“No more so than with any of the other prisoners,” I replied.
“But you are very well acquainted with some of them,” he said rather pointedly, I thought. “Have you ever spoken with the man?”
“Yes, he has talked to me on several occasions.”
“About what?” demanded the captain.
“Principally about his grievances against the Thorists.”
“But he was a Thorist,” exclaimed the captain.
I knew that he was trying to pump me to discover if I harbored any suspicions concerning the actual status of Anoos, but he was not clever enough to succeed. “I certainly would never had suspected it from his conversation,” I replied. “If he were a Thorist, he must have been a traitor to his country, for he continually sought to enlist my interest in a plan to seize the ship and murder all her officers. I think he approached others, also.” I spoke in a tone loud enough to be heard by all, for I wanted the Soldiers of Liberty to take the cue from me. If enough of us told the same story it might convince the officers that Anoos’s tale of a conspiracy was hatched in his own brain and worked up by his own efforts in an attempt to reap commendation and reward from his superiors, a trick by no means foreign to the ethics of spies.
“Did he succeed in persuading any of the prisoners to join him?” asked the captain.
“I think not; they all laughed at him.”
“Have you any idea who murdered him?”