Ford tilted his head slightly at her request. "If you want me to do that, I'll need some proof you're not deranged," he replied. It was said as a joke, and his tone and body language made that clear, but there was a kernel of truth in it. Not that he'd seen anything objectionable from her so far, but one tolerable conversation with someone was hardly enough for him to put his seal of approval on her for Tycho. He was protective of Ty, in a way. It wasn't that he thought Tycho wasn't capable of handling inquiries from strangers — even in the worst case scenario, what could one young woman actually do that might hurt him? Rather, he was protective of Ty's opinions. Recommending someone or something to him carried weight, coming from Ford, and if he applied it too liberally it ran the risk of making Ty think differently of him as a result. So this is the sort of person Ford finds intriguing, he might think. Given that lens — that anyone he mentioned to Ty in any context might reflect back on him — the bar for earning his approval was much higher than it might have been had she been trying to talk to anyone else.
But the conversation was moving on. This was good for two reasons: first, that talking about Ty was not ideal; second, that she seemed to be genuinely intrigued by what he did for a living, which was not always the case. Ford grinned. "Well, if you start off by thinking of what you can threaten them with, you'll never get anywhere," he pointed out. Not that it was an unusual line of thought; half the complaints they received were from living people who had done just that, and already realized how little they could legitimately wield as a threat. "When someone's been dead a hundred years everyone seems to lose sight of the fact that they're people, and they want things just the same as people. And if you can give them something they want, they're willing to compromise on quite a lot."
But the conversation was moving on. This was good for two reasons: first, that talking about Ty was not ideal; second, that she seemed to be genuinely intrigued by what he did for a living, which was not always the case. Ford grinned. "Well, if you start off by thinking of what you can threaten them with, you'll never get anywhere," he pointed out. Not that it was an unusual line of thought; half the complaints they received were from living people who had done just that, and already realized how little they could legitimately wield as a threat. "When someone's been dead a hundred years everyone seems to lose sight of the fact that they're people, and they want things just the same as people. And if you can give them something they want, they're willing to compromise on quite a lot."
Set by Lady!