In Enemy Hands by K.S. Augustin Page A

would ever take the second and actually start trusting again.
    “That success is assured, would be a good start.”
    “All right.” She tilted her head at him. “Success is assured.”
    “You’re just saying that.”
    His words were light but even Moon could see to his underlying tension. Her expression sobered.
    “If it wasn’t for Srin’s help, I couldn’t have got as far along in my work. I would have needed another month at least, just to get to this point.”
    “Is he that good?” Was there a thread of jealousy in his voice? No, she must be mistaken. Or maybe it was professional jealousy, from one competent man to another, both of them superbly equipped for their work. Except one of those men was also mentally crippled.
    “Yes, he’s that good.” She hesitated. “You know what they’ve done to him, don’t you?”
    It was the first time she broached the subject of Srin’s drugging with the Differential ’s captain, and she was a little afraid that he would be offended by her remark and stop their dinners. So she had held her tongue, but felt she couldn’t do so any longer.
    Drue looked at her evenly. “Don’t you mean what we’ve done to him?”
    “We?” She frowned. How could he accuse her of complicity in such a crime when she hadn’t even met Srin before? Hadn’t even imagined that someone like him existed?
    “You’re part of the Republic, aren’t you, Moon?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “And, with the exception of your detention, weren’t you a happy member of the Republic?”
    “Yes. I suppose.”
    “Did you ever wonder about people like Srin? Or the shapeshifters we seem so bent on eradicating? Or the humans we leave on Bliss?”
    “I….” She paused. Of course she had been deathly afraid that the Republic might send her to the notorious prison planet—a place full of hardened criminals and shapeshifters. The one place in the galaxy that no living being ever left. But she hadn’t thought beyond that, to what a lifelong incarceration on Bliss meant to its inhabitants. Or why a Space Fleet captain, of all people, should care? She searched his features but saw nothing beyond polite enquiry. If Drue Jeen had any skeletons in his closet, they weren’t about to make an appearance at this meal.
    “As a scientist, I subscribe to a number of nets,” she began, conversationally. “Even when I was finally moved to the halfway house, I used to use whatever spare time I was given to catch up on what was happening in the science world, and what projects the Directorate was funding. And, every year, I’d get surprised. Not by the projects, but the breakthroughs. It would seem that an avenue of research was stagnant, and then it would suddenly get going again. The way mine has after Srin started working with me.”
    “You hadn’t heard about him before this?”
    She shook her head. “No, not a clue.” She paused. “I suppose what I’m trying to say, Drue, is that I understand what you’re trying to say, but we don’t have very much free will in any of this. Let’s take Srin as an example. I hate what’s being done to him, but what are the alternatives? Stop working? That hurts you as well as me.”
    Moon didn’t need to see the grimace on Drue’s face to know that he had been following similar lines of thought.
    “If neither of us has an answer, Moon,” he asked, “why mention Turk in the first place?”
    Now that was a good question. There were certainly smarter things to discuss than a man who had been drugged for two decades and the minder who dogged his steps.
    “Maybe it’s because I needed to know that it’s not bad to feel revulsion for what’s been done to him.” It hadn’t always been so, but the past year in particular had not been a comfortable time for her. She felt unbalanced, out of phase, as if she was seeing things through a different lens than the rest of the galaxy. As if everyone else could see some logic to actions that she considered distasteful. “Hen