“If you kill me, someone will lock you in a small room for however long your species lives,” Regi said with a pained wheeze.
“What is this place?”
That was an odd change of topic, but since the pirate was pushing against Regi’s injured side, Regi decided to forgive any odd verbal detours. “This is a medical holding area. Our doctor does not recognize your species, but she is concerned that you may have fragile breathing apparatus.”
“Fragile... what? Who the fuck are you?”
Bringing the concept of copulation into the conversation was both confusing and slightly alarming. Regi was not attracted to moist aliens who smelled of dung. “I am the fuck Regi a’Poque de Minait a’Otutha qee Pertin e Rel.” In his security classes, instructors recommended mirroring the language of a suspect to de-escalate the violence. Regi could only hope his own reference to copulation was not taken as an invitation.
The pirate stared at him. Regi waited. The pirate narrowed his eyes and pushed a little harder against Regi’s side. Regi made an unfortunate noise.
“Where the hell am I?”
“This is no hell of the gods,” Regi snapped. It was one thing for others to deny religion, but he would not allow a prisoner to impugn the gods’ good names, especially not with a goddess of the cold season watching him. Death was to be avoided when possible, but the gods’ displeasure was far more dangerous. “My people would argue the gods were not in this room at all.” And Regi would call them xenophobic and short-sighted morons—preferably not to their faces because the exalteds were only marginally less dangerous than the gods.
“What?”
Regi was starting to wonder if this pirate was not intelligent. Perhaps this was a half-sapient species. Deciding that the creature’s ignorance was greater than his malice, Regi said, “I am injured. If you continue to put pressure on my chest, my two injured ribs could snap, and then I would die very quickly. My people would be aggravated.”
The pirate eased the pressure, although he closed his fist around Regi’s shirt. “‘Aggravated’? Either your people are really forgiving about murder or they don’t like you much.”
Regi almost laughed. “It might be a little of each.”
“I didn’t mean to insult your gods,” the pirate said, which was the singular most polite statement anyone not-Kawri had ever made about religion. “Where am I?”
“On a Coalition patrol ship. Our ship is damaged, and we saw your vessel in space when we stopped to make repairs.” He didn’t need to admit any more of the truth than that. If this one knew how desperate the crew was, he might blackmail them for access to the only functioning ship.
“My vessel?” he made an odd noise that made Regi worry that the breathing apparatus had some fatal flaw. “It’s not my vessel.”
Despite the fact that the pirate was attempting to distance himself from a stolen ship, Regi decided to humor him. “Where is your ship?”
“I don’t have one. Ships are generally owned by governments or huge companies, not individuals.”
So he was from a collective society. While that was sociologically interesting and rare—and Ean would be as enamored of their prisoner as Bevit—it didn’t help Regi. “How did you get on that ship?”
“I’m fairly sure kidnapping was involved.”
“Kidnapping?” The computer translated the last half of the word to a bland synonym for theft, the first half was utterly untranslatable. That might mean it was a person’s name or the name of a plant or animal. The gods had made life compatible from one planet to another, but each had unique lifeforms. Regi had seen dozens of animals that people could ride and even more horned beasts, but he had never seen another pebafri outside the Empire. “Can you define that term?”
Instead, the prisoner tightened his hold on Regi’s shirt. “Who do you patrol for?”
“The Coalition.” Regi was almost sure he had said that.
“What is the Coalition?”
For a moment, Regi could only blink at this pirate who didn’t know the name of the government of most of settled space. Either he had suffered brain damage as a result of his flawed ability to breathe or something was not right. Regi held his hands out, palm up. “I suspect we have confused each other. Let us sit on the bench and discuss how to unconfuse the matter.”
“You don’t want to tell me.” He pressed his lips together tightly.
Regi remembered that he could breathe through his mouth, so perhaps he was trying to suffocate himself and escape into death. Regi did not want to make him that desperate. “The Coalition is a union of hundreds of planets that have agreed to a set of common laws. Within this part of this galaxy, only a few planets have chosen isolation over joining the Coalition, and we are charged with patrolling the edge of the territory to watch for lawbreakers such as pirates or of new civilizations seeking contact. We thought you were a pirate, but perhaps you are a new species instead.”
The male slowly released Regi and sank onto the bench, which had dropped into position. “You’re cops.” The word didn’t translate. While he had a translation matrix implanted, the matrix had not been exposed to his language enough to make speech fluid.
“We are charged with the enforcement of laws and the protection of people who live within the boundaries of law,” he said. “And we watch for new species so we can greet them. Are your people in the Coalition or do you know of the Coalition?”
The alien had great flexibility with his facial muscles and his expression moved into a new configuration. He moved his head. Perhaps he believed that was an answer.
“Is that yes or no?” Regi sat carefully beside their... guest? Maligned bystander? Potential witness against them in the trial where the magistrate accused them of rampant stupidity in the mishandling of a victim? Regi wondered if he would be forgiven since he’d been unconscious when others had tried to question the creature.
