“What is the nature of your association with Dr. Campbell?”
He threw a particularly obnoxious smirk in her direction. “Well, now, a gentleman would never kiss and tell.”
He waited a few silent beats under the cold stares directed his way, a drop of sweat running down the back of his collar.
“Where is he?” he asked, wincing internally at showing his hand.
“That is none of your concern. What is your relationship to Dr. Campbell?”
Orin weighed his options. A simple truth was always better than a lie if you could get away with it.
“I’m his pilot. Hired ship hand, that’s all.”
“Were you aware that you have been piloting a stolen vessel set on an unauthorized course past the Verge?” Enforcer Azu asked.
His voice was irritatingly as deep and smooth as his complexion. Orin found himself hoping the man had a patchy crop of back hair, at least. It wasn’t fair for a man to be so obnoxiously flawless.
Orin cocked his head to the side, arranging his features in blinking innocence.
“Don’t know nothing ’bout no stolen ship. But that wonky course, well, that’s gotta be my mistake. I never had much schooling, see. All these fancy navigational calculations tend to tax my brainbox something fierce. Musta missed a number here or there to have gotten us so off course. I’ll need to apologize to the professor. Ask him to double-check my numbers next time.”
Isolde squinted at him.
“Enforcer Azu, I believe we will require both suspects in order to most effectively continue this interrogation.”
Her partner stood and left the room, the buzzing of the door seeming to echo at his departure.
“Where’s he—” Orin startled as Isolde grabbed his hand, delicate fingers biting into his palm.
“He’s fetching your man,” she hissed, “You have approximately three minutes to tell me what ridiculous scheme you have gotten yourself into before he gets back.”
Now there was no stopping the surprised glee that split his face. “Knew you were still sweet on me.”
She rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her chest in a familiar combative stance, lifting her chin in the direction of the door. “It’s your professor who’s sweet on you. Poor little thing’s close to tears, demanding to know what we’ve done to you.”
Orin’s brow folded together with concern. “He’s alright? You didn’t hurt him, did you? He’s done nothing wrong, swear on my mother’s grave, Izzy. He’s a good man. I’m sure you’ve got a pile of reasons to keep me here in chains, but you need to let him go.”
Her pale face was assessing, scanning him over.
“You’re as bad as each other. Your doctor will not be mistreated. You can drop your shoulders from your ears.”
Orin did just that, he hadn’t realized he had been lifting them in apprehension at the mention of Aristotle. “I’m serious now. I’m just a hired hand. He’s a respectable Core scientist who wouldn’t look twice at a thug like me.”
Isolde smiled at that, a tiny little thing that curved her thin, pretty lips into a perfect bow. “Oh, I think he’s looked more than twice. Poor man’s besotted.”
Orin tried to keep the joy from his face, but it was like trying to cover the sun with a handwoven basket.
Isolde blew a raspberry at him in disgust. “A stolen ship, Orin? Really? I know you lost your last one over a technicality, but—”
Orin snorted derisively. “A technicality, she says. It was Enforcer bullshit, stomping on Verge rats just to watch us squirm.”
“—but I can’t believe you would make an attempt to jump the Verge in a stolen ship! Smuggling a Core citizen! Where was your head?”
Orin lifted his gaze resolutely over her head. “Ain’t stolen.”
Isolde sighed, rolling her lips in her teeth the way she only did when she was losing patience.
“Is he really that good? Smuggling pure gold in those trousers or something? It’s not like you to lose your head over a pretty face. They could put you away for this, you know. Your pretty little Core darling will get slapped with a fine and house arrest, but your giant Verge ass will get dumped in a hole, and you know it. So I’ll ask you again. He worth it?”
Orin dropped his voice to a growl, squaring his jaw. “Ain’t. Stolen.”
They both turned at the hiss of the door. Orin sat up in his chair at the sight of Aristotle clapped in mag-cuffs too big for his slender wrists, stumbling after Enforcer Azu who had his elbow in an iron grip.
In a practiced movement, Azu pushed Ari down onto the chair beside Orin and secured his cuffs to the table with a metallic snap.
Orin’s lips tried to twitch up as Ari sat with perfect posture, acting more like he was taking tea than enduring an interrogation.
Isolde had snapped back into her Enforcer face, blank and rigid in her chair as though she had never shown a hint of her former self.
Orin was as impressed as he was saddened to see it.
Enforcer Azu lifted an Enforcer-blue pad in his hands and passed it to Isolde silently. Her nose crinkled slightly as she read.
“The ship is registered to one Theo—Theoff—Theoffrass—”
Ari sighed deeply. “Theophrastus. Yes, I know.”
Orin enjoyed the novelty of being the more compliant detainee for once in his life as Isolde continued with a quelling glance in Ari’s direction.
“The ship is registered to one Theophrastus Campbell. Neither of whom are you.”
Aristotle clucked his tongue impatiently, causing Orin to goggle at him in disbelief. Ari leaned in toward Isolde, ignoring the bulk of his cuffed hands on the table between them. “Theophrastus is my brother. The ship is registered in his name, but I am listed as secondary.”
Isolde studied her pad.
“I don’t have your name here. Sharing a last name proves nothing to me; Campbell isn’t that uncommon.”
Ari actually rolled his eyes. Orin tried not to swallow his tongue in terrified glee. And here he thought the professor couldn’t get more attractive. If he kept on with this sassing of Enforcers, Orin was liable to get an indecency charge tacked on.
Ari attempted an impatient gesture, somehow managing to make the stilted movement of his cuffed hands appear elegant. “This is absurd. I demand that you pull up his ident and try to tell me he isn’t my brother.”
Orin knocked his knee against Ari’s leg, earning an irritated frown as if he wasn’t trying to save Ari’s narrow ass from himself.
Isolde glared at Aristotle but tapped on her pad, huffing irritably until she froze in her seat. She lifted her head to scan over Ari’s face.
“Damn.”
Orin snorted as she shook herself back into Enforcer blankness with a subtle nudge at Enforcer Azu as she handed him the pad. He looked down, back up at Ari’s face, then down again before tapping rapidly on the screen.
He kept his handsome face blank as he stared at Ari.
“Secondary registration. Aristotle Campbell.”
Orin swallowed a whoop, turning it into a cough at an unamused glare from the Enforcers.
Aristotle settled back into his perfect posture, lacing his fingers together on the table like he had been the one to call this meeting. One delicate red brow rose imperiously.