He reports back in a bit, having questioned some of the more pliable women here, the sort with enough personal experience of him to have trouble directly looking him in the eye.  "Allegedly, Marina is off in one of the side chambers.  My guess is that it's not a trap."

"I think it makes sense for you to make the introduction. Would you help me find her? Up to you if you stay after that or not."

"My own estimate is that I should be around to smooth over cultural gaps, or possibly watch you flounder while taking mental notes and making inferences, depending on the circumstances."

"Cool. Uh, thanks."

Well, she didn't kill him that time.  They are building so much trust right now!

The side-chamber of the restaurant is rather obscure; it requires finding at least two doors that, while not quite hidden, sure look like part of the wall until you spot the handle.

It does have a rather nice view.

He points Opalyn over to one particular table (containing a woman noticeably better-dressed than the one sitting right by a viewport), and then falls into step behind her.  Not, yet, in the position of an overt subordinate, but Opalyn is a (supposed) Duchess and he is not.

He does still speak first, once they've reached the table.  "High Countess.  I introduce to you the Duchess Opalyn; she is of a remote planet with unusual opinions about operational efficiency, and I thought she might appreciate your company more than that of some others."

"Oh?  How intriguing.  I'm always interested in meeting someone who has formed any opinions about operational efficiency at all, really."

"Hello and pleased to meet you. I just arrived two days ago and I'm looking to find friends and teammates. I hear that you have many promising qualities, so I'm hoping to get to know you a bit better. Even if we don't end up working closely together, it's good to have connections!"

"If you don't mind my asking, how long have you been here, what's working well for you, and what do you wish were different?"

"Oh, most recently?  About 13 months, maybe.  I like the frequent emergencies and dislike that the emergencies are stupid."

"What kinds of emergencies do they have here and what makes them stupid?"

"Well, if a Grand Duke previously allied with my Duchess's Grand suddenly decides he hates her, and this requires twenty of our Barons to suddenly run out and try to reforge forty alliances, I like the time pressure, the sense that there are real consequences, and the fact that I get to use at least some of my skills.  I dislike the fact that the inciting incident is a lover's spat.  I'd rather it be about a hundred other planets and Princes banding together into a raid to loot Capital."

This one vignette has made a lot of things click in Opalyn's brain. This place might be starting to make sense? Maybe? Best not to get overconfident.

"How do you wrangle reforging forty alliances? That's a lot of rapidly changing information to organize. My understanding is that there's no easy way to write things down here in prison. Do you have a very good memory, or have you found a way to get pen and paper?"

"Any flat surface and any liquid are paper and pen in an emergency."

Opalyn hopes she doesn't mean blood, but she might mean blood.

"Do you really want to loot Capital? Like, does it deserve to be looted, or is it just Rich and also Right There?"

"Neither, I just like jobs with time pressure, lots of things happening, interesting problems, and real stakes.  I'm happy on any side of any space battle, I just wish they were allowed to be larger."

"If, hypothetically speaking, you were going to be in a huge high-stakes space battle, or were going to try to take over the Capital planet, or really anything of that kind of magnitude, what kinds of resources do you most need to be successful with that?"

This is a very open ended question. Opalyn wants to see what Marina does with it.

"If the Dread Emperor announced tomorrow that his edicts of dreadful boring peace were repealed?  Why, I expect that the first requisites would be Princes, starships, and experienced commanders of smaller battles.  Whichever side obtained my services would set me to obtaining those somehow, and I would need riches, assassins, security breakers, or good blackmail material as the cases might be."

"Edicts of dreadful boring peace?" This sounds intriguing.

Opalyn also wants to ask about Marina's current stock of riches, assassins, security breakers, and blackmail material, but it seems a tad premature. She'll save it for the second conversation.

"Well, I'm not in favor of them.  I think it's been bad for all of Eldrida, actually.  So many planets and Princes would behave so very differently if they lived under a more natural state of affairs, where strength was allowed to conquer as it could and inefficiency led swiftly into annihilation."

This job interview certainly is illuminating! Marina is more open about her sociopathy than most people on Earth would be; maybe it's more common here, or maybe Marina is powerful enough that she's generally just gotten away with it.

Does Opalyn want to hire her? Unclear. Seems like she might turn on you at any moment.

"What does it take for someone to earn your loyalty?"

"Why, loyalty is my default, if I take a job at all.  You just need to not lose it."

"You're new-come to prison, I can tell.  What brought you here, what do you plan to make of it, and why does Iilasir not look bored around you?"

"You have been putting up with many of my nosy questions and I agree that it's time I answered some of yours! If you'll allow me one last one, what are the ways people typically lose your loyalty?"

"Granting me insufficient latitude to fix whatever mistakes of theirs they've set me to fix.  Screwing things up further while I'm in the middle of fixing them.  Trying to fuck me figuratively or literally."

"Your turn."

"Noted! If we end up working together I will do my best not to cross you in those ways, and I hope you'll tell me if I'm messing it up!"

"As for me, I've been here two days. I come from a very remote planet, as Iilasir said, and I ended up here through a stroke of incredibly bad luck. You can probably tell by my accent that I'm unaccustomed to the way things are done here, close to the Capital. I haven't decided yet what I want to do with myself from here. Some people seem quite content here in the prison, but I suspect it will be too restrictive for me, unless I can find good ways around the various limitations they place on inmates. I might take an offer, or I might just overthrow the place."

Opalyn deadpans the last bit, and hopes that it will come through translation as she intended it: as truth layered with joke layered with truth, and no one quite sure if the bottom layer is joke or truth.

"As for Iilasir, you'd have to ask him yourself."