Interesting. Very interesting indeed.
I file that reaction away for later analysis, cataloging it alongside every other piece of information I've gathered about my unwilling guest. Knowledge is leverage, and I need every advantage I can get if this arrangement is going to work.
"Your mother," I say carefully, choosing each word with deliberate precision, watching her face for micro-expressions that might reveal more than she intends to share, "watched me take you from that ballroom. She didn't raise an alarm. Didn't call for security or demand explanations." I pause, letting that sink in. "She smiled."
Ksara flinches like I've struck her. Sharp intake of breath, hands curling into fists in the soil, whole body going rigid with the kind of pain that doesn't come from physical damage.
There. The wound I suspected but couldn't confirm until now.
Demeter sold her. Traded her own daughter like a resource to be allocated, a tool to be deployed. The question is why, and what she got in return, but those are puzzles for later when I'm not standing in a garden that shouldn't exist watching my captive break and rebuild herself in real time.
"What do you want from me?" She sounds exhausted now. Hollowed out. "Specifically. The terms."
"Revive the Tartarus Belt's agricultural capacity." I keep my voice level, clinical, outlining a contract instead of asking for miracles. "Establish self-sustaining ecosystems across all seven stations. Train my people to maintain what you build."
"That could take years," she says, voice flat with the kind of exhaustion that comes from calculating impossible odds and finding them wanting. "Even with my abilities, establishing true ecological stability across seven stations, creating not just life but sustainable, interconnected systems that can maintain themselves without constant intervention, that's not a matter of weeks or months. We're talking years of work. Potentially decades depending on the damage already done to those environments."
"I have time," I reply simply, letting the weight of those three words settle between us like stones dropped into deep water. "The Belt has waited this long. Another few years won't matter in the grand scheme of survival." I pause, studying the way her shoulders tense at the prospect of such prolonged captivity. "And I'm not unreasonable. This isn't a prison sentence. It's a contract with terms that benefit both parties once you complete the work."
"I don't." Fire creeping back into her tone, spine straightening. "I have a life. Research. Friends who'll notice I'm gone and raise alarms."
"Your mother will tell them you took an extended research sabbatical. Classified location. She's very good at covering inconvenient absences." The words taste like ash but I push through. "As for compensation, I give you the access codes to Demeter's private accounts. The ones she doesn't report to the Council. Enough currency to buy a new identity, a new life, anywhere in the galaxy you want to disappear to."
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the soft drip of condensation that shouldn't exist in a ship's arboretum but does now because she willed it into being.
"You've done your research," she says finally, voice quiet but edged with something between resignation and bitter admiration.
"I don't steal resources without understanding their full value," I reply, though the word 'resources' tastes wrong on my tongue when applied to her. "I needed to know exactly what I was taking. What leverage would compel cooperation. What threats would fall on deaf ears because you've heard worse from your own mother."
"Resources." She laughs, bitter and sharp. "That's what I am to you? To her? Just another asset to be traded and deployed?"
The pain in those words digs hooks into places I thought I'd armored too well to reach.
"No," I say before I can stop myself. Before strategy and tactics and the careful mask I wear can reassert control. "You're the difference between my people living and dying. You're two hundred thousand breaths that won't be taken if you refuse. You're children who'll suffocate in their sleep and elders who'll choose spacing themselves to save oxygen rations for the young."
She turns then. Finally. Looks at me full-on with eyes that catch bioluminescence and throw it back like accusations.
Sees my face for the first time without a helmet or visor or tactical display between us.
I watch her expression shift. Surprise first, then something that might be recognition or might be her cataloging features the way I catalog tactical data. Sharp cheekbones. Scars crossing my left temple and jaw. Eyes that I know look more black than grey in this light. The face of someone who's done things that leave marks deeper than flesh.
"Why should I trust a monster?" She says it quietly. Simply. Like she's asking about weather patterns instead of cutting straight to the question that matters most.
The wordmonstershould sting. Doesn't. I've been called worse by better people, and at least she's honest about what she sees when she looks at me.
But something in my chest still flinches. Small movement. Barely there. The kind of reaction I thought I'd trained out of myself cycles ago when I accepted what I had to become to keep my people alive.
I don't let it show on my face. Can't afford to. Can't give her leverage by revealing that her opinion matters more than tactical assessment says it should.
"You shouldn't," I tell her, with brutal honesty because she's earned at least that much. "I stole you. Drugged you. Brought you across three sectors against your will. Trust would be stupid."
"Then what's my guarantee? What stops you from working me until I collapse and then spacing me when you're done?"
"Nothing." The truth tastes like iron and old regrets. "Except that I need you functional long-term. Healthy. Willing to teach so the systems you build don't die when you leave. Dead or traumatized assets don't perform. It's bad strategy."
Her jaw tightens. "Strategy. Of course."
"You want pretty lies? Promises that I'm secretly noble underneath the armor?" I move closer, deliberately, watching her track my approach with eyes that don't show fear so much as calculation. "I'm not. I'm exactly what you think I am. Someone who'll do whatever necessary to protect his people. Including stealing the one person in the galaxy who can save them."
