"What do you all think he meant by that last remark?" Assad asked with a frown.
"Well... there are far too many possibilities. He might have meant that this Black Steward is someone famous, someone we've all heard of. Or perhaps..."
Victor left the sentence unfinished, merely glancing around instinctively.
Or perhaps... he's right here among us!
No one present was a fool. They quickly filled in the rest of Victor's sentence in their minds.
Even if he was not one of the dozen or so core councilors present, he had to be someone who appeared frequently in public, someone they all knew well.
The thought that such a spy might be lurking right beside them sent a chill down everyone's spine.
"Ahem! Of course, this could just be a smokescreen he deliberately threw out to distract us and better conceal himself."
Realizing that his remark had shaken everyone's confidence, Victor coughed and added that clarification.
"Hmm! Let's set aside the question of his true identity for now. We are cooperating at the moment, after all, and we're the weaker party. There's no need to provoke him at a time like this.
"The greatest threat to our civilization right now is the Locke Conglomerate!" After a moment's thought, Kruze set the tone for the matter.
"Then are we really going to accept his terms and hand over the Vector Engine?" Victor asked reluctantly.
"If he really can fulfill the first two conditions he promised, handing over the Vector Engine may not be a losing deal for us.
"It may be precious, but since we cannot study the advanced technology within it, its usefulness to us remains limited."
"But what if he's feeding us false intelligence? The Locke Conglomerate and the All Things Unity Society are just a tiger and a