For the first time, I looked at her as a woman rather than a danger. I could not help but give a wry smile at her suggestion, noticing the top barely contained her charms. "As much as the crew might enjoy I deny the request, I think your suggestion is prudent." I said, and offered her a hand to help her up. Once she stood before he, I shook her hand and met her eyes. "Welcome to the team." 

[hr]
[i]2 days later...[/i] 

The heretics we had acquired confirmed my suspicions, but added little past that. The first one I could use my will on, and he had granted me information on the connection to Hykophan from those years ago and the planet Moldar, but could not provide any information on Bahometus or the cabal. The second heretic had some resistance training to mental invasion, and so I conducted the fourth and eighth actions of interrogation, with physical abuse and chemical stimulants to aid my endeavors. After a few brutal hours, he gave up his knowledge of Bahometus, confirming the planet he was fleeing to was at least in the Orpheus Sector, where Moldar lived. Beyond that, he spoke of a man simply dubbed 'Balal Ignatius,' but whether it was a pseudonym or an alias, or whether he lied in other facets to throw me off, was annoyingly undetermined. 

I had only conducted two sessions with Emmaline Von Morganstern. The first was a training exercise on how to first fortify her mind, involving meditation and small scale psychic prodding by me, and the second was a demonstration of various exercises she could conduct in her own time on how to better utilize her powers. The turning point would be if she could draw a small portrait of an apple on a canvas without using her hands. I expected to see results before we arrived in Moldar six days from then. Meanwhile, she was free to walk the ship and had access to my office and personal library. 

I now stood in the main engine room, the roaring of the mechanical heart and the strange, whirring of the power source that fed the gellar field somehow soothing to my mind. In his most quiet moments, Inquisitor Kronus had told me he sometimes felt compelled to turn off the gellar field; to finally end it all and face whatever daemons may be foolish enough to board. He had never done so, of course. It was the same sensation as a man at the edge of a cliff with the sudden urge to jump. An invasive thought one would never truly perform. I had yet to feel something similar yet, but whether it was cowardice or my inexperience, I could not say. 

Footsteps approached from the right, and Urien of Catoc approached with a cup. His beard braided, tattoos adorned his upper chest, partly bare from the mere apron he wore above the trousers he had on him. 

"We mahke good time," He said, settling to stand beside me. He looked at me, and then at the engines where I stared. I wondered what he thought of them. "Tomorrow, angel of death will be sent to his heaven, then we get to Mordar." 

"I expect nothing less from you, Urien. Once we get there, wait in orbit for a day or two until I can come up with a convenient disguise and the papers I will need." 

"Ahf course, inquisitor. We go to uncertain doom with a new woman aboard." He said, going somewhere I wasn't initially following. "Drink?" He extended his arm with the cup in his hand. 

I looked at him, and despite myself I gave a humored smile. Catoc was a strange world, and in Urien's tribe, a man could not offer a man a drink in most circumstances. He could offer it to a woman at any time, but to a man, one did not verbally ask to gift another man with a beverage unless they were going to war or marriage, which some might consider another form of 'passing on.' I laughed at his wit. "No, thank you." 

Urien smiled, and swigged the drink down in one momentous gulp.