The sound of Hawk struggling against the ropes caused Aries to glance sharply over his shoulder. He stared at Hawk for a moment, and Kei, wiping his hands on a rag, followed his gaze.

"What?" he asked, and wrinkled his nose. "He spook ya?"

"I don't like him," Aries said, and moved towards Hawk, running one bare finger over the blade of his knife. "Something's wrong about him."

"Ah, he ain't shit," Kei said dismissively.

"Any guess on what he is?" Aries stopped a foot away from Hawk, who struggled to turn his head enough to see Aries's face.

"Something six-limbed, who fucking knows," Kei replied. "He came in a lot from Genovese Isle's gov'ment raiders, ya see. And them humans couldn't identify dog shit if it was stuck ta their shoes."

Aries crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet, and peered at Hawk.

"He was the only one I couldn't git ta sell," Kei went on. "Ann'en, I try to feed 'im to a manicore to show off for a buyer, but he goes and kills da thing with its own fuckin' stinger. Kinda embarassin'."

Aries glared at Hawk silently, as though trying to work him out. Hawk returned his gaze, but wasn't looking quite at him--there was something wrong with his eyes. Aries's irises were sea-glass green and he had narrow slit pupils, but the closer Hawk looked, the more this seemed to shift around as though going out of focus, leaving little lines of neon colors at the edges. The hissing noise was back as well, but this time it seemed to be coming from behind Aries's eyes. As Hawk stared, minute tendrils of blackness emerged from Aries's socket around his eyeball and through his pupil, as though leaking through from within.