Zeryn took a sip at the Pilgrim's coffee from the bar. The bittersweet warmth went down her throat like liquid gold, carrying an easing and comfort she desperately needed to feel right then.
The turbolift to the cargo room came up and Londo stepped into the common room. One glance at Zeryn and he drew his gun at her.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Zeryn raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously, Londo? It's me, Zeryn."
Londo waited a bit until he dropped his gun.
"Who else could it be? Is there someone else in here with you?"
Londo sighed.
"Right… of course… it's just that… why did you shift into this appearance?"
Zeryn must really have been unrecognizable to him. Her blond curly hair went down her elbows like a sunny cascade, and her aquiline face would seem a bit intimidating at first. If Londo thought for a second about it, though, he would surely have known it was her. They were, after all, in hyperspace, and no one could have come aboard the ship since they stopped to remove the tracker.
"I need the practice." Zeryn answered.
"What you need is rest. Did you not hear the Pilgrim's recommendations?"
Zeryn turned to her coffee once again.
"I couldn't sit still in that bed for another minute. And besides, we clawdites have to shift now and then, otherwise we start to lose our ability to change shape."
Londo sat beside her at the bar.
"But you are still healing. It must hurt to move around."
Zeryn half-smiled as she answered.
"Oh, it hurts. It does hurt a lot. I feel my bones pricking at me from the inside like they were poking melting pins trough my nerves. It's agonizing."
"Really? You don't seem at all in agony."
Zeryn turned to face him.
"I'm not sure you are aware of this, but shapeshifting is a very painful experience for us, clawdites. We have to command our muscles, nerves, tendons and cartilages to move about, and they complain… all the way. Shifting is always painful, Londo. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it always is. Much of our training on shapeshifting has to do with learning to endure pain, and I learned to endure massive amounts of it. I savor it. I use the discomfort to keep alert and aware. So I accept the pain, I make it mine. It's actually quite soothing after a time, there is a therapeutic aspect in taking in this much pain. So, don't be fooled if I speak calmly about his. I am in pain. I feel it entirely. I'm only more used to it than most."
Londo leaned back.
"Alright, then… very well. Anyway, you might want to change back to the previous face you were using, though."
Zeryn spoke as ironic as she could.
"You mean control manager Dryanna Varn? Why? Do you miss her slightly crooked nose?"
That seemed to have made Londo more surprised than she expected, because he straightened in his chair and change his voice to a deeper tone.
"Oh, no, no… it's just that… It might be good for you to be wearing a familiar face when we find Ean."
"Oh, right."
One of those awkward moments of silence followed, where nobody really knows what to say even though they all want to say something. At least, it seemed that way to Zeryn, because when they did speak again, they did it at the same time.
"I want to ask you something." Zeryn said.
"I have something to tell you." Londo said.
Zeryn motioned for Londo to go on, but he was too quick to reply.
"No, please, you go first."
"Alright." She sipped the last of the coffee. "Why did you saved me, Londo? In the cruiser?"
Londo raised an eyebrow like the answer was over-obvious.
"What, you think I should have left you there?"
"I think you could have, yes."
"And go away?"
"Well, what did you have to lose? You had an out. You could leave the cruiser and never go back."
Londo stared at Zeryn for a while before replying.
"I'm not sure I could. The Corsair has proven to be very, very capable, and I do think she could find me wherever I went. But… I don't know, Zeryn, it wasn't an analytical decision, you know? I didn't make a list of pros and cons and weighted them and came to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to save you. I just… I can't explain it. I would just not leave you behind. Especially not to that insane jedi."
Zeryn said with a half-smile.
"Well, you did save my life, and that is something I won't soon forget."
Londo nodded.
"Right. Good. I appreciate you telling me this, because, well, I've got something not so good to tell you."
Londo inhaled deeply. When he seemed about to start talking, he instead got up, walked to the bar and served himself a generous portion of some distilled drink smelling of mint and grapes. Only after the first gulp did he sit down again and spat out.
"I did not meet Ean by chance."
Zeryn frowned.
"What?"
"When Ean came to me in Nar-Shaddaa's spaceport, that was no chance encounter. I was hired to be there and wait for him."
Zeryn crossed her arms and raised her chin. She was not going to like this at all. Londo went on.
"I was hired by an individual whose alias is The Watcher. As far as I know, he is some sort of multibillionaire who has a sizable droid army at his disposal. The droids that were after Ean are his. He hired me to be in dock twenty-one and wait for an arkanian boy who passed by. I was to take him wherever he wanted to go, and then inform the Watcher of our location so he could come retrieve him. I think I was his plan B. If his army failed to capture Ean, he had me waiting for him."
Zeryn suddenly got up and paced the room, fighting the urge to punch Londo in the face, or to shoot him in the head. He worked for the same people who experimented on Ean all this time, and only now he told her this? She trusted him. She fought by his side, and all the while he was colluding with the enemy.
Only, not really… he was coming clean, after all. Zeryn slowed her pace and turned at him. She refrained from speaking the first thing that came to her mind, just to see how the story would unfold.
"What did he offer you…" She asked as slowly as possible, "That can topple the Corsair's offer of ten million?"
"My freedom. Mine and Pilgrim's"
Zeryn sat down again.
"Explain."
Londo looked up for a while, took another gulp before going on.
"I was a senior starship designer working on a top secret project for the CorpSec near Duroon. We were trying to create a starship capable of faster hyperspace calculations, and for that, the project was trying to harness the ingenuity of a free-thinking sentience into this process. The Pilgrim was their seventh prototype. One day I found out that she was more than just an emulation of intelligence; she was, in fact, an individual. The lead designers were meddling with artificial sentience. The Pilgrim endured many tests and experiments, and one day, when I was talking to her, she begged me to free her. She was really afraid you see… So… after a little planning, I did just that. And we have been on the run from the CorpSec ever since."
Zeryn pressed against her temples, once again controlling herself, because otherwise she would beat the crap out of Londo. Why was she that mad at him anyway? He was a vulnerable guy, with everything to lose, who was manipulated into this game, and in spite of that he chose to trust her with this secret. Yet, Zeryn could not shake the rage away. He lied to her. To her. She is the queen of lies, and yet she bought into his good-guy act all the way through. She was mad at herself, for sure, for opening up to him.
"I am telling you this because…"
"I know why you are telling me this!" She snapped. She also lied. She had no idea why he chose to tell her this right then, when he could easily have kept this all secret, but if he gave her one more "for the right thing" speech, she would lose whatever control she had right then.
She got up slowly, placed her hands on the table and stared at him for the longest time. He met her gaze unflinching.
"Alright, Londo. It's good that you saved my life. Really good. That's what's keeping you alive right now. Here's what we are going to do. We finish this job, we go our separate ways, and we never see each other again. Understood?"
Londo's expression changed, quickly, from sorry to annoyed to hard outrage. What did he expect after all? That Zeryn would be so touched by his sad story that she would hug him and tuck him to bed saying "it's all right?" It's not alright. Her one companion in this contract was a guy who secretly worked for the enemy and kept this from her for many, many days. There was no way she would forget this, much less forgive.
He was smart. That he was. He decided to tell her this after she professed owing her life to him. The manipulative bastard. Zeryn even had to admire him for that, but from now on, she would sleep with a blaster in her hand, safety off, set to kill.