Salem's eyebrows shot up. Ewa's sudden change in demeanor had certainly caught him off guard. He eyed her exposed weapon warily. What was she getting at?
"Um... yeah. I guess. What are you..." he paused. She sounded a little like Al, when Al had been trying to show him how to properly talk like a cowboy. Salem hadn't really picked up on it. Was that it?
"You're just... jumping right on board with that, aren't you?" he said with a grin. "I think you make a better cowboy than I do. Although..." he noticed Jade crossing the room, and quickly clicked his persona scanner at her before stuffing it back in his pocket, "you might be right. No sense in rushing into a deal that might wind up bad all around. Gotta talk to him," he said, nodding towards Illim.
He pulled his communicator from his pocket and clicked something on the side. His "briefcase" of trading goodies, which had been flung under one of the tables when Van's ship had crashed, emitted a shrill beep.
"There you are," he exclaimed, walking over and stooping down to grab it. He then spun, walked up to the counter, set the case down, and sat next to Illim.
Salem jerked his thumb at Illim, "Put whatever he's having on my tab." The bartender merely looked in his direction for a moment. "So," Salem said to Illim, "is Corliss always... like that, or does he just act that way towards me?" He winked and grinned to show he was joking.
Al looked around, shrugged, and walked through the door of the bar, straightening his tie as he did so. He looked around. Salem was accosting the one Yeerk who seemed to accompany Corliss... typical. Al rolled his eyes. The guy could not stop working. There were a number of small conversations taking place... quite a few people he didn't know. He smiled and leaned against the doorframe. This place was definitely entertaining.
Aboard the Skimmer
The Malleon microbes had completed their growth cycle. They would now consume even less energy from the ship's power core- though they had a mission to accomplish. They were to see if they could find any trace of the communication encryption codes used by the Rebellion. Salem had also told them to copy down "anything else that looks interesting." Even though deciding what the human would find interesting was hit-and-miss for them, they were certainly willing to try.
They spread out, flowing from the ship's power core and into the rest of the systems. They began carefully, quietly sifting through the information they could find- the hull, the layout, the systems, and yes, what was stored within the computer. As they determined where the data was stored, more microbes moved to those areas, to improve the speed of their search. If they did their job right, they should go undetected, if they hadn't been seen yet. They had a job to do, and they were intent on doing it right.