"All in good time." He smiled reassuringly and gestured at a tall double door. "My chief would like a word."
There was a larger office through the doors. The man sitting behind its broad desk gave Michelle a pleasant nod as she was shown in, then returned his attention to a pane in front of him. It was difficult to tell how old he was. Mid-forties, she thought, though he had the kind of assured authority that was normally found in men a lot older.
Braddock steered her to a settee and indicated she should sit. She pulled the jacket around her as if it were a shield.
"My name is Simon Roderick," said the man behind the desk. "I'm in charge of Zantiu-Braun security on Thallspring. And you, Michelle, have been a very stupid young lady."
She dropped her gaze, praying she wouldn't start sniveling.
"One thing in your favor right now is that we know you're actually human."
"Excuse me?" she stammered.
"You're a human, unlike this gentleman." The sheet screen on the wall flashed up a picture of Josep's face. "Ah, you do recognize him."
"Yes."
"Thank you, Michelle. At least you have some understanding of how much trouble you're in."
"One day you'll be defeated," she said, amazing herself at such defiance.
"It's not only Zantiu-Braun that will be defeated by aliens that powerful. The entire human race could well be facing a terminal threat."
"What do you mean, aliens?"
"You didn't know, did you? Your comrade in arms was not entirely human."
"That's ridiculous." Nobody was more human than Josep. Only a human could bring another human so much pleasure and contentment.
"Is it?" Josep's image was replaced by a cluster of multicolored spheres. "Do you know what that is, Michelle?"
"No."
"That doesn't surprise me. We're not absolutely sure ourselves. It's a nanomachine that appears to have molecular-engineering capabilities. It was extracted from your friend's blood."
"What have you done to Josep!" Tears threatened to burst down her face, but it was anger that pushed them this time, not fear.
"Josep?" Simon smiled. "Finally, a name."
Michelle's shoulders slumped. The anger burned out as quickly as it had flared. How stupid to be caught out like that. "You can do what you like to me," she said sullenly. "I won't help you."
Simon walked around the desk and sat on the settee next to Michelle. She tried not to shrink from him. He poured some tea from the silver pot on the low table.
"Do you know what we can do to you?" he asked. "Did Josep ever tell you?"
"You'll use drugs, I know that. And you'll probably rape me before you kill me."
"Good grief, what a repellent idea. We're not savages. My dear girl, you really must learn to distinguish between facts and your own side's somewhat lurid propaganda. Yes, we can use drugs, along with various hypnosis and deep-stimulus techniques, none of which are particularly pleasant. There is nothing you will be able to keep from us; you will confess your deepest secrets. Do you know why we're not doing that to you right now?"
"So you can trick me into giving you names," she said hotly.
"No. I want to appeal to you to give us the information voluntarily. Time, I'm afraid, is rather short. I really am not joking when I say Josep is an alien."
"What have you done with him?"
"Nothing. I wish we could. He escaped shortly after we captured him."
"Good. You'll never catch him again."
"Not without your help, no."
"I won't. You'll have to interrogate me properly." She was shaking at the prospect of submitting to their interrogation, but every minute in here was another minute Josep could use to flee.
"Aren't you going to ask where we caught him? Or do you already know, did you help plan the attack?'
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, though there was a horrible suspicion bubbling through her mind. Those nights he never came home. Courier duty, he said, like the rest of the cell were given. Except she'd never been asked to run anything at night.
Simon picked up his cup of tea and settled back into the settee. The sheet screen began showing a datapool news report of the spaceport. Bodybags were being carried out of the wrecked administration block.
"Oh, God," she whispered.
"Eight people dead," Simon said. "Including Mr. Raines's colleague."
Braddock Raines was standing at the end of the settee, his face impassive. Michelle flashed him a hugely guilty glance.
"Seventeen injured, three critically. Our cargo-lifting operation delayed by several days. And the whole of Durrell terrified about what retaliatory measures Z-B will employ. After all, we promised to use our collateral necklaces to prevent any interruption to our asset realization. What do you think, Michelle, how many Thallspring citizens should Z-B kill so that your resistance movement doesn't do this again? Ten?"
"Stop it."
"Fifty?"
"None!" she shouted. "None at all. He didn't do this. We didn't do this. All we do is sabotage your transport and stolen factories. This isn't what we want, not killing people."
"That's not what you want, Michelle. There's a difference in your understandable, if pathetic, yearning to fight the invasion, and the goals of your alien allies."
"Josep is not an alien!"
"Dear me, what an irony I have here. We can extract the entire truth from you should we so wish, yet we cannot install the truth. But the truth is what I am dealing in. Josep's body was altered, enhanced, by alien technology. He was using you."
"He was not. We were in love."
"Ah." Simon sighed happily. "Was this your first love, Michelle?"
"I... it..."
"So it was. How delightful."
"No, it wasn't." Even as she denied it, she knew Roderick knew, really knew, and blushed heavily.
"There is a standard ploy that intelligence agencies use for infiltrating their enemies, Michelle. It's very common and has been in use for centuries. You find some lonely, sad little soul working in the place you need to be, a woman maybe approaching middle age and unmarried, or maybe not as pretty as her contemporaries. Perhaps it's simply someone who doesn't fit into her new environment very easily, who finds it all new and strange and frightening. Either way, you send in a wolf. They meet, as if by chance. She finds herself courted by this most handsome man, impossibly talented in bed, devoted to her and her alone. Her heart belongs to him. And with her heart comes her complete and absolute trust. Does any of this sound familiar, Michelle?"