Page 57 of Guardian's Heart

"That's how much money Emperor Daryus is spending on four Space Guardians to free his humans," Nock explained.

"What is BC?"

"Billion Credits." Nock pulled out something similar to a laser pointer, only this had a green neon light. "See here? This is Zaarek's mission, one BC. And here is another Space Guardian, Tharaax." He whistled silently. "He’s already brought in some humans."

"Alright, but we already knew that the Ohrurs are getting paid by the Emperor," I objected.

"Exactly." With a triumphant swipe, he pulled up another screen identical to the first.

"I don't get it," I confessed, scrutinizing the numbers, which reminded me of an Excel spreadsheet, quite amazing, actually. And then it hit me. "They're different."

On the second screen Nock had pulled up was an additional column. "SPB?"

"Space Guardian Bonus," he said with a sneer. "This is what the Space Guardians see, and this is what the Ohrurs look at."

"Oh." A pang of sadness washed over me for Zaarek. I was sure Nock had done so intentionally as Zaarek's name was pulled up, showing two billion credits in his name. Now, that sounded like a lot, but I remembered from Earth that certain currencies had sounded astronomical to me, too, until I found out that one dollar was worth a thousand pesos in Argentina, for example.

"How many credits does it cost to buy… " I tried to think of something modest. "A pair of pants."

Nock blinked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"Humor me, please. I'm just trying to get a feel of how much a billion credits is."

"Oh, a pair of pants, nothing fancy, might cost you about twenty. A spaceship like this one, probably half a billion. Does that help?"

It did, and also made me curious, "And that one?" I pointed at the royal ship, the one he had been so in awe of earlier.

"That? Probably twenty."

I whistled lowly. "Wow."

"Yeah, can we concentrate again?"

"Sure." I continued my search, but my mind was too occupied with thousands of questions.

"So you hated Zaarek at first?" I asked a little while later.

Nock sighed loudly, not happy about the new interruption. "I thought he was a killer."

"Well, if I remember correctly, you said he was a judge and executioner and that criminals had certain rights, too." I brought up the earliest conversation I had overheard between the two.

He turned to me in surprise. "You were listening?"

"What can I say? I'm a genius at multitasking."

"I'm still kind of on the fence on that, but what Zaarek said about him having a sense for criminals." He shrugged. "It kind of made sense to me. I still think people deserve a trial, but I'm also not totally ignorant to know that some criminals get off on technicalities."

"So you were pulling his strings to get him talking?"

"Pulling what?"

Sometimes, I forgot that even with the magic of translators and the alien tech, some things I said didn't make sense to them. "You were egging him on."

His expression remained blank.Shit. "You were goad… ah, fuck…" My mind searched for the right words. "It’s when you keep pushing someone—teasing, provoking, or nudging them—until they say or do something they don’t really want to. Like poking at them just to see how far they’ll go."

Nock tilted his head. "Why would I poke someone with words?"

"It’s not literal," I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. Why did this have to be so complicated? "You were trying to get Zaarek to slip up, to say something he didn’t want to say. It’s like pushing buttons you know you shouldn’t press."

---