"You could have dropped in, I can't imagine you'd give this embassy more of a heart attack than Linyabel gave the one on Earth."

"I didn't actually know you were on the planet. I haven't been here long. By the way, in case your captain has ambitions of holding me against my will, you should know that while I would not kill you to escape somewhere I didn't want to be, the same may not hold for anyone else trying to keep me there."

"Yes," he says. "Fewer people will get killed that way. An improvement over the alternative, don't you think?"

"Well, yes. But I know full well you're not unwilling to stun me, which is no fun."

"I'm not currently armed, if that helps."

"It really, really doesn't."

"Captain's probably going to want a list of things that make you uncomfortable besides 'having a roommate who isn't me'."

"It will go best if no one who isn't you tries to interact with me at all."

"Well, that's easy, I s'pose."

"Can't argue with simplicity."

"Mm-hm." Turn, turn, stroll, stroll.

"Alive. Unhappy. And yourself? How is... mm, I'm going to guess that cat hair on your sleeve arrived by means of a local girlfriend. That establishes a lower bound for how well your love life can be going."

"We're not using the 'girlfriend' label yet." Ivan brushes at his sleeve. "I've been all right. Usually it's quiet here, not so many used groundcar salesman murders."

"If only that trend could have continued."

"Yeah. Are you unhappy about things or just sort of constitutionally?"

"A little of one, a little of the other. You probably won't be surprised to learn that I have trouble making friends."

"Well, if you don't want to interact with anybody except me while I'm around to be interacted with I don't think I can help you."

"It would not go well if I tried to make friends with someone today. It never goes well, but it would go worse."

"You're in an especially bad mood?"

"Yes. While I'm on the subject: it's a bad idea to startle me. In general, but particularly now."