Thankfully, it's also in Nihlus's interests to avoid conflict right now. Finding out if this 'Gerrin' (Nihlus isn't so blind as to trust the name to be real, but he can understand the caution) is involved with anything illegal (by Council standards) can wait until he isn't in danger of starving to death over the course of the next week.

"I am not," he responds, deciding to keep the information to a minimum for now. Simple answers will do for now, until he can find out more about his conversation partner. "I did not expect there to be anyone from the Council space on this world. Are you a colonist?" he asks, instead, opting for as innocent variant of a guess as possible.