“You’re not worried about us being seen together?” I asked.

           Emba paused, a still-live worm skewered on his claw halfway to his mouth. Then he sucked at the worm’s tail and swallowed it whole.

           “I have no reason to be,” he said, the voder translating his growls and barks instantly. “But you are.”

           He was trying to put me off balance by choosing such a public space to dine together. It was working. I didn’t like being toyed with.

           “You know the risks Hierarch Czerag took sending me here.”

           Emba laid down the thin hook he was using to pry the worms from their coral tubes. “My only motivation is a love of good food. And this is the best restaurant under the dome. With the best views.”

           The room was nestled high up against the sloping crystal wall of Elysem and I could see beyond the strengthened crust plate the city sat on to the dull red planet-spanning ocean of lava bubbling and popping in glutinous slow motion. Plumes of molten rock erupted in the distance, and further out the manufactories, their hulls built completely of fabricated tekla, skimmed off the mineral wealth that floated to the surface of this tortured world.

           “Besides, the clientele here is select and very discreet,” Emba continued. “News of our meeting will not find its way back to your Homeworld.”

           It was true I wasn’t the only non-Telsan in the room. And the diners seemed singularly uninterested in Ambassador Emba and his guest. Perhaps he did this all the time. But I knew he still wanted me at a disadvantage. Emba was a senior ambassador in the xeno trade and relations branch of the Telsan government and I was a messenger from Hierarch Czerag here to make a deal. In secret.

           I held a woody vegetable in my mandible, tasting the sweetness of its bark while my feeder claws picked at its bitter innards. This whole journey had been one of contrasts, and now I was experiencing another: anxiety at the public nature of our meeting and the negotiations to come, and fresh exhilaration at being away from the Kresz worldmind and experiencing everything here, even the bad, solely for myself.

           Emba was in no hurry to get to business. After the first course, there was a smoky broth that bubbled as we ate. It tasted like dirt, but I finished it all the same. I was determined to eat everything and show the ambassador I was happy to wait as long as he was. Longer even.

           The next course was more of a challenge. It was live again, but more so: a long creature, with a dark spine-covered skin and five legs. It was served in a high-sided bowl, its legs skittering at the slippery sides as it tried to escape. Emba skewered the beast expertly with a sharp pick and pulled off its legs and crunched them between his teeth as the creature writhed around. I preferred to rip its head off and deal with it in less ambulatory fashion.

           Finally Emba pushed back his plate and dabbed at his hairy muzzle with the square of cloth lying beside his glass. “And so to business,” he said. He raised a paw and his grey-furred aide, who had escorted me here, joined us at the table, a thin square device clutched in its clawed paw.

           “Here?” I said.

           “Under ambassadorial seal, of course.”

           The aide tapped at the device and a force wall surrounded us. I could see the washed-out colours of the room beyond, but the dull murmur of other conversations was gone.

           Emba was looking at me with his small dark brown eyes. “You start.”

           Here it was then. My chance to change my life completely.

           “Your industries have an inexhaustible hunger for tekla and my hierarch has an inexhaustible supply,” I said. “The highest quality, which we can provide at a price below the tariff you pay through our Merchants Lodge.”

           Emba raised a claw. “Yes, yes. The sample you provided is very pure. I’m sure you vouch it a fair representation of what you have to offer, but what happens when the lodge finds out about this? They’ll cut off trade with us.”

           “The only commodity you buy from Homeworld is tekla. You’ll have no further need for them.”

           Emba crinkled his snout, showing sharp incisors. “It’s still a risk for us. If your supply dries up. If the quality falters. If your hierarch changes his mind because of … pressure brought to bear by the lodge, what then?”

           There was truth in what he said. But it wasn’t the lodge that posed danger for Hierarch Czerag; it was Hierarch Kergis. He controlled the Merchants despite the supposed separation of house and lodge and had grown rich and powerful as a result. The only way my hierarch could get a bigger share of trade profits was to go outside the existing arrangements and set up our own house’s parallel agreements. If Czerag was successful, it could blow the house/lodge system wide apart. But if he was discovered before he could demonstrate to the other hierarchs that direct trade was not just possible but an attractive proposition … well, at best we’d be squeezed by Kergis and the Merchants to stop trading immediately. At worst, our house might need a new hierarch, no matter the natural and ethical barriers to assassination.

           Emba took the device from his aide and tapped at the screen. He handed it to me. “For all these considerations, we think this is a reasonable price for a standard podule load.”

           I looked at the figure. It was low.

           “My hierarch’s word is unbreakable. And it’s worth more than that.” My feeder claws stretched wide and I tapped in a considerably higher counter offer, then handed back the screen.

           Emba looked at the figure, then scrutinised me. “That’s not a reasonable price.”

           “It is reasonable. And a lot less than you’re paying now.”

           He laid the device on the table, took up his glass and drank, watching me over the rim. “If I were a Kresz, I’d know if you thought it was a good price, wouldn’t I?”

           “We’re empaths, Ambassador. We sense feelings. You might feel that I was nervous and – given the context – infer I was lying. But it’s not telepathy.”

           But I was lying. Czerag had said I could go lower. The truth was I didn’t want to. Partly because I wanted to make the best deal I could, to prove I was worth more out here than hidden away in a dusty records hall. But I was also lying because I could. I wasn’t surrounded by empaths, and that was liberating. At home, that feeling would mark me as a deviant. Here it was my strength.

           “I suppose we could pay a little more, but not what you’re asking,” Emba said.

           “I’m not authorised to go lower.” The lie thrilled me again. “That’s the deal. And at that price, the only risk you run is to become embarrassingly rich.”

           Emba rubbed the end of his muzzle and glanced at his aide.

           “Let’s make the agreement,” I said.

           Emba slapped the crystal table. “Hah.” He turned to his aide. “Confirm the trade.”

           The other Telsan ran its paw over the device then held it out to me. I made a show of checking the figure was still the same, then I pressed the end of one claw against the port. The screen was passed to Emba, who looked over it, paused, looked at me, then flashed his teeth again and added his genetic imprint.

           “Your Merchants Lodge is going to be furious when they discover Czerag’s cut them out.”

           “Nothing for you to worry about. We have it under control.”

           Another lie. Delivery would be difficult. Ensuring my own departure from Homeworld was undetected had presented enough problems. Not even Czerag could conceal a large off-world shipment of tekla with no lodge certification. Kergis would be alerted immediately, and he had strong links with the Defenders Lodge as well. But if Czerag had a plan to ensure delivery and keep Kergis occupied, he hadn’t shared it with me. It was the way of all house hierarchs to keep that kind of information compartmentalised.

           “A deal this big calls for a celebration,” Emba said as the privacy screen around us fell away. He waved a paw and one of the wait staff came close. “Arga. Bring the bottle. And two glasses.” He looked at his aide. “You can file those, Gratch. I won’t need you any more this evening.”

           My feeders opened wide again and I felt my whole body relax. I’d done it. Czerag would see how useful it could be to have a Kresz off-planet.

           The single sun of Telsus IV was sinking to the horizon now and the glow from the lava ocean reflected off the chairs and tables, the crystal jugs and glasses, and turned the red of my exoskeleton black.

           One of the wait staff brought the liquor Emba had ordered.

           “I like you, Udun,” Emba said, pouring a glass and handing it to me. “You’re much friendlier than the few other Kresz I’ve met. They’re as hard to get to know as the shell they’re wrapped in.”

           “Kresz prefer to deal purely with their own kind,” I said. “By and large they see interaction with aliens as a necessary evil. And it’s the same with any travel that takes them away from the worldmind.”

           “But you’re not like that.”

           I replaced my glass on the table. “When I was very young, I was always running off from the escarpment to find out what was beyond the next dune. The grown-ups would catch me, bring me back and scold me. The proper place for a Kresz was in his house, they’d say. But it didn’t stop me. Finally they locked me in the records hall during the day and set me to work helping the old Scholar there. They thought it was a punishment and that I’d grow out of my unKreszlike behaviour. But in among the catalogues I found documents and images that taught me about all the strange worlds spinning around the nearby stars of the Lenticular, and the even stranger beings that inhabited them. The more I learned, the more I wanted to experience them for myself. And the more the others saw that as a rejection of their way of life. In time, they came to resent me for it. With few exceptions, they still do.” My mandibles stretched open. “I never thought I’d get the chance to leave Homeworld, and now …”

           “Now?”

           “Now I’m here, I don’t think I’d ever go home if I had the choice.”

           Emba grunted. “I understand duty. But if you come back this way, my home is yours.”

           He refilled my glass and I took another sip. The arga was sweet, sticky and left a pleasant buzz.

           “Even if I told you I’d have accepted a lower price if you’d held out?”

           Emba drained his glass and slammed it down on the table. “Especially then!”

           There was a bright flare through the window and Emba turned to look, then raised his paw to beckon someone, a creature I’d never seen before. Its head was oddly shaped, the brow ridge tapering and extending up and forward in an arc, mirrored by another bony projection below the mouth slit. The light shattered across its iridescent skin but its eyes were pure black.

           It saw Emba and walked stiffly over, one of its legs refusing to bend. There were burn scars at its neck and running across what I could see of its chest through the opening of the tunic it wore. It took the empty seat at our table, breath whistling through oblique flaps cut into its cheeks.

           “Udun, this is Atalna,” Emba said. “Another friend from afar.”

           The black eyes regarded me. “You’re a Kresz. I’ve never seen one in the flesh. Or shell I should say.”

           “And I’ve never met anyone that looks like you.” The arga pushed my curiosity past my usual reserve.

           “That’s because I come from somewhere far beyond your local Lenticular Space.”

           One of the wait staff brought another glass and Emba filled it. “Atalna, a drink. We’re celebrating.”

           Atalna took the glass and raised it. “Celebrations are few and far between. We must cherish them.”

           Emba’s aide appeared and bent low beside the ambassador, muttering something I couldn’t catch.

           “Consul Lintal,” Emba said. “Now?”

           Atalna shifted in his seat and I noticed the skin on the leg he favoured was brittle and cracked. His past seemed written painfully across his body and I looked away. On Homeworld, someone with such extensive injuries would be euthanised. My culture had decided long ago they had no need of medicine. The sick got better or died. It was the will of Sakat.

           Emba stood. “I’m sorry. An ambassador is never off duty it seems. Please enjoy yourselves. Udun, I’ll see you tomorrow at the spaceport.” And he hurried away, his aide scurrying to keep up.

           Atalna reached for the bottle. The movement wasn’t easy for him and I imagined scorched skin protesting at the motion. He poured more arga for me and for himself, and took a sip, relaxing back into the seat.

           “It’s peaceful here,” he said.

           “Emba has been a very gracious host.”

           “We all deserve a little kindness.” His black eyes focused on me. “There’s far too much of the opposite in the galaxy. I think you’ve experienced some of that.”

           “Why do you say that?”

           The slits on the side of his cheeks whistled, sending the light running across the mosaic scales of his face. “I may be a guest in the Lenticular, but I know enough to see how unusual you are – a lone, wandering Kresz. You’re different, and people who are different are not always welcomed by those who consider themselves ‘normal’.”

           “I know something about being misunderstood and facing the judgement of those doing the misunderstanding,” I said.

           “And yet here you are, out amongst the stars, and there they sit, huddled in their ignorance, never lifting their eyes above the horizon.” It was as if he could read my thoughts. “To be normal is to be complacent. What you have is a gift.”

           “It doesn’t feel like that. Mostly people at home are suspicious of me.”

           “But I’m not talking about the perceptions of others. Your presence here proves you are special. It means you see things that others of your kind don’t. You think thoughts they never could. Hold onto that. It’s what will keep you safe.”

           “Safe?” This conversation seemed to vibrate with some resonance for him, something I was missing. Again, I wondered about his past.

           “Emba would say I’m scaremongering again. But he hasn’t experienced what I have.” He put his glass down. “You’ve seen the marks on my body. They were inflicted by my own people. Better they had taken my life. It would have left me easily enough.”

           I felt the skin tighten around my skull plate. The room was suddenly less comfortable. Less safe.

           “Where do you come from?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

           “In another life I was Atalna, prime minister of Betlaan. You wouldn’t have heard of that world. I fled many light years before Emba took me in.”

           “Why?” I said. “I mean why did your people hurt you?”

           He looked around, but we were quite alone. Still his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Betlaan was a good world. We had our cities and our parklands. We had our devotions. One day we were contacted by a federation of worlds called the Hegemony. We knew of them, of course. They control an area of space out towards the rim, but we’d had no dealings with them. They sent a vessel to our world. We greeted them, set up diplomatic relations and welcomed their embassy – just one of their diplomats and a small staff. Life went on as normal.

           “Then, six months later, a new political party arose. They spread many lies about the government, saying we were hoarding the planet’s wealth for the elite and mismanaging what little we allowed to flow into services for the general population. The party didn’t receive much support though it was well-funded. Elections were held and the government was returned, but a few days later there was a revolt – a thing unheard of on Betlaan. This same group, but with many, strange weapons, seized the parliament and the cabinet fled into hiding. An interim cabinet was appointed by the rebels, entirely unlawfully, and requested aid from the Hegemony embassy to quell further ‘civil disorder’. The Hegemony ships and soldiers arrived mere hours later, putting any who questioned their presence to the atom blast,” Atalna said bitterly. “And they have been there ever since. I was lucky to escape our world with my life. Others were not so lucky.”

           “So you believe this Hegemony orchestrated events?” I asked.

           “I know it. I have evidence. Tri-D pictures of meetings held between members of the new party and the Hegemony diplomat before the elections. Much good that it does me now. The Hegemony has our world in its grasp, and nothing will loosen its fingers.”

           “But you’re here now. You’re safe.”

           He straightened in his seat. “I am not safe. None of us are. I have seen the Hegemony’s ships lay waste to innocents, seen my own people turned into sadistic murderers. Since then I’ve made a study of the Hegemony, as much as I can. They move secretly wherever possible. They stay strong by driving outwards and sweeping aside all who might challenge them. They will never stop. And no others I have met possess their single-minded ruthlessness. Eventually, even this part of space will belong to them.

           “That’s the reason I survived, to spread the warning. The Hegemony always come in friendship, one hand extended but the other clutching a weapon behind their back. Now you know about them, Udun. And because you are different, because you are not complacent, I hope the knowledge will save your life one day.”

           Atalna sat back in his seat, watching me, and I became aware again of the conversations of others around us. I felt like I was emerging from a sharing. Or perhaps a nightmare.

           “Tell me more about the Hegemony,” I said.