Page 73

“No.”

“Never registered for matching?”

“Never.”

I stared at the dead record on the screen. “Then why would Sera’n have your identifier in a reproductive comparison set?”

Veyr’s attention returned to the blank display. “I do not know.”

He sounded different.

Not frightened.

Veyr did not seem built for that.

But unsettled.

I had finally found something he couldn’t file into a neat compartment.

Good.

Maybe now he understood how I felt.

A soft tone sounded from the wall terminal.

Veyr’s head snapped toward it.

I froze.

The tone sounded again, different from the ordinary system chimes. Lower. It seemed to come from everywhere in the sealed room at once.

His hand went immediately to his weapon.

“What is that?” I asked.

He crossed the room and opened the status panel. A line of Zunatorian appeared. Then another.

His face changed.

“What?”

He shut down the table display. “Pack your things.”

I stared at him. “I just unpacked nothing.”

“Talia.”

“What happened?”

He looked toward the corridor. “Someone pinged the site.”

My skin went cold. “I thought no one knew we were here.”

“They should not.”

“That sentence is becoming very popular today.”

He pulled a weapon from the wall cabinet and checked the charge.