Rene stood unmoving as Solae and Enro departed. The prisoner grinned at him, clearly thinking he had won some sort of victory. Cages made some men brave, or at least so afraid that it came across as bravery. The Inyorin on guard continued to speak in their own language, though they cast occasional concerned glances at the two humans. Rene’s face was the same expressionless mask it had been since the interview began but it seemed to have hardened in some way that was difficult to describe.

“Gonna come in here and rough me up?” the prisoner demanded. Limping to the bambo bars and wrapping his work worn hands around the greenish strips. Rene considered it. Corp doctrine discouraged casual torture. It wasn’t a matter of squeamishness, low tech beatings rarely delivered reliable information, plus every now and then the interrogators grew over zealous and killed a prisoner. He didn’t doubt that if Bowie had been here instead of him, the big marine would have gleefully kicked the man to death. Right at this moment Rene could see the appeal of the simple release of physical violence. It would feel really good to open the bars and lash out, give physical vent to the pain, the fear, the frustrations of the last several days. In his minds eye he could see the man’s breath exploding from his chest, feel his ribs crack under his boots.

Nobility is the mastery of one’s self. How many times had he head that axiom? He could see old Chaipon, the grey haired swordmistress who had been in charge of his training at arms, sword up in a guard position after delivering a stinging blow. While only a minor member of the nobillity herself, she held her honor and that of her charges above her own life. The axiom had been her answer to any pain or misfortune that had befallen her student, when he had been wounded on a hunt, when his heart had been broken, when they had buried his mother. How would Chaiphon have handled a situation like this? Would she have given in to such an impulse. A cool clarity settled over Rene’s mind.  He would beat this man to death if he needed to, but he wasn’t going to do it to gratify his own anger. A De Quentain didn’t lower themselves to such things.

“Well? How about it soldier boy? Not so tough without a gun in your hands!” the prisoner yelled, rattling the bars between whitening knuckles. Rene stood silent for a moment and then a slow smile began to spread across his face. It was an icy lupine grin bereft of fellowship, the kind of smile one might see on the face of a shark, unyielding and inhuman. The prisoner flinched back, more shocked by the expression than any explosion of brutality. Rene turned on his heel and strode from the room without another word. He wondered if somewhere beyond the bounds of life Chaiphon and Bowie were smiling too.

Rene caught up to Solae and Enro as they crossed the main hold. The space appeared to be filling with Syshin whose exuberance was obvious even to Rene. What he was coming to recognise as bonded pairs danced together among the irregular orchards of tropical fruit trees. Children climbed and capered with enthusiasm, scrambling through the foliage in games to informal to be given names. They were celebrating a victory and the safe return of those whom had been snatched away from them. Rene smiled wanly, wondering if they could count the nights events as the first Imperial victory of the Rebellion. Certainly elements of the Imperial Army had been present, the Supreme Commander of Imperial forces on New Concordia and the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Imperial Court, even if both those positions had been arrived at through attrition rather than more conventional methods of promotion.

“He must have a ship, if he is bragging about getting Syshin offworld,” Solae was saying when Rene fell in beside her. She glanced at him but he couldn’t tell what it as she was feeling. Anyone would be rattled by the events of the last several hours, he knew he was though he, like her, was trained to keep a lid on it. That was an astute observation that Rene himself had missed, it stood to reason though when he thought about it. Enro drooped a little at her words, doubtless the alien leader had hoped to recover his people, an all but impossible task if they had been taken off world and scattered the Stars knew where.

They reached the small cleared area at the base of council area where they had first been given an audience.  Nari sat in the dirt, cross legged before a low table of greyish white soapstone. Atop the table were piled a variety of dishes unfamiliar to Rene, though the smell of spices was pungent enough to make his stomach grumble. Syshin cooking seemed to be mainly vegetarian in nature, though Rene was not enough of a judge to be certain. Lasha and her mate emerged from the council building as they approached. The healer did not look particularly happy to see her patients, for whom she had prescribed rest, still up and about though she was obviously unwilling to relitigate the point in front of Enro and Nari. The matriarch rose to her full height, the movement alien to human eyes as successive sets of joints straightened, and clapped her hands together with the sound of a miniature thunderclap. The revelers slowed and stopped, even the children obeying the signal without complaint, though a few took a last moment to tag their opponent or launch improvised missiles at each other. Nari began to speak in slow sonorous Syshi, unintelligible to Rene, but at the conclusion of the speech a weird rasping cheer sounded from the crowd.

“She is naming you friends and…Sy’nara,” Enro translated with a helpless shrug for the Syshi word for which he evidently had no Imperial equivalent. Rene, far out of his diplomatic depth, could only look to Soale.