“We thought about a solicitor,” Rami said. “But we aren’t in the union, so it would be expensive. But then yesterday Tlacey finally answered our petition, and said we could have the files back if we returned our signing bonus. We have to go down to RaviHyral to do that.” Te sat back in ter chair. “That’s why we wanted to hire you.”

This was starting to make sense. “You don’t trust Tlacey.”

“We just want somebody on our side,” Tapan clarified.

“No, we definitely don’t trust Tlacey,” Maro countered. “Not at all. We need security for when we get there, if things get … touchy. Tlacey herself is supposed to meet us, and she has an entourage of bodyguards, and there’s no general security except what Umro has in the public areas and the port, and that’s not much.”

I didn’t know exactly what she thought she meant by “touchy,” but all the scenarios I could imagine in that situation weren’t good ones.

The company offered SecUnits so the clients didn’t have to hire humans to guard each other. From what I had seen in the serials, me doing a half-assed version of my job was still better than a human trying to do it.

I was still watching us through the captured security camera even though I wasn’t allowing it to record. I could see my expression was dubious, but in this case I think the situation warranted it. I said, “The meeting with Tlacey could be held through a secured comm channel.” The company bonded those, too, for funds and data transfer.

Maro, whose expression was even more dubious than mine, said, “Yeah, but Tlacey wants to do it in person.”

Rami admitted, “We know it doesn’t sound like a good idea to go.”

It was a great idea to go if you wanted to be murdered. I had hoped for an easier job, courier duty, or something similar. But this was protecting humans who were determined to do something dangerous, which was exactly the kind of job I was designed for. The job that I had kept doing more or less, often as less as possible, even after I had hacked my governor module. I was used to having something useful to do, taking care of something, even if it was only a contractually obligated group of humans who if I was lucky treated me like a tool and not a toy.

After PreservationAux, it had occurred to me how different it would be to do my job as an actual member of the group I was protecting. And that was the main reason I was here.