>>5897098Johnson has certainly not made the task easy for you, what with his talk of conspiracies and games. Even so, there is a certain convergence of interests between you and him. Who knows, with a bit of trust, he might even choose to subordinate his own goals under yours. “Maybe I should have stayed a civilian, too. But there's nothing either of us can do about that now. All that's left is to play this game the best we can." You turn to meet his gaze. "And one more thing. Thank you for your confidence, Johnson." His lips curl a little upwards, “You can call me Tim.”
With that out of the way, you briefly consider the possibility of spies onboard your ships. Part of you wants to immediately order a clean search of the whole ship once you return, but it might undermine what little respect you have gained with the men. And with the more difficult half of your sortie still ahead, every little bit counts. You have to approach this as subtly as possible. This way, you can turn your own inexperience into an advantage. If these agents have grown so bold as to near openly spy on Tim, how more carelessly they would treat a ditzy Coreite. Maybe a few silent alarms in the less frequented corridors and cupboards can do wonders...
Let's leave it at that for now, Yamir's already entering the room. His claws rise and neck bends down in imitation of a Terran bow. You and Tim return the gesture. Wordlessly, the hivekeeper moves to a corner of the waiting room and gestures you two to follow. Behind a particular gruesome tapestry depicting several impaled Mir heads, a doorway opens to reveal what would be a spacious office if not for the stacks of papers overflowing from drawers, sacks of baubles caving down shelves, and stalagmites of trash piling on the floor. With a flair, Yamir evades these looming floods and makes for a grand desk upon which a microcosm of room's chaos is re-enacted. Your heart sinks as though torpedoed to see him brutishly swipe his claw clean through the mess and hear the crashing landslide of one of the junk peaks.
You gingerly step in, taking care to keep your arms crossed in front of your stomach and your eyes peeled for any danger. As if tumbling just one heap into a plateau isn't enough, Yamir leans over the desk and toss another box full of paper files into a corner(?) to reveal something resembling a stool underneath. The Shanghain melody rings out, “To other of my kind, this table set is plunder. But you shall know it as a gift.” His eyes glisten in the dim phosphorescent lighting, and you thought you could almost see through them as through a binocular past the gulf of years. “The gift-giver must have died now, as all of your short-lived kind are fated to. But his memories will live on with this Keeper, long after they have been discarded by his own people.”
