for mild anxiety, typical to any job applicant. She had too much discipline to let any emotion seep through.
She shouldn't have been this unsettled. First the anxiety from the landing, then tests, the echoes of PPP still humming through her skull, and now the realization that she stood out after a lifetime of being told how important it was to perfectly fit in. She attracted too much attention. All those factors shredded her normal poise to tatters. It's the sensory overload, she told herself. It will be fine. She had over eight hundred combat missions behind her. This was just one more.
Claire slid a stylus from its holder on the side of the tablet and scanned the tests. A written and mathematical proficiency, a psychological questionnaire, and a card test. The virtual deck contained fifty-two cards in two sets, one red, one black. Each card bore a single symbol: a circle, a triangle, a diamond, or a long narrow rectangle. The program dealt cards face down and the user had to indicate color and shape. It was the simplest of psychic tests.
She had to make sure she failed it.
"Shannon," the woman called.
Claire stood up and crossed the now empty hall to the woman in red. She was the last applicant of the day. Her chances of being hired had shrunk to miniscule.
"My name is Lienne," the woman informed her. "Follow me."
They crossed through another dark hall. Claire braced herself. Whoever waited for her would scour her mind. Her shields had to hold.
They entered a large room. To the left, a floor to ceiling window showed the view of the diagrid envelope, the light streaming through the solar panels now the deep honey of late afternoon. Three plush crescent-shaped couches formed a ring in the middle of the room with a cream-colored coffee table made of reflective plasti-glass in the center. Further, a crescent desk of the same material curved from the wall, on which a large screen hung, streaming some sort of data. A tall blond man stood with his back to her. He turned at their approach and Claire almost stumbled.
He had a strong, masculine face, with a square clean-shaven jaw. On Uley, blond people had a washed out, sickly look, their skin too white, their hair verging on transparent. His skin was flawless bronze, his hair a pale, almost white gold. His broad shoulders strained the fabric of his tailored light-grey summer doublet, the outline of muscle on his chest and arms plainly visible under the thin fabric. Everything about him, from the way he turned, graceful and perfectly balanced, to the way he held himself now, communicated health, strength, and power. He was sun-kissed, golden, overwhelming.
His dark green eyes focused on her, reflecting a sharp, perceptive intellect. The eyes of a man who could be either very generous or completely ruthless. The man smiled, at once charming and reassuring, and she felt the power of his mind. It was like a typhoon held back, enclosed in a self-imposed cage.
It was too much. Every coping mechanism that had let her make it this far collapsed. She stared with no idea how to respond.
He was larger than life.
Lienne cleared her throat.
The sound shattered her trance. Claire closed her mouth.
"You're Claire," the man said, his voice resonant, communicating strength as much as his body did.
"Yes?" she answered, reeling from the shock.
"My name is Venturo Escana," he said.
The Escana kinsman family, a distant part of her mind informed her. They owned Guardian, Inc., and Venturo Escana led the family. She was facing the god of this beautiful building.
"This is my aunt, Lienne Escana; she is my second in command. Please sit down," he invited her to the couch.
She sat on autopilot, smoothing her skirt over her legs. She felt so out of place here, in this office. Venturo sat across from her. Lienne sat on the same couch as he, leaving several feet between them.
"You're a refugee," he said.
She couldn't sit there, mute, and simply stare. Claire forced herself to formulate words. "Yes."
"As I understand, our planet made an arrangement with your home world. We agreed to accept a certain number of refugees in return for the use of Uley's interstellar bases as refuel points. I understand your home world made these arrangements with a number of other planets."
"That's correct," she said. He was keeping his mind firmly away from hers. It was an exquisitely polite gesture. She had expected him to batter her the moment she entered the room.
"It must've