Note: And now for the other angle.

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From farther down the corridor, Dr. Barlow watches the perspicacious loris leap nimbly from Aleksandar's shoulder to that of Midshipman Sharp as the two children exchange brief words. Alek continues on towards the engines; Mr. Sharp stays where he is, and the loris stays with him – to all visible evidence, perfectly content to be separated from the prince.

Dr. Barlow makes a note in her observation log and sighs. Her own loris is perching on Tazza's back, much to the thylacine's long-suffering dismay.

"Good afternoon, Doctor," a voice says behind her. She smiles, but is careful to mask it before she turns.

"Good afternoon, Count," she says. "How nice to see you out and about."

"Yes," Count Volger says drily. "I have so many places to go now."

"I'll confess, the only place I want to be at the moment is the London Zoo," she says, closing the observation log and choosing to ignore the thorns in his words. "With my equipment and all of my research to hand."

The count chooses to appear mildly surprised. "I thought you considered your experiment a success."

"This one is," she says, extending her arm to the loris. It scurries up her arm and curls around her neck, making a sound exactly like Tazza does when his stomach is full and his bed is soft. " 'Bovril', on the other hand, needs rather more study, and under properly controlled conditions."

The count glances down at the loris around her neck, then at Bovril, clutching the front of Mr. Sharp's jacket despite the boy's chagrined attempts to relocate it elsewhere on his person. "Forgive my ignorance. Is it not simply defective?"

"No," she says, not fooled by his claims of ignorance: he's a quick study when he so chooses. "And that's precisely what's so frustrating. If it had been damaged ab ovo, I would expect to see a wide variety of erratic behaviors. That is not proving to be the case. In several days' worth of observations I've only detected two 'quirks', as it were."

"May I?" Count Volger asks, raising his hand to the level of her shoulder.

"Of course," she says. He reaches out to the loris and rubs behind the small, rounded ears. As he does so, the back of his hand brushes lightly along the edge of her jaw.

"Success," the loris says.

Volger, who does not like to interact with fabricated animals, smiles and withdraws his hand. "Two quirks, you said?"

"Firstly, it should not have bonded with Mr. Sharp," Dr. Barlow says. She lets some of her vexation with the malfunctioning creature show in her voice: "I did allow for additional bonding under certain specific conditions. Your prince and Mr. Sharp are close friends, but the design calls for a degree of intimacy far beyond that."

"Mr. Sharp," the loris on her shoulder says, with great satisfaction.

"That would be the second quirk," she says, with a sigh.

"I see." The count smiles again – this time, to himself.

Dr. Barlow is not pleased to see him amused at her expense. She weighs the benefits of making him aware of that and decides against it. Nothing, after all, is always a clever thing to say.

Instead, she fixes once more on the problem at hand. "Again, I would expect to see a more widespread pattern of errors. It seems clear that Bovril's fixation on that particular phrase must somehow be related to the misplaced bonding…"

Her voice fades, but she's hardly aware of it. The two quirks are significant, and the connection between them lies tantalizingly on the fringes of her understanding. Amorphous and vague yet, she knows it has something to do with the young midshipman…

She stares at the boy without fully seeing him, running through a cerebral version of her observation log. He has secrets, does their Mr. Sharp, and one of them will solve her mystery.

Something

The count jolts her from her thoughts by saying, "I suspect, Doctor, that you will uncover the truth in due time."

"I have no doubt of that," she says – a touch too brusquely. The even more short-tempered Faster if you would stop interrupting me remains unspoken. Clever as always. She schools herself and gives Count Volger her most diplomatic smile. "But I can only be boring you, Count, with these details."

He inclines his head. "Not at all. However, I will leave you to your work. If you will excuse me -?"

"Of course," she says.

"Excuse me," the loris says, sitting up attentively on her shoulder.

Volger smiles and reaches out to touch the creature again, this time missing it rather completely. His fingers are callused against her skin, and quite warm, and they linger there for a moment longer than can be attributed to error.

And for a moment, all thoughts of the loris' troubling defects are driven straight from her mind.

That, she is sure, is no mistake.