[She nods.] That's so, but lies aren't the only game you might be playing. You and I have no contract between us. [They have no need for one, but in Ari's society, contracts are the building block of society, and breaking them is considered exceptionally wrong. No contract meant no obligation to behave in any particular way.] Maybe there's more to this than I can see, but you're the first person who has had any real time for me here, it'd be equally unsound for me to quarrel with you. I'll take you at your word until I have a reason to do otherwise.

[Ari has perhaps more respect for rank than she should have, so it says something about her that she thought it was far more likely she'd shoot this captain than hug him. Hugs? Really?]

Have no fear of that. I'm not exactly the hugging type. I'm not a needy child. Now, when you say it doesn't work, do you mean that if I shot him, he'd wake up again the next day, just as you say everyone else does?