Everything the Keeper of Secrets Saw

Ted Riel sat in the research station's cabin, wrapped in a thick blanket. Someone handed him a cup of tea still hot to the touch. Holding the cup, he looked up and said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Alice replied earnestly, then began curiously examining the Keeper of Secrets who had just been fished out of the sea. After quite a while, she turned to Duncan beside her. "Captain, Mr. Ted doesn't look like he's in a very good mood!"

"I fell into the sea—twice!" Ted looked up at Duncan, who stood nearby, and shuddered instinctively halfway through speaking. Physical cold was no concern to a saint; this shiver was more like one brought on by the chill of fate itself. "The first time, I fell out of Subspace. The second time, I was thrown out by a pigeon!"

He shuddered again, then turned and glared resentfully at the plump white pigeon strutting across the floor with its chest puffed out. The bird scraped its beak against the floor, cocked its head, watched the window with one eye and Ted with the other, then flapped its wings. "What're you looking at?"

"You must have offended Ai," Duncan's calm, unhurried voice came from nearby. "It usually doesn't throw passengers into the sea."

"Couldn't it just be that your pigeon is naturally cruel?" Ted glared, looking thoroughly indignant. "It even mocked me when it threw me down. Everyone here heard it..."

"That's impossible. Ai is a peace pigeon," Duncan immediately said, waving a hand and pointing at Ai, who was wandering about. "Look, it's white."

Ted froze at those words, completely unable to keep up with Duncan's train of thought—he had never even heard what a peace pigeon was...

But Duncan was already used to nobody catching the jokes he tossed out casually.