talked about this before, back on the Moon. Remember?”
“I don’t recall identifying the male donor… but never mind. It doesn’t matter. The Skay can’t know of my secret shame. I don’t want Sateekas’ name attached to my offspring if it is at all possible to separate the two.”
“Yeah? Why’s that? What’s he done other than command a few fleets that got smashed?”
“His reputation is poor back at Trantor. He doesn’t belong there, and I doubt he’ll ever be allowed to return. He’s doomed to being shuffled from one remote outpost to the next—and I don’t want to share his fate due to association.”
“Ah, I get it.”
And I did get it. The Mogwa were committed homebodies. To them, their homeworld Trantor was the only planet in the galaxy worth living on. They didn’t even like to fly around commanding space fleets, much less being stuck out on the frontier in some craptastic province full of rebels. To them, that job was the lowest of the low.
Naturally, Nox was seeking a way to climb back out of her nasty assignment. Me telling the Skay about her affair with Sateekas would give them a lever over her. She couldn’t have that.
“The trouble is,” she continued, “we need to send a scapegoat to the Skay. You are very well suited to the role.”
“You’ve got the right of that. But sir, let me suggest another person to go in my stead.”
Nox eyed me. “Revenge, eh? You humans are a rough
