A nap, yes, I really should climb into the too-soft-looking bed and do just that. Unfortunately, while my brain was being sensible about the idea, the rest of me wasn’t. I was abuzz with curiosity about this place and these people. Something was off, I could sense it. But was it merely the tang of false civility grating me or was it something more?
I glanced around the room, taking in the decor. Local wood had been carved to create a four-poster bed, the headboard featuring a carving of some sort of avian, clutching two arrows, one in each clawed foot. I searched my memory, seeking the knowledge I’d learned during my school days about our human neighbors. Ah, yes. It was the symbolic bird of one of their home world regional governments. The same one that gave Freedom Rings its name. I filed that away for later, in case this connection turned out to be relevant.
I looked under the bed, lifting the ruffled fabric around its base. Another bed, this one on a wheeled base, was beneath. No doubt it was to accommodate families together should the house fill up with guests. I pursed my lips, thinking how unlikely that would be a regular occurrence. The house was large, with several bedrooms for the Councilman’s immediate family and any guests. Servants wouldn’t use any of the house’s main or guest bedrooms.They’d have their own quarters. This wing held six doors, with a large wooden cupboard at the end of the hall, most likely for linens. If the other wing held as many bedrooms, that would make for twelve, with the Councilman and his Bonded using one, or possibly two of them depending on their sleeping arrangements. They had two offspring that I knew of, including the deceased. That left two other bedrooms in that wing.
There were a lot of usually empty rooms, basically. A blatant display intended to impress a sense of wealth and prestige. I wrinkled my nose. With such displays, egos were often large, accompanied by a large sense of self-entitlement and sometimes also more than a healthy dose of paranoia.
I prowled around the room, examining every tellin of it. The humans had the tech to launch themselves into space and arrive here. They didn’t use advanced tech for a lot of things now, but that was down to availability. Some things, though, they had scavenged from their ships or bartered for from my people.
I saw it then, hidden within a knothole in the decorative strip of wood that ran along the upper third of the painted walls.
Gotcha.
I decided to pretend that I hadn’t noticed the camera lens and was instead admiring the patterns painted onto the walls, as well as the furnishings. I wanted to slip out and explore the rest of the house while most of them slept, but couldn’t do so without whomever it was on the other side of the camera knowing about it as there was no doubt whatsoever in my mind that somewhere, Councilman Roe had an employee watching a monitor or two to keep tabs on us. We’d been placed in these rooms because this is where he had the cameras, I was certain of it. Tech of this nature would be limited in availability as my people didn’t use such crude devices. One made by us would be smaller and much, much harder to detect without a scanning device to locate it. This meant it was more likely that these were the only two such he had and its placement suggested permanence.
Mentally sighing, I stripped down and climbed into the bed, my back to those prying eyes. The asshole on the other end could stare at my back all day. I regulated my breathing and relaxed my muscles to give myself the appearance of sleeping, all the while organizing my approach for questioning those who lived or worked here. No doubt Roe expected us to begin with his family and they were ready to tell me how perfect Jeddah was and the idyllic lives they all led.
I grinned to myself as that was not happening. First on my list? The stable boy. He’d know all the comings and goings as well as bits of scuttlebutt spoken in his presence as he worked unnoticed due to his station. The kid had been excited to meet one of my kind as well, so no doubt would be eager to talk to me. It probably didn’t hurt that I had a package of nurlinberry pastries in my bag, either, ready to be shared.
Everything arranged, my eyes drifted shut as tiny bits of light began to leak around the farthest edge of the window’s drapery. I burrowed down into the covers, closing my eyes. It was time to rest in truth now. A Hunter knew how to conserve and improve his stamina, the better to keep himself always ready to resume the Pursuit.