She had deployed it during Kira’s intake processing. The catalyst was what had lit the fuse. The compatibility was genuine. The timing was stolen.
I had not yet told Kira any of this.
“Done.” She emerged from beneath the panel, brushing dust from her work suit. “Give it thirty seconds for the system to recycle, and you’ll notice the difference.”
The ventilation shifted. The air in the room cooled by a measurable degree, and a current of clean air moved through the space that had been stagnant for as long as I had occupied it.
Kira stood and wiped her hands on her suit. The lubricant streak was still on her cheekbone. She looked around my office with the satisfaction of someone who had solved a problem, and I felt a swell of something in my chest that was not the thrum. Closer to what the old texts described as pride in a mate’s competence, and I rejected the word “mate” even as my physiology insisted on it.
“You should eat,” I said. The words emerged before I had authorized them. “It is past the standard meal hour.”
She glanced at the chrono display on my terminal. “I didn’t notice.”
“You have not eaten since the morning cycle. I observed your tray in the dispensary queue. You took a half portion.”
The look she gave me was sharp. “You’re tracking my food intake?”
“I am tracking everything that occurs in my station. Your nutritional status is included.”
Accurate, but a deflection. I was not tracking every prisoner’s meal portions. I was tracking hers, and the reason was not administrative.
She held my gaze for a beat that lasted longer than protocol. Then she looked away, and her mouth compressed in a way that might have been irritation or might have been the suppression of something else.
“Fine. I’ll eat.”
I activated the private dispensary built into the far wall. A privilege of rank: the same synthetic protein, full-sized portions, mineral compounds rated for multiple species.
I retrieved two trays and set them on the cleared section of my desk. The trays came with utensils scaled for human hands. I picked mine up and adjusted my grip twice.
The handle was thin enough that my clawed fingertips overlapped around it, and the leverage was entirely wrong. On Zethara, we used broad-handled implements designed for hands capable of crushing stone. This required a delicacy my species had not been engineered for.
She sat across from me. The desk was wide, designed for my frame, and she looked small behind it. Her feet did not reach the floor when she sat in the chair, which had been manufactured for Zethrani proportions. She solved this by pulling one leg underneath her, and the casual adaptation was so distinctly human, so entirely unbothered by the absurdity of her situation, that the warm thing in my chest expanded.
We ate in silence for two minutes. The protein paste was the same gray-brown material served throughout the station. Kira ate it with the mechanical focus of someone who had long ago separated the act of eating from the expectation of pleasure.
“On Zethara, sharing a meal is a formal act,” I said, before I could evaluate the wisdom of speaking. “It indicates neither party considers the other a threat.”
She looked up from her tray. “So this has implications you failed to mention before handing me a tray.”
“The implications are cultural. Not strategic.”
“Uh-huh.” She took another bite. “What else don’t I know about Zethrani table manners?”
I did not answer because the honest response would have involved the word “courtship,” and I was not prepared to introduce that variable.
“This tastes like the inside of a fuel cell,” she said.
“I am unfamiliar with the flavor profile of fuel cells.”
She paused. Looked at me. Looked back at her tray. “Was that a joke?”
“It was a statement of fact.”
“It was a joke.” A flicker at the corner of her mouth. The blueprint of a smile, held in check. “The Warden of Vexar-6 made a joke.”
“I made no such thing.”
The flicker deepened. She took another spoonful of the protein paste and swallowed it with the expression of someone enduring a medical procedure.
