Page 10 of Alien Devil’s Crown

“You fight well,” he said.

“I had to learn.”

RYLOS

Varrick isolated the encrypted bulk copy from the Virelle. Lika entered the final unlock from memory. The archive opened. He cloned it into isolated storage, returned the gold pin to her, and started verification.

We gave her the guest quarters across from the armory, which said everything about our hospitality and most things about me.

One guard on the door in rotation. Full monitoring on the compartment, audio and visual, feeds routed to the war room and my quarters. Talon set it up without being asked.

Bronwen wandered past the door twice while we settled her in, for what she called a smell check, and Turnip came with her. I have no idea what conclusion the boar reached, but Bronwen reported that he was willing to give the newcomer a chance. My security review process now included livestock.

I went to see her at the change of watch.

She’d showered and traded the Conclave gray for the plain shipboard clothes Tamsin had left her, and rearranged the compartment.

Cot to the far wall. Chair facing the door. The small table cleared to bare metal with the gold pin lying on it in plain view, where any search would find it first. The ship shirt left her throat bare.

I remembered her hand on my chest in the shuttle before I remembered to look at the room. A room arranged by someone who expected to be searched and meant to make the searchers feel crude for it.

“Strategist Darven.”

“You can drop the rank. They’ll have stripped it by midday.” She sat and didn’t offer me the cot. “Lika.”

“Lika.” I stayed standing. “You’re monitored. The compartment, the corridor, your terminal access. Everything.”

“I know. Your tech flagged my terminal the moment I touched it; he’s good.” She folded her hands. “Is this the part where you apologize for necessity?”

“No.”

“Good. I’d have thought less of you. I handed you a data sleeve that could be a six-year trap, and you’d be a fool to treat me as anything but ordnance until it proves out. Watch me as long as you need to. I didn’t come here to be trusted. I came here to be used.”

Most people, under guard, perform innocence. She’d accepted the guard, approved the necessity, and moved on. I’d prepared for resentment, for wounded dignity, for the slow campaign of small trusts an infiltrator runs. I had no preparation for someone who simply agreed that the precautions made sense.

“The pin,” I said. “You left it in the open.”

“You’d have found it in four minutes and wondered why I hid it. This way you found it in four seconds and wondered why I didn’t.” She looked at it, the one gold thing in a gray room.

“Also, it’s my mother’s. If your people are going to handle it, I’d rather they handle it as an heirloom than as contraband. Objects get treated the way they’re presented. So do people.”

“Is that aimed at me?”

“Everything I say is aimed at someone. You’ll get used to it.”

The meal tray by the door sat untouched. I looked at it, and she followed the look.

“Your people feed prisoners better than the Conclave feeds strategists,” she said. “I’ll eat when my stomach catches up with the fact that we’re not running anymore.”

“Eat anyway. You’re an asset. Assets get maintained.”

“There it is.” No offense in it. If anything, she sounded almost pleased. She took the bread off the tray. “Asset. I wondered what you’d call me.” She turned back to the door. “Was there something you needed?”

“What do you want in return? You didn’t say on the Virelle.”

“And I’m not giving you my terms in a monitored guest cabin with only you listening. I want your whole table to hear them the first time. Convene it whenever you’re ready.”

I left without answering. She’d just dictated the terms of her own interrogation and made it sound like professional courtesy. I needed to think about that somewhere that wasn’t her doorway.