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Irit spoke softly She didn’t meet Anax’s eyes “Yorrik said all this could still be an accident The birth of a new life form But you don’t think so, do you?”
Anax Therion looked down at the volus “Irit Non, I will tell you what the hanar who raised ht be divine punishers “The virus and the system malfunctions leave us somewhere between divine punishment and a plan Do you really think ill be spared a third?”
“Ah No But then, I am a committed pessimist”
“I kneould find coround somewhere, Non,” Anax said with a soft smile, half concealed by her unfinished helmet
A long silence Irit was clearly faood reason Even now, under stress that would break a Spectre’s sense of professionalism, the volus had added flourishes and touches of style without even see it “It wasn’t us,” she whispered “I’ so It’s natural to think of the ones in the suits, the ones with an immunity to Yoqtan from childhood, the ones who even knohat Yoqtan is But it wasn’t the volus”
“You can’t know that There are three thousand of you on board”
The volus wheezed heavily and sat back on a box of eye-lenses “Look,” she gulped through her air filter, “I know my people, just like you know yours When you rise to the top of a society, you have an excellent vantage point on the people in it Would you grant me that?”
“Certainly,” Therion said She wouldn’t, not really In her experience, a seat at the top of a society afforded a view of nothing et soree with theree with them It was, perhaps, all anyone wanted
Irit leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her large belly hanging between them She did look up then
“This just isn’t our style, Anax First of all, we have no quarrel with the Rakhana-clan Or Kahje-clan, except that preachers are always extre other than your own religion In fact, we have a certain sympathy for you The client relationship between turians and volus is not so different than the one between hanar and drell Secondly… let me put it this way If the volus were to strike out at the drell, ould much prefer to simply buy out their Compact with the hanar and take their place To have a client species of our oould greatly increase our standing in the new galaxy Forgive et rid of you, ould far rather absorb you into the volus culture and benefit as the hanar have done for so long, or finesse the Fleet-clan or the Khar’shan-clan into declaring war on you We long ago did aaging war ourselves, of course Wasteful But we are very interested in other people’s wars There issave entertainment We would never deny our munitions manufacturers such an opportunity But this? There is no profit in a si of bodies, in extra work toour involveht shoot you directly in the face for ical weapons are messy Unpredictable We volus dislike unpredictability, in both usted sound “My father would say that is our great weakness as a people”
Irit Non stood up with a grunt and ruh her stock for an the final lacing of the torso section
Target acquired When in doubt, it’s always daddy issues Therion trod carefully “Your father?”
Non yanked on a structural panel with unnecessary brutality Therion gasped She let herself gasp It hat the suit designer wanted To express a s to let her have it
“My father says a lot of things In fact, you could say that all the fat old bastard does is say things Professionally My father is an invasive fungus in volus for And yet…” Non fastened the other half of Therion’s faceplate into place “And yet I a pissed off so many people so many times that the Vol Protectorate forced him into exile Do you kno many writs of exile the Protectorate has issued in the history of civilization? Three, and tere for my father”
“Your father is Gaffno Yap? The terrorist?” She knew of Yap, of course It was hardly possible not to He was a regular feature in political satires across half the galaxy, a cartoonish villain aic figure a others But this she had not known A volus’s second naenetic relationship, as they disliked the i Between this and the identical suits, it was very hard to piece together the shape of relationships between individual volus She re furiously at Yap on the security vids