She held out a hand, and he took it in his own.
“I'll tell you over some food. Oris says he's prepared something for us.” She looked past him into the launch bay, to where his pile of disposable dishes lay beside the explorer. Smiled up at him. “Even if you're not hungry, I am.”
He had a sick sensation in his gut, and not at the thought of food. “You've been given an earpiece?”
Rose McKenzie had one, he knew that from the reports he'd read. She'd been able to communicate with Sazo almost wherever the Grih had taken her. And for a long time, they hadn't known it.
Imogen nodded. “It's so I don't need a drone trailing behind me the whole time.” She paused, tilting her head. “You don't approve?”
He had to consciously think about keeping his hand relaxed in hers. “I don't want you within a galaxy of a thinking system, let alone having one in your head.”
“I'm in your head, too, Captain Kalor.” The voice in his ear was cool.
Cam looked upward in a quick, angry movement. The thinking system had simply taken control of his earpiece. No one should be able to communicate with him through it without him being able to screen them.
“So I see.”
Imogen sighed, and he put his hands on her shoulders. “You freed it?”
“Him.” She frowned at him. “His name is Oris.”
Another freed Class 5. Another thinking system in a universe that had banned them for two hundred years.
He hoped the Tecran weren't just banned from the UC for this, he hoped their leaders were locked up for the rest of their lives.
He would do whatever he could, put himself forward as a witness as often as necessary, to help make that so.
“So what now?” He asked the question to the thinking system, but it was Imogen who answered, something that set a warning sounding deep within.
He did not want her as this thing's mouthpiece.
“Now we eat. And see what Oris has planned.”
He had no choice but to nod, but as he followed her, hands still clasped tight, he wondered how he could tear her away from Oris's influence.
Chapter 25
Cam was a brooding presence beside her.
Even though they were seated at a small dining table in what looked like an officers' lounge, he insisted on sitting next to her, his body alert and tense, as if he expected Oris to snatch her away at any moment.
“It wasn't your fault, you know.” She bit into a strange, stringy piece of meat cautiously. She wouldn't even have tried it based on looks if she hadn't been starving, and hadn't known she would need to adapt to thrive in her new circumstances.
It tasted . . . like mud. Maybe she should find out if there were any more emergency rations in the explorer. She made a face and then looked over at Cam when she realized he hadn't responded.
He was watching her eat with an unreadable expression.
“It really wasn't,” she repeated. “Oris would have forced us apart another way, it would have only been a matter of time.” She selected something that might be a vegetable, took a careful nibble. Sighed. It made her think of the crushed green of cut grass. A nice enough smell, not so nice to eat.
“The food isn't to your taste?” Oris's voice was quiet in her ear.
She shook her head. “I suppose I'll get used to it.”
“Yes. But if you would like some of your own food, I have some in the store.”
“My own food?” Her heart actually started beating a little faster. “You stole some while you were grabbing me and Cleese?”
“Not me. Captain Targio. But yes.” He sounded defensive, and she realized she would have to watch her words. It wasn't fair to blame him when he'd been nothing but an unwilling slave.
“A drone is fetching the container now.”
“Thank you.” She turned to Cam, grinning, and saw he looked as grim as before. “Did you hear that?”
“Only your side of the conversation, but I gather there is some Earth food onboard?”
She couldn't help it when the grin became a full-out smile. “Yes. It won't last, of course, and I'll have to get used to this,” she waved at the food on the table, “but even if it's just for this meal, I am very, very excited.”
He still looked grave. “Who is Cleese?”
She felt the tightening in her chest, the hitch in her breath at the thought of what might have happened to him. “Cleese is a bird, a macaw, who was taken from Earth with me. We kept each other company in the Tecran's Balco hideout.”
“They didn't bring it with you when they took you away from Balco?”
She shook her head. “I asked them to, but they wouldn't even consider it. He and I were the only two left from the specimens they'd taken from Earth.”
“You aren't a specimen.” His voice vibrated with some deep emotion.
“To them, I was.”
“No.” He stood up, unable to keep still, and started pacing. “That's just the thing. They knew you were an advanced sentient. That's why they're in so much trouble. They're signatories to agreements about this. What was done to you, Rose, and Fiona was a crime, not just unfair and immoral. You're protected under UC law.”
Imogen shook her head. “Maybe the captain did, but the Tecran who guarded me, at least at first, didn't see me as equal to them. They treated me like a clever pet.”
“Not for long, I'm guessing.” His fists were clenched tight.
She thought about it. “Maybe not. They were uncomfortable when I learned Tecran. They liked to make out it was their good teaching, not the fact that I was using the handheld in my cage to learn most of it.”
“Cage?” He'd gone spookily calm.
She shrugged. “I told you before, didn't I? About how they kept us locked up and then made the animals fight each other.”
He nodded. “I didn't know they'd kept you in a cage. I thought you were in a cell.”
“No. A cage in a warehouse full of cages.” She shivered, wanting to get off this topic. “When the drone comes with my food, I'll share,” she said. “Although you may not like it. It's very different to your food.”
“This isn't Grihan food.” Cam flicked his fingers at the dishes, an understanding look in his eye, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding as he went with the topic change. “I did read that Rose McKenzie found most Grihan food too bitter for her, though, so ours might not be any better. But she has found a few things she likes.”
She'd forgotten they were on a Tecran ship. Of course this wasn't Grihan food. She wouldn't have to put a brave face on and choke any of this down in her future.
She fiddled with the small bowl in front of her, and in the silence, Cam's pacing ramped up.
“Imogen, what are Oris's plans? Why has he come back to the Balco system?”
“I'm right here, Captain. Why don't you ask me directly?” Oris spoke through the comm system, not their earpieces this time, and the way Cam jerked, Imogen guessed he'd forgotten the thinking system had the capacity to listen in on them without a drone now he was free.
“Because I don't believe you'll tell me the truth.” Cam widened his stance, crossed his arms over his chest, implacable and angry.
He looked like a tribal chief facing off against an invading army, all grim strength and corded muscle.
Imogen leaned back in her chair. She didn't know how she was going to bridge the divide between Cam and Oris.
Oris was being difficult, but he had cause. And Cam came from a culture that vilified thinking systems, probably for good reason. But Oris was here now. And through no fault of his own.
Just like her.
She blinked as the reason she felt such a strong connection to him became clear to her.
He hadn't asked for any of this. He was just saving himself as best he could. And she applauded him for it.
Cam, on the other hand . . .
She considered him. He was beautiful, had stood steadfastly for her best interests since they'd met. He'd off
She didn't need a sudden revelation to know why she liked him. Deep attraction and genuine liking wound together within her so strongly she had to be careful not to give him goo-goo eyes herself.
A drone entered the room, and she turned toward it, then looked back at Cam. “Could you and Oris put this conversation on hold for five minutes?”
She was so hungry, she didn't even wait to see what Cam's reaction was.
The drone lifted a container out of its box onto the floor beside her, and took off the lid. She could feel the chill from the metal of the container rising up in little wisps of cloud as it mixed with the warmer air of the room, like a child making dragon's breath on a cold morning.
She peered inside, lifted out a small package. Even the cardboard felt cold to the touch. It must have been in some kind of fridge.
The wording on the box was in German, but she gathered from the images it was muesli. She set it on the table, looked at it properly. Very high-end, expensive muesli. She could live with that.
She took out a few packages of instant soup, all from the United Kingdom. They looked okay, and again, she could definitely use them. There were some energy bars which had Cyrillic writing on them, the kind that stuck to your teeth and were artificially flavored, but she would eat them before the strange food in front of her any day.
She unwrapped one and started chewing on it while she looked through the rest.
Oh. My.
Chocolate.
She pulled out four beautiful, gold-wrapped boxes with shimmering ribbons, and touched them with her fingertips.
Chocolate would not be the thing to eat when she was so hungry. She wouldn't appreciate it.
She set them reverently aside, and dug a little deeper.
There was a small bag of apples, and she put the energy bar aside and bit into one, then found a bakery box of wrapped panini sandwiches. Given the international mix of food, they could be from Italy, for all she knew.
“A very eclectic mix,” she said, and took another bite of apple. It was sweet, crisp, and cold.
“Set aside what you want to eat now, and I'll have the drone store the rest in the small officers' kitchen for later.” Oris spoke in her ear, for her alone.
She sighed. She knew he was doing it to annoy Cam, and he was succeeding. She put everything but one of the panini, the opened energy bar and the apple back in the box, carefully setting the chocolate on top. “Be careful with those,” she said. “They're important.”
“What are they?” Cam had loosened his stance a little, and she wondered what he'd been thinking. He'd watched her look through the food without saying a word.
“Chocolate. It's a favorite of mine. I never thought I'd have it again.” She looked up at the lens in the ceiling and blew Oris a kiss before taking a knife and slicing off a piece of apple. “You want to try?” she asked Cam.
He moved forward, still stiff with suspicion and anger, and took the slice, chewed it thoughtfully.
“It's . . . interesting.”
That usually meant 'awful, but I don't want to insult your stuff'.
Imogen grinned. “I'll try to be as polite when I eat Grihan food and don't like it.”
His mouth quirked up in a smile.
She felt a bubble of pleasure that she'd been able to get him to relax a little. Then she attacked the panini, and was forced to stop halfway, too full to continue. She hadn't had that much food in a long time, and everything she'd had on Balco or the runner had been some kind of nutrient bar. She guessed they had been too afraid of her possible reaction to their food to risk giving her anything else.
Seeing what it looked and tasted like now, she was grateful.
“You're done?” Cam looked a little less severe, but he was still standing to attention. He'd been patient, though. She hadn't had a sense that he wanted her to hurry, and he got serious points for that.
“I'm done.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “You want to fill us in on your plans, Oris?”
Oris didn't respond, and she looked up at the lens again. “Oris?”
“Not now.” He didn't sound dismissive, he sounded worried.
“What's he up to?” Cam narrowed his eyes at her, and she shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Sudden movement threw her forward, flinging the dishes off the table, and an arm clamped around her waist, pulling her back and up against the wall of the lounge.
“I guess he wasn't just pulling your chain.” She spoke against Cam's shoulder, where he held her in a tight grip.
“What kind of maneuver was that?” Cam spoke into her hair. “And what chain?”
“Figure of speech.” She recalled the way they'd slid down the passage on Paxe when he was trying to out-maneuver the Tecran, and wondered if the fleet had finally found Oris. This had felt very similar.
“Are you all right?” Oris asked her, and from the quiet way he did it, she guessed he hadn't included Cam in the question.
“I'm okay. What happened?”
“The Fitali happened.”
There was a screen on the far lounge wall and it blinked on. A strange, sleek ship hovered in space before them.
“A Fitali warship.” Cam finally released her, walked over to take a better look. “What are they doing here? What happened?”
“I sensed a ship coming through a light-jump, and realized they would hit us if I didn't get out of the way. I had to take very fast action to avoid that.”
“All this space around us, and they pick the exact same place to light-jump as us?” Imogen raised her brows.
“They had the same thought I did. This is Gu-gijeron, one of Balco's moons. It's rich in deritide, which interferes with most scanning systems, so we can lurk nearby, and not be picked up.”
“The Fitali had the same plan.” Cam had lost a lot of his outrage.
“Yes.” Oris let the lens zoom in on the Fitali ship. “I wonder what they're doing here. Could they be in league with the Tecran?”
“No.” Cam sounded very sure. “There were two Fitalian soldiers caught up in Paxe's effort to find Imogen. They eventually admitted they were tracking a grahudi that one of the Class 5s had delivered to the Tecran's secret facility on Balco. They didn't tell me they'd called in the big guns, though. Only that they'd discovered it was on Balco just before the Krik captured them and took them onboard Paxe's Class 5.”
“I remember.” Imogen shivered at the thought of the grahudi. At how interested the Fitalians had been in her story about seeing it. “But while it's terrible the Tecran stole it, is it worth that much to them that they've sent a massive ship after it?”
“That's a good question. I knew they were protective and secretive about the grahudi, but this does seem like an overreaction. And given they're skulking behind Gu-gijeron, my guess is they haven't asked Battle Center's permission to be here. Which is a massive breach of their treaty with us.”
“What are we going to do?” She felt a deep sense of unease at the sight of the battleship. It looked truly alien, much more so than the Tecran and Krik vessels she'd seen up until now.
“Are they hailing us?” Cam studied the ship intently.
“No, Captain. What they've done is lock their weapons on us.”
Chapter 26
“I don't want Captain Kalor in the room.”
Oris spoke into Imogen's earpiece with a calm that flared her temper.
“That won't be easy to achieve.” She glanced at Cam, who'd turned as she spoke, a frown back on his face as he realized she was speaking privately to Oris.
“On the contrary, it will be very easy to achieve, but the most expedient method will no doubt cause a lot of ill-will on Captain Kalor's part.”
She sensed movement by the door, saw the drone had come back from the kitchen, and that it had a shockgun in its clamp.
“Oris.” She heard the weariness in her own voice. “That is not the way.”
“I said it was the most expedient way. Not the one I'd prefer to use.”
“Why can't he stay?” She held Cam's gaze as she asked.
“I don't trust him to give me good advice.”
“But you do trust me?” She was incredulous. “I don't understand the first thing about the Fitali, let alone the politics of the situation.”
“That's true.” Oris didn't sound troubled by that. “Those facts are in your favor. You can help me based on what seems right to you. I may not heed your advice, but I would value it.”
“Whatever plan he's got,” Cam shot a furious glance at the drone, even though he couldn't have heard what Oris had said to her, “the answer is no.”
She pursed her lips. “Cam——”
“I won't leave you alone again, Imogen. That isn't going to happen.” He walked back to her, his hand on the stock of the shockgun in his thigh holster the whole way.
“What are you two going to do, fight it out?” She lifted her hands, glared at the drone herself. “I don't like being caught in the middle like this.” She crossed her arms. “Couldn't we speak in English, so he won't understand us?” She said it in English, to prove her point.
“It's more than him listening in. It's him interfering. Standing there glowering. Interrupting.” The response was in English, too.
She turned to Cam, found him right beside her, so close she had to tilt her head to look at him. “Oris wants to talk things over with me, and he doesn't want you listening in and watching. He would like you to step outside.”
“What do you want?” His jaw clenched as he spoke.
She looked down and shook her head. “I want the two of you to play nice. Please, let Oris talk to me privately. I think it will improve the outcome for all of us.” Because left to his own devices, he could decide anything. At least he saw worth in her opinion. That was not something she wanted to discourage.
She lifted a hand to Cam's arm, gripped it lightly. “He knows you're hostile to him and will use his secrets against him if you can. It's reasonable that he doesn't want you involved.”
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