“A lot of extra weight,” said Oush. “Nice defense system, though. Too bad it’s locked out.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Naecia answered.

“Well, they put all the guush into weapons and décor because the encryption sentinels are crotchwater.” It was Izairis, who occupied the chamber directly across from Naecia and spent most of her time looking depressed. Izairis intrigued Naecia, in no small part because she was a nun.

She’d come from a system that Naecia had never heard of, where one entire planet served as the religious and spiritual center for all the others. After years of fruitlessly searching for something that would explain the intrusive thoughts that pushed her to grifting and forging and criminal schemes, she’d taken up the cloth as a last resort in order to purify her mind. It was there at the convent that she’d accidentally fallen in love with several of her cohorts, chief among them, kind Sister Nezlin.

Lovesickness aside, Izairis had taken her service seriously, hoping that with enough time and devotion, she would be cured of the unwanted machinations that plagued her every thought. Aside from eating and doing chores about the convent grounds, Izairis prayed and meditated in solitude; that she might wake one day with a mind clear of nefarious plans, and free of lust for her sisters in faith. The way she told it, she had been on a meditation bender in the woods when Asog Arrohauk had appeared in her trademark space gown. Believing at first that she had accidentally summoned Lantharaptus, the Vixen God of Salvation (Arrohauk was a looker), Izairis offered to place herself into service of the deity. Delighted by her quarry’s vulnerable state of mind, Arrohauk played along, escorting the smitten nun back to the Knell. By the time Izairis realized that she’d been had, it was too late.

Faced with captivity, Izairis quickly became despondent. With her eyes no longer clouded by the illusion that religion would save her, her love for Sister Nezlin only hardened the farther away she got, and her faith collapsed along with her heart. She did not eat or drink. Realizing that the captured nun was prepared to die, Arrohauk proposed a mutually beneficial arrangement: Izairis use her hidden talents for bludgeoning security protocols to assist in the acquisition of additional Stringers, and she would return Izairis to her home in the space of one galactic year. Strangely, she’d found Arrohauk’s proposal to be sincere. Especially once the stringhunter had explained the larger picture – that she was trying to find a particular Stringer, one who held the secret that could destroy all that they knew.