“I’ll do my best,” Park said, chilly now with anger and embarrassment. “Although it would make more sense to refer the matter to Reimi. She’s the one who handles issues concerning androids on the ship, not me.”

Then, realizing her lapse, she kicked herself—but Sagara merely looked serious as he said, “It is unfortunate that she’s fallen sick.”

“How do you feel about that turn of events?”

His face remained impassive. “As long as her illness doesn’t threaten the rest of the ship, I suppose I don’t feel any particular way about it. How do you feel about it?”

“What would you do if her illness did threaten the rest of the ship?”

“I’d enact quarantine protocols. Try to eliminate the source of infection, if I could.”

“Eliminate?”

“Freeze. Chanur did the right thing.”

“The cautious thing.”

“Which, to a security officer, is always the right thing.”

They paused for a moment, looking at each other. Park didn’t know why she felt compelled to engage in this kind of verbal sparring, but she told herself that Sagara had started it. She couldn’t believe his paranoia, the implication that she could be employing Jimex to some sinister purpose. Or was he going out of his way to warn her, inform her about the others’ perceptions of her behavior? Both routes were confusing. And she still wasn’t getting much of a topographical read from him, at least emotionally, but she did have the acute sense that he was sussing her out. Why? Because of what happened in the escape shuttle?

“So are you a combat specialist, like Boone and Hunter?” she asked, to deflect her own thoughts. To keep Sagara from reading them.

“If you’re asking if I know how to fight, the answer is yes,” he answered, almost lazily. “I’ve seen combat. I fought carbon pirates back on Earth. I was sent in during the Outer System Wars.”

Mentally Park reviewed his file again; it hadn’t said anything about that. The Outer System Wars had spanned the entire outer ring of colonies past the Solar System: Luxue, Vier, Halla, Elysium, Corvus, and even the prison planet Pandora had all been enmeshed in a bloody, year-long conflict between the ISF and the rogue colonists who had wanted to secede from it. Although it was brief, the war had cost a million lives and destroyed the moon of Vela. Sagara had fought in that? He had to be conscripted. And he’d probably been awarded medals, high honors. No wonder they’d put him in charge of the security on Corvus. No wonder they trusted him to maintain order on the Deucalion.

And if he’d dealt with carbon pirates in the past, or killed terrorists in the outer system—how harsh would his treatment be of delinquents like Park and Fulbreech?

The blood drained from her face. Sagara, seemingly reading her thoughts, said, “Does that make you nervous?”

Park shook her head; she tried not to let her voice sound faint. “Not at all. I’m just—trying to understand your mindset. Whether your past experiences color your . . . treatment of others.”