"Well, at least that's something new we can try on them next time around." Kolchin paused. "And maybe NorCoord will decide it's time to reassemble CIRCE."
"Perhaps," Cavanagh said. "Quinn, we need to send word to Aric and Melinda about this."
"I can do that, sir," Quinn said. "What should I tell them?"
3
Decidedly unhappy.
"I want to talk to Cavanagh," he growled, his English coming out mangled but more or less understandable. "I was promised Cavanagh."
"I am Cavanagh," Aric told him. "Aric Cavanagh, Lord Stewart Cavanagh's firstborn son. I'm also director of CavTronics operations for this region of space. Whatever your complaint, you may express it to me."
The Meert hissed under his breath. "Human," he growled, making the word a curse. "You care first for yourselves. The Meert-ha are nothing to you but slaves."
"Ah," Aric said, cocking an eyebrow. "Do the Meert-ha care more for humans than for themselves, then?"
The overlapping scales opened slightly, settled back into place. "You insult the Meert-ha?"
"Not at all," Aric assured him. "I merely seek clarification. You accuse humans of caring more for their own kind than for nonhumans. Is it different with the Meert-ha?"
The Meert was silent a moment, his scales flipping rhythmically up and down. Aric stayed seated, resisting the urge to ease his chair a little farther back from the desk. For a pair of heartbeats he was a teenager again, engaged in his favorite lazy-day pastime of verbally driving his younger brother crazy, when he'd suddenly awakened to the fact that he no longer had thirty centimeters and twelve kilos on the kid. The game had stopped being fun that day... and the Meert standing in front of the desk had a lot of the same look about him.