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Romon Xatier, reclusive quadrillionaire, philanthropist, and poet, regarded Jan Holdur.

Holdur could only watch him back by turning his eyes, held back by the restraint suit.  The device was struggling to hold the man back, Brooks saw in his HUD.  The man’s body was enhanced to a dangerous degree, and he was also pushing himself to fight it past the edge of sanity.  But the suit was holding him in check – for now.

“I do vaguely recall seeing him before,” Romon told Brooks.

Brooks nodded, glancing to Holdur, but mostly watching Romon.

The man was not quite what he had expected; dark brows on a high forehead concealed his shrewd eyes and sharp features.  His clothing was not as ostentatious as many of the ultra-wealthy, but a perfectly-fitted suit of the best Accian silk.  The only jewelry he wore was a ring on his left hand.

Despite the situation, he seemed perfectly calm.

“Are you ready to speak with him?” Brooks asked.

“Whenever you are, Captain-Mayor.”

Brooks looked to Y, who was standing near a console.  “Turn off his restraint suit.”

Y hesitated.  “Captain, just so you are aware, we have not yet fully mapped the extent of Holdur’s enhancements.  His implants are unique and quite powerful.  I cannot guarantee that he cannot damage his restraint suit and then attempt to break out.”

“We have ways of knocking him out within the cell if that happens,” Brooks said to Romon.  “But there’s a non-zero chance of danger involved for you.”

“I am not concerned,” Romon said calmly.  “Do it anyway.”

Nodding to Y, Brooks then turned on the radio that let the man inside the cell be heard.

Suddenly feeling his freedom of movement, Holdur looked to Brooks, his expression guarded.

“I did not think you would actually bring him,” he said.

Brooks did not reply, determined to let the two men interact with each other – and watch what might spill out.

Holdur’s eyes fixed on Romon.  “I do not want to talk with anyone else present,” he said.

Romon turned to Brooks, arching an eyebrow.  “You heard the man.”

Brooks considered a moment, then nodded.  “All right.”

“That means no listening, either,” Holdur said.

“We cannot monitor the situation in here if we do that,” Brooks told him.  “I am not legally allowed to leave you alone.”

“Well, Captain, I am not inclined to speak if I cannot have privacy,” Romon said, turning.  “And my current diplomatic credentials give me the right to such privacy if I wish it.”

Brooks prepared to protest, but Y spoke.

“If I may, Mr. Xatier – I must also be present for medical reasons.  A restraint suit, especially at this strength, could be a danger to Mr. Holdur’s health if something goes wrong.  I must monitor it.”

“It seems we are at an impasse, then,” Romon said.

“Not necessarily.  I can simply be sworn to secrecy regarding what I see or hear,” Y continued.  “And I can turn off all manual connections to external servers – which I can show, if you wish – to assure you that I am not monitoring you.”

“Yet you will possess a memory of all that you see,” Romon countered.

“As would anyone in my position.  But I cannot allow Jan Holdur to be unmonitored.”  Y looked to the man in the cell.  “So this is the only way that your meeting will occur.”

Brooks considered.  If he could not hear what happened, the whole meeting lost a lot of value for him.  But it still would be something to prod the whole thing along, and Holdur’s recalcitrant attitude might change.

“Y, do you give your word as an officer of the Sapient Union that you will hold all you see as a secret?” Brooks asked.

“I do, Captain.”

Brooks looked to Romon.  “Those are the accomodations I can make for you.”

Romon was watching Holdur.  The man in the cell nodded, very slightly.

“Very well, then, Captain.  I suppose that will be sufficient – though note that I am sending a copy of our verbal agreement to my private servers.  Should you break your word, it will be known across all of space.”

Brooks refused to rise to the man’s provocations.  “The Sapient Union keeps its deals,” he replied calmly.

He went to the door.  “If there is an emergency, give us a signal and we’ll come in full force.”

Romon did not reply, watching Holdur until the door had closed behind Brooks.

Looking to Y, Romon spoke.  “So, machine.  Are you prepared to witness yet say nothing?”

“I will perform my duty, but I do not see why you need speak to me when I am not the one you came here for,” Y replied.

A slight smile crossed the man’s lips and he looked back to Holdur.

“So,” he said.  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Jan Holdur stepped forward, putting his hand on the glass, beholding Romon as one would a god.

“I did it for you,” he said, his voice full of awe.

Y noted the sudden change in the man; he’d kept himself contained when Romon had first come and they were in company, but now – now he was simply full of that quaint human trait of adoration.

“Then you offered me nothing,” Romon replied.  “Given that you failed.”

Holdur cringed back.  “I almost got away with it, Romon . . . Mr. Xatier,” he hastily added at the look on Romon’s face.  “It was only bad luck that I was caught!”

“Why would you even think I wanted such a gift of a dead woman of the Sapient Union?” Romon asked him, still completely calm.

If anything, Y thought, even calmer than at first.  Cold.

“You said yourself, six months ago, didn’t you?  That no one had ever been murdered on a Sapient Union ship before.  That they thought themselves so incredibly safe . . .  I knew what you wanted then.  I knew it and I gave everything to try and give it to you.”

“That is quite the jump,” Romon replied.  “To take a mere comment and turn it into a fixation for your life.”

“Yet you did want it, didn’t you?  You look at these people, their sheer arrogance!  They look down their noses at their betters.  We make wealth, and they just . . .”  Holdur couldn’t even seem to come up with a word of sufficient disgust.  “But even though I failed, I succeeded in bringing fear to them!  You should have seen her, Romon.  She was terrified.”

“Again – why do you think I would want a woman to be terrified?” Romon demanded.

Holdur’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Because I know what you do.  You are the biggest killer of us all.”

His lips curled at the edges in a mad smile.  Tears welled in his eyes.  “The empty toadies and flatterers you surround yourself with . . . you patron them.  You take them under your wing and then you turn them into your tool.  You don’t ever have to lift a knife, but you kill by your own will.  Using others.”

“You are insane,” Romon said, but it lacked real accusation.

Y could see that Romon Xatier’s heart rate had increased, but from the chemical signals of his body, it did not seem to be fear.  Anxiety, or . . .

Excitement.

“I wanted to be one of your tools,” Holdur continued.  “So badly.  But you rejected me.  That’s why I had to do this – I had to show you I was worthy.”

Romon stared back at him, his eyes pitiless.  “Then you failed.”

He turned away from the cell, to Y.  “Turn back on his suit and close the connection.”

“NO-” Holdur screamed.  But the sound was cut short as Y turned off the signal from the room.  The restraint suit came back online, and Y added in a powerful muscle relaxant in expectation of Holdur’s fighting to occur.  His muscles were all-but disabled, the suit taking up the slack to keep him from falling.  Moving awkwardly, the suit itself forced his limbs to move and sit back down.  Despite it all, though, Holdur struggled, fighting so hard that Y saw him spike into dangerous territory several times.

“I must tranquilize him,” Y said.  “For his own safety.”

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