Reya looked nervously out the kitchen window towards the ship. “He should be back by now,” she fretted. It had been several hours since Adrian had left to meet with the Tribunal, and she was growing worried. “What if things aren’t going well? What if they put him back in a cell again?”

  Rann looked up from her data slate. She was seated at the table, keeping Reya company while she anxiously awaited Adrian’s return. “I’m sure everything will be fine. As long as he doesn’t step on too many toes, there’s no reason for them to lock him up again. Offering to teach them music doesn’t pose a threat to anybody. He’d have to royally piss somebody off for them to consider locking him back up. Sit down, he’ll be back soon.”

  Reya reluctantly obliged and sat across from Rann. “How can you be so sure? They’ve already locked him up before! His relationship with the Tribunal isn’t the best right now. He has secrets they desperately want. One wrong move and he might end up back on an operating table.”

  “Have some confidence in Adrian. He knows not to go too far. Besides, didn’t they ban any experimentation on him?”

  “You can never know if they’ll keep their word. Nobody knows about Adrian’s existence besides us. They can do whatever they want to him without anybody ever knowing. Who would believe us if we told them what was happening?”

  Rann frowned. “You have so little faith in the Tribunal?” Reya gave her a level look and Rann sighed. “Right. I guess your relationship with the Tribunal isn’t the best either.”

  The sound of the front door opening caught their attention. Reya snapped towards the figure entering the house, spotting a rather tired Adrian. She stood up and went over. “How did it go?” she asked while giving him a hug. Tension bled out of Adrian as they held each other.

  “It went,” Adrian said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “They had more questions than I was expecting, but overall, I’m pleased with the outcome.” They parted and sat down across from Rann, side by side.

  “Did they give you what you wanted?”

  “Surprisingly, yes. There wasn’t much of a fuss either. Cirrus was the only one that took issue with my proposal. She had the nerve to demand that I pay them for the information I was offering,” Adrian huffed. “I swear, if it isn’t a weapon then anything I have to offer is useless as far as she’s concerned. Culture is just as important as science.”

  “The instruments are yours then?”

  “Yes, they are,” Adrian smiled. “They’re also letting me record as much music as I want. Speaking of,” he shifted his attention to Rann, “I don’t suppose there’s a spare data slate hanging around that I could use to put my recordings on, is there?”

  Rann frowned. “We’re not really supposed to give you access to our technology. Did the Tribunal say you could have a data slate?”

  “Giving me permission to record my music implies I have permission to use something to record it with,” Adrian shrugged. “I don’t need access to all the features, only the programs I need. I’ve been working with Tassie over the last few months to get some proper software.”

  “Tassie had the time for that?” Rann asked. Tassie had put in long hours ever since she began working with Irric. While Rann didn’t know what exactly she was working on, she knew that it kept her busy, especially recently. Something about being close to a breakthrough. For what though, Tassie refused to elaborate.

  Adrian chuckled. “At first. When she got too busy, she actually outsourced the work to other people in the military. They’re the ones that finished putting together what I need.”

  “Don’t we already have something that records music?”

  “You do, but it doesn’t have all the features I would like. Your military had no issues taking inspiration from me for this project, even if they’re the ones doing all the work. I’ll have to ask Tassie for the final product. She told me it was completed several weeks ago.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Fancy that. I guess you can use one of our data slates to record music with. I’ll have to talk to the others about this first. Jyn’s not going to be pleased.”

  Adrian shrugged. “Wipe it and leave me what I need. That should pacify him somewhat. Besides, I have permission from the Tribunal to record my music. He can call the General to see if I’m allowed to use a data slate for all I care. I already know what the answer’s going to be.”

  “I don’t think he’ll fight too hard on this one,” Rann reassured him. “He knows you made a deal of some kind with the Tribunal. He’ll probably confirm the specifics before giving you a data slate, but not even he would go against their orders out of pettiness.”

  “I hope so,” Adrian sighed. “I’d rather not get into yet another argument with the guy over his ego. I’m glad that it’s been getting better recently, but his attitude is still far from pleasant whenever I’m involved.”

  Reya grabbed his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Things will sort themselves out once he gets his head out of his ass,” she said. Adrian chuckled. “I’m just glad nothing bad happened during the meeting.”

  “I thought you were confident things would go well,” Adrian said.

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t worry!”

  The front door opened, and Tassie entered the house, looking rather nervous. She spotted the small group at the kitchen table and walked over. “I called the others for a meeting. They should be here soon.” She pulled up a chair and took a spot next to Rann. “It involves all of us, so I asked everybody to meet here, in the house instead of on the ship.”

  “Does it have to do with the meeting I just had with the Tribunal?” Adrian asked.

  “Not exactly,” Tassie shook her head. “It has to do with the Tribunal, but this is something entirely different. It’s what I was discussing with Irric right before Reya called to tell me about your discovery. I didn’t get around to talking about before with all of the excitement.” She looked between Adrian and Reya, trepidation written plain as day on her face. “There’s something you need to know.”

  The Elders sat in silence, still reeling from Adrian’s lesson. Maraz and Orryn had been the ones most interested by what he had to say, asking insightful questions to better comprehend the material. The brief history lesson he obliged took everybody by surprise.

  “Do you still think he’s lying about being from another civilization?” Maraz asked Cirrus. “He’d have to be a savant to come up with something like that on his own in addition to his knowledge on plants and there’s no way he could make up an entire history behind what he taught us. The more we interact with him, the more likely it seems that he’s telling the truth.”

  “He could simply be from another faction,” Cirrus argued. “For all we know, they’ve developed musical notation. It’s not like we’re on good enough terms with them to know whether such a thing exists. It’s still the most likely theory. I just can’t accept that another species evolved to resemble us so closely.”

  “I’m positive we’d be aware of such a development, even if our relationship with them is tenuous at best. Our spies would have reported it.”

  “Our spies focus on military affairs, not culture,” Cirrus countered. “You can’t possibly expect them to deviate from their missions. Already, they have to be careful when reporting information. Taking a risk for something so minor is asking to be discovered.”

  “I’d hardly call what we learned today minor,” Maraz said. “If anything, I’m surprised he gave up such information for so little in return.”

  “He’s proven to be reasonable when it comes to his demands,” Orryn piped up. “Even when he asked to become a citizen, he believed his request to be something trivial. While we all know that wasn’t the case, from his perspective it was. I maintain that we need to ask for his help to advance our experiments.”

  “This again?” Cirrus groaned. “I thought it was decided not to tell him anything.”

  “We never came to a decision,” Orryn reminded her. “We were interrupted by the General’s message before we could vote on a motion.”

  “We should wait and see whether the man in stasis can corroborate Adrian’s story before asking him for more information. If we’re lucky, he might be able to help us instead. That way, we won’t have to involve Adrian in the matter any more than he needs to be. Who knows what other lies he’ll try to tell us to prove his point!”

  “Is he truly lying, though?” Maraz said in a heavy tone. “We have to be prepared for the possibility that he’s not. Where did he get his knowledge? The more he shares, the more I wonder.”

  Discussion broke out anew on the topic, each Elder giving their thoughts and opinions. Maraz broached the idea of sharing their findings on musical notation with researchers and musicians to see what they thought of the idea. Cirrus pushed strongly against disseminating the information until they knew for certain whether Adrian’s claims were true or not. Maraz waved off her concerns, claiming that what they’d learned deserved to be shared with others rather than be kept secret.

  In this, Cirrus found herself outnumbered. The vast majority of the Elders didn’t see the harm in Maraz’s proposal. While she couldn’t prevent it completely, she did manage to convince them to wait until after the operation that was due to take place the following day. Slumped in her chair, she wondered if they were getting in over their heads. They needed to be careful. Exhaustion overcame her for a moment, the weight of keeping the others safe from themselves creeping into her bones as a small headache brewed. One wrong move is all it takes, she thought.

  Orryn eyed her colleague from across the room in concern, but Cirrus didn’t notice.

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