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Pitr, who was nowhere in sight, came hurrying out of the room we shared. Strangely, I noticed straight away that he had showered, and that even if he was still wearing the clothes we got from Noah, it looked like he had changed into clean ones. Alyssa ran over, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me towards one of the couches.
‘What happened,’ she asked. ‘You’ve been gone for hours and hours.’
She pushed me back towards the couch and I half-fell onto it.
‘Are you all right?’ said Pitr. ‘What did they do to you?’
There wasn’t a gap to get a word in, so I held up my hands and tried to slow them down.
‘I’m fine, really. I’m just really tired. And hungry,’ I added the latter as my gut rumbled loudly.
‘I’ll get you a food brick,’ offered Pitr. I was about to stop him, and to see if the food dispenser could do frittata, but I changed my mind as I started to open my mouth. Maybe Pitr was making a peace offering, so instead I said ‘Thanks, and maybe a glass of water too.’
Alyssa waited impatiently while Pitr brought everything through from the serving area, then I was forced to talk between mouthfuls. At least I had a moment to think before the food arrived. I hadn’t figured out yet what I should be telling them and what I shouldn’t, and I was worried by what the Captain had implied with his parting comment. What if they could hear what I was saying? With everything else I had seen, it didn’t strike me as being impossible.
‘So what did you do?’ Alyssa nagged.
‘It was really boring,’ I said. ‘They kept taking me to places with machines and tried to get me to talk to them, or to make them work. I wasn’t very good at it.’
‘What else? There must have been something else. You were gone so long,’ said Pitr.
‘Well, I did get taken for a meal, and I got to see the Captain.’
That seemed to impress Alyssa more than Pitr. I let them ask me questions for a half hour or so, while I ate and drank and wished for omelette and even some red wine.
When I told Pitr they knew everything that Noah had told us, he was astonished and shut up for several minutes. I did worry that I might have said too much, but then the Captain hadn’t told me to keep everything secret. Since I hadn’t mentioned anything about the Go-yen not helping us, I hoped I was in the clear.
I decided it was time to call a halt to the interrogation before we started to get too close to stuff I didn’t want to talk about. I begged off, explaining I was so tired I couldn’t think any more, and they reluctantly allowed me to go to bed.
I undressed, got into bed and dimmed the light. I could hear Alyssa and Pitr talking in the main room, but their voices were too low for me to hear what they were saying.
Lying on my back and staring up at the ceiling, it felt like everything I had learned that day was spinning around in my head. Everything that we had learned from Noah danced around everything I had learned from the Captain, and in the middle of it was the mission to get the firing information to the engines. What if the Captain was right? Would my people thank me for changing their lives? They seemed happy enough as they were. The Captain certainly wouldn’t, and I could only guess about the people at the other end where the engines were. And who was Noah to make these decisions for everybody. I mean, I know that’s what it was originally told to do, but people had been living here for hundreds of years now, time when Noah had not been aware of them or what they were doing, or how they were living. Was it right that he should still be making the decisions?
It was a mess, and everything kept churning back and forth until I turned on my side with an almost angry jerk and tried to push it away. I must have fallen to sleep without knowing, because the next thing I remember is the drone making a chiming noise. Odd, because I hadn’t asked it to.
I had two hours before the Exxoh said he would meet me. Something had stolen my clothes again in the night, so I took another shower and quickly selected a new outfit from the magic closet. That done, I took a light breakfast of a half a food brick and a glass of orange juice. Then I sat, and waited. I still had more than an hour before the Exxoh was due to meet me. Neither of the others was awake, which was great as I had no enthusiasm for another interrogation before I went out. Pitr had not been in the other bed in our shared room when I woke, and I was surprised not to find him sleeping on one of the couches. I sat still or crept around the kitchen as quietly as I could and, when it got to about a half past nine, I sneaked out into the corridor. The guards tried to stop me.
‘It’s ok,’ I explained. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I just want to wait out here so I don’t wake my friends up.’
They weren’t entirely happy about this, but I sat against the opposite wall and that seemed to satisfy them. The Exxoh turned up just as my back started to get stiff, and I hauled myself to my feet as he marched down the corridor with his escort.
‘Dear boy! No problems, I hope?’ he said as he drew closer.
‘No, sir,’ I explained. ‘They are both asleep and I wanted to leave without any more - discussion. And I didn’t want to say anything about, well, you know,’ I finished, flicking my eyes at the guards on either side of him. He took the point and smiled back at me.
‘I’m glad to hear you are being so discreet. Have you breakfasted?’
‘I took a quick bite, sir.’
‘Tsk, tsk. Breakfast is the foundation of your day and should not be slighted, dear boy. Come, we shall find somewhere to breakfast properly.’
We took the stairs out to the courtyard, but skirted around the waiting buggy and walked to the door opposite. As we climbed the stairs to the door, crew-servants on either side bowed deeply to the Exxoh as we passed. Where ever we went, people bowed to him. We took a moving room up from ‘1’ to ‘4’, then out onto the most lavishly decorated space I had yet seen. Two sets of double doors were opened for us by servants, then we walked up to a desk next to a third door. At the desk sat a very smartly dressed woman who looked to be about as old as my mum, and I suppose she was pretty for her age. As soon a she saw the Exxoh he rose smoothly to her feet and bowed.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I was not expecting you back so soon.’ Her voice was crisp, no nonsense, but respectful.
‘Slight change of plan. Have a word downstairs. Two generous breakfasts, with coffee.’ He turned to face me. ‘Do you like coffee?’
‘I don’t’ know,’ I admitted.
‘Wonderful, another new vice to introduce you to. Definitely coffee, dear girl.’
‘At once, sir,’ said the lady behind the desk, and the Exxoh swept past her and into through the next set of doors.
‘My office,’ the Exxoh announced. ‘Do you like it?’
It was easily twice as big as our apartment. At the end farthest away from the door was a huge and ornate desk, spotted with little trinkets and curiosities but devoid of anything that looked like work. In front of that were two elegant but business-like chairs, and a chair behind the desk that looked more like a throne. A couch and two comfortable armchairs were arranged around a small table on one side of the room, and on the other side a more functional table with ten upright, practical chairs surrounding it. Everything seemed to be in white, or cream, and gold. Even the deep and springy floor covering was a pristine white. There were gilt frames on the walls with swirls of random colours within, and drapes hung behind the desk with golden edging and cords.
‘It's wonderful,’ I said, saying exactly what he wanted me to rather than what I thought, which was not flattering. He ushered me over to the big table and we sat a couple of chairs apart; him at the head, me around the corner. He filled the space with small talk and I muttered inconsequential replies until the breakfast arrived, which took a remarkably short time. Again, I didn’t know what most of it was so I tried everything and ignored what I didn’t like.
When we had finished the food and all that was left were the cups of dark, rich coffee, the Exxoh started to tell me about his plans for the day. ‘I hope you will find it as interesting as yesterday. I thought you could spend a couple of hours with Cmdr. Naal playing with some more of his toys, then perhaps we could take a trip to the hold. There are some doors and containers there we could use your help opening.’
I looked into my coffee, wishing there was an easier way for me to do this. ‘Sir, I really would like to help, and I understand that you folks maybe think it would be better to stay here and keep things as they are, but I can’t see how its fair you get to decide for all those people in the Halls of the Dead. How about if I was to promise to come back and stay with you after? I really would like to get on with what Noah asked me to do. There isn’t much time left, and the sooner I get there, the better.’
‘Boy, listen to me very carefully.’
I looked up sharply. It was as if someone else had come into the room. The Exxoh’s voice was hard, merciless, and his face was a stone mask to match. I hoped I hadn’t made a really stupid mistake.
‘If I or the Captain, especially the Captain, were to feel that you were intent on carrying out your mission, we would have no option to consider that you were an enemy to the Go-Yen and to treat you and your friends accordingly. Pitr would end up shovelling animal waste out of the pens in one of the agricultural centres and the little Boreetan bitch would be lucky if she spent the rest of her life acting as a servant for an Officer’s Lady. You, my friend, would end up on the experimental end of a research team.
‘Let me state again: No emissary who has ever come to Go-yen-tan has ever passed through. Not one.’ He sat back in his chair and let the stern look relax a bit. ‘I’m not trying to frighten you, dear boy, but we like our way of life the way it is, and we will do anything we have to in order to preserve it.’