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“Console on.” A different holographic screen the size of a laptop illuminates in the air in front of him. He squints at icons, activating them by his eye movement. The small screen disappears as a compartment opens in the surface of the table between us. A stout but elegant silver urn with matching cups and saucers arises from the surface on a silver salver. “Would you like some kafcan?” he asks. Steam rolls from the spout of the pot. He pours the hot, dark-roast beverage that is very similar to coffee into a delicate cup.
    “No, thank you.” I make a vow never to take a thing from him. Owing him would be a crime. He keeps the cup of kafcan for himself, setting it on the table near his hand.
    “The Alameeda nearly killed Gennet Trey, did you know that?”
    I nod my head. “I knew. He told me.” I swallow hard.
    This doesn’t sit well with Minister Telek. His hand moves violently to swipe the steaming cup off the table. It shatters on the floor in front of us with a loud clatter. “Trey will do anything for you, won’t he!” he accuses with a growl. The abruptness of his rage is not a foreign thing to me. I saw it seething below the surface, and I know better than to answer his question.
    When I remain silent, Minister Telek barks an order to his console. “Stream current headline.”
    The hologram of Trey disappears and is replaced by three-dimensional images of Trey and me from just moments ago in the Sonic Rail Station. I’m throwing my arms around Trey’s neck. Trey leans down and kisses me hard on the mouth. My heart strains the wall of my chest. To Minister Telek, this is somehow damning evidence. The love letter Trey wrote on my paper heart is there; Minister Telek can read it.
    His rage is barely restrained as he says between clenched teeth, “They’re calling you two star-crossed lovers, romanticizing your relationship. It was already viral by the time you arrived at my office.” He wants me to be penitent about it.
    “That poses a problem for you,” I murmur. “You were hoping we’d look like criminals—that’s what you were going for by allowing the media to ambush us.”
    “You’re a master manipulator, just like your mother!” he seethes.
    “I doubt you knew my mother,” I reply. My heart is beating out of control with panic, but I try to appear as if I’m not bothered by what he says or the violence he displays. I don’t know where the line is with him, but the kafcan mess on the floor in front of me indicates that I’m close to it. I have to decide if I want to cross over it.
    “I knew your father. I couldn’t save him from your mother. I will not make the same mistake again,” Telek promises.
    “What mistake?”
    “Pan was the brightest officer in my arsenal. He was like a son to me. He had a brilliant mind—intuitive with defensive strategy. Your mother ruined him.”
    “How’d she do that?”
    “It was after the Terrible War. He discovered her while on patrol near the border of our territory. She planned to escape the Brotherhood by disappearing into the masses on Earth—or so she claimed. Pan helped her seek asylum in Rafe, and then they chose to violate our laws by deserting to Earth together. She manipulated him into protecting her, much like you’ve done with the Cavar sent to retrieve you, and again with our Regent. We managed to avoid another war with her. That won’t be the case with you.” He’s laying all the blame for my being here upon me.
    “I didn’t ask to come here,” I point out. “You brought me here.”
    His fury bubbles to the surface again. “ I did not bring you here! If I had ordered the mission, it would’ve been extermination, not an extraction. The mission to remand you was ordered by Minister Vallen and the Regent.”
    “To what end?”
    “It doesn’t matter. One is dead and the other is very near to it.”
    “You don’t know,” I goad him to see if he’ll give me a better answer. “You don’t know why they went looking