No, no, no, donâ€™t go in there! he wanted to protest. That was<span style="font-weight: bold">his </span>in a way that nothing else was. Quen considered the ship more of a home than anywhere else. Not a surprise if one knew that he hadnâ€™t elected to move out of the Corps housing. Why? He hardly spent any time there.<br/><br/>The walls were the same grey bulkhead as the rest of the ship, but heâ€™d stuck something rare to them. Paper. One was entirely plastered with handwritten letters â€“ a little childhood eccentricity between him and his twin sister â€“ in swooping, girlish handwriting, all with the same name attached to the bottom; Isa Giann-Banks.<br/><br/>Another had printouts of equations and mathematical models, right alongside expertly done sketches and crackling watercolors.<br/><br/>In an otherwise empty space on one wall, there was a painting of a nebula done in watercolor and colored pencil. Alongside it was a picture of two children, a girl and a boy, nearly identical â€“ both with the same grayish silver hair, both with the same pale grey-blue gaze, both with the same smiles of expectant joy, and both already tall enough to be mistaken for older than they had really been. Behind them were two women, a mother and daughter who looked to have been blessed by the sun and a planetâ€™s surface for most of their lives. The younger one was almost plain, except she smiled and it was beautiful. And with an arm around her waist, was a stern looking man, who had chosen just that moment to look at something and turn his face away from the camera.<br/><br/>There was a stuffed pink Ydephan tundra lizard in the middle of his bed, another of those things Isa sent to his home, to wait for him until heâ€™d gotten back. And if Zilah had thought, even for a moment, that the bed she was provided with might be some cruel punishment for being arrested, she was wrong. His was no better. The only amenity he had over the cell was a shower.<br/><br/>Her presence was so obviously incongruous to the surroundings; it immediately struck him that this had been a bad idea. Now he was too deep into it to back out. Heâ€™d told her that he would play chess with her and he said that he wouldnâ€™t put her in cuffs again. It was one thing to lie, another entirely to make a liar out of himself after the fact.<br/><br/>Stiffly, he deposited the bloody clothes into the shower stall. Then he retrieved his board, set it in front of her, and reset the game heâ€™d been in the middle of with the chimp. It had to be resynched for two human players in the same room. â€œWhere did you learn to play?â€ he had to ask her, making his first move. â€œNot many people do.â€ And, well, if he was going to make such bad decisions, he should start asking her questions, right? Start with something easy, and see if he couldnâ€™t get something useful out of her.<br/><br/>It might save him from being demoted, transferred, or discharged entirely if he could. If someone checked the chimpâ€™s logs, which happened from time to time and was bound to this time.