Veral chuffed quietly at the formal address, his eyes turned toward the towering compound behind him. Something still unsettled him, and it seemed to lurk even closer at the Farhal’s pronouncement. The compound itself seemed too much like a crouched predator threatening his mate. He was uncertain how much of that was a fantasy derived from the organic part of his mind, and how much of it was a reasonable conclusion reached by his processors. It was disturbingly difficult to tell.
“I do not require such ceremony. I am interested in what probability you have witnessed in which crimes were perpetrated from within a unit rather than from an outside source?”
Vazan worked his jaw thoughtfully.
“On Argurumal, I can honestly say less than ten percent of the murder cases involve close relations and trusted individuals. It is rare among Argurma, especially with your allegiance to your maternal lines and kin, but it does occasionally manifest in terms of disagreements—typically in regard to station and inheritance on rare occasion.”
He slanted Veral a cautious look.
“I had suspected a possible attack orchestrated by Featha, but there is nothing I can see to implicate her. All of her actions since you have taken position of Ahanvala have been typical of her normal activity. There have been no documented outbound messages from the Monushava compound at all over the last half lunar. But you know your kin better than I. Should you be concerned?”
Veral’s vibrissae swelled and flattened for a moment, the soft hiss of their writhing lengths betraying his current unease as well as his uncertainty. He did not care to share information about himself, but he required the male’s insights from the outside advantage.
“I have been occupied elsewhere far from Argurumal until recently. I have few close connections with many of my mother-kin. My only certainty comes from my programming. The line and my mother-kin are held above myself. This is what we are all programmed with, to consider our line and household first. To break this programming would require extraordinary circumstances to necessitate it.”
The guard nodded thoughtfully.
“So you would say it is unlikely that a murder would be planned casually by any one of your kin.”
“The probability of such occurring is low, below 2.68 percent without a considerable incentive worth the personal cost of breaking one’s programming.”
The Farhal cocked his head as he gave Veral a curious look.
“And what would happen if you broke your programming?”
Veral lifted a hand in helpless surrender, uncertain of how to describe what he innately knew through his programming.
“There would be considerable pain and a fragmenting of the mind as the processor attempts to rearrange the codes of our programming. They would have to consider it a significant necessity to their own survival and welfare to risk it.”
“Does anyone within your household strike you as such?”
Veral considered his kin, and while there were those who were secretive, he could not logically ascertain anyone who would fit the model. He met the guard’s eyes and hissed with quiet frustration between his teeth.
“No. Not one fulfills the criteria.”
Vazan nodded as he wound a sheer scarf over his lower face. “Then we are in agreement. Accidents and the reckless behavior of those outside your environment cannot be helped. I would not be concerned. If you learn of anything more, please comm the guard barracks and ask for me.”
Veral did not reply as the male faced away and stepped out into the building winds. There was a sandstorm pushing in, as earlier reports had already informed him, but still he remained there at the door, his protective lids covering his eyes as he thoughtfully watched the guard board his flyer and depart.
He expelled a hard breath and started to turn back into the compound when his comm went off, flashing red in an emergency communication. Veral accepted the transmission as he strode indoors, cutting through the courtyard in his haste as he once did covertly with Terri when they first arrived. Now it was worry rather than caution that propelled him.
“Speak,” he growled into the connection.
“Ahanvala!” a male shouted into his comm to be heard over the loud sounds of chaos erupting in the background. “Report at once to the training yard, the battlements room.”
Veral frowned and redirected his trajectory. “I am coming. I will arrive in 5.7 minutes. State the emergency.”
“A battle-class target droid is malfunctioning and is locked in combat mode. It has already dealt injury to your mate and despite our advances against it I estimate…”
Rage roared through Veral, and his mandibles widened as he released it in a vicious bellow, his mind blanking for several heartbeats before his processors kicked in against the overwhelming emotion. As awareness returned, it was to the observation that he was running at full speed through the corridors en route to the training yard. The battlements room was a padded room that should have been the safest place in the entire facility for his mate to spar with droids as she had done onboard their ship—and yet he now faced the real possibility of his female in danger of dying there.
Without slowing his ground-devouring pace, Veral sprinted, the heavy thump of his feet preceding him, alerting everyone in his path to his approach. A bitterness filled his mouth as his worry spiked until his entire existence became centered on that one thing alone.
His mate.
His Terri.
He would not fail his anastha. He would not fail his offspring.