Page 14 of Breaking Ties

“She also uses it in foreplay.”

“And now we are edging into creepy.” She laughed.

“If you are ever near Korvil, come down for a visit. I am not going to mention you because some Terrans are funny about their partners speaking to members of the opposite sex, even if it doesn’t work that way for us. It is bad enough I have been away from home. I don’t want to upset her.”

“Very wise.” She smiled. “Thank you for the shared dinner. I am assuming that the station is paying for me?”

“Ra set up your account. It was he who contacted me. He feels that the more you can learn from actual Hmrain, the better.” He smiled.

She looked to her guards. “Where next?”

“Back to your chamber, and you can take the education assessment that was mentioned. Your door should be fixed by now.”

“Good. Now, I get to find out if anyone tampered with the programming so that it opens without authorization.” She looked at one of the guards meaningfully, and the man lifted his com and spoke urgently.

Karek looked at her with wide eyes. “You see that?”

“It is a possibility that has basis in fact. A strong basis. Someone tried to beat the door in earlier, and as such, the maintenance staff had to come and replace it. That necessitates the reprogramming. With the amount of money being used to snag me, the reprogramming of the door is an easy solution. I have to sleep sometime.”

Karek said, “Do you want me to clear it?”

“No, I have a security team. They are just grasping how difficult their assignment will be and praying for me to find my match and get out of here.”

There was a growling chuckle from her guards. As she nodded to Karek and got to her feet, she said softly, “What are the odds of me getting a new room? Then no one has to worry, and the evildoers go to the wrong room.”

The man in charge of her guard lifted his com and spoke softly in a language that was slowly populating her mind. It took them fifteen minutes to go back to the VIP block, and in that time, her room miraculously moved to one down the hallway.

She entered the identical room, settled at the terminal, found the assessment files, and prepared. After getting a cup of water from the small dispenser in her room, she arranged everything to her liking and activated the program. She looked at the multiple-choice and grinned. And started moving as fast as the display could manage. When she was done, she sipped at the water and watched the unit calculate and churn.

The room was nice, and by her estimation, she had an hour before the next meal. A day and a half more and she would be able to leave the station. “I wonder if I can ask Ra for a shuttle. Oh, I will need to learn how to fly one. Next project.”

She sat up and looked at the screen, but it wasn’t done figuring her out. She picked up her tablet and started to look up identifying parts of a cockpit.

When her terminal chirped, she looked over and laughed. She was most suited to being a judge, oracle, or high priestess. She wondered if they had an online search engine for that. She knew for certain that her guidance counsellor had never mentioned them as an option.

Aubrey kept learning about space flight until the soft knock sounded. Time for food. Again.

She walked to the door. “Password?”

“Time to stuff your pie hole?”

She grinned and opened the door, walking out with her escorts and hoping for less poison on the table. Time would tell.

She didn’t need to sleep, so she got better at dancing, crashed a shuttle simulator, and then managed to get one to takeoff and land. She was feeling smart and smug when she was asked to go to a serious meeting about her prospects. A bond auction was out of the question.

Aubrey sat with the council, and they showed her a series of Hmrain who were interested in buying her bond. She looked through them, and on the thirteenth one, she smiled. “This one. This is the one I see.”

The folks on the council murmured. She shrugged. “Sorry, but he’s the one. Is there a problem?”

One of the beings on the council with head fins kept opening and closing the fins. “There is no problem. He is on the way and will be here in four days. He is just... difficult. He selects his colonists by interview and not by batch. It is time-consuming and irritating.”

Aubrey said softly, “What is his name?”

They jolted in surprise. The male to the left said, “We thought you knew, as you selected him.”

She sighed. “I get visions, but few people introduce themselves in the visions. I see images and figure them out. I figured out that he was for me from the sheer volume of visions that I got with him featured.”

They stared at her. She opened her hands and spread them wide. “So? His name?”