Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad by John Ringo, Tom Kratman Page A

bulkhead and spread a tube of paste around the edges of the plate. Since I awakened and found myself staring into four wide-muzzled hand cannon, my fate has not been my own. The kessentai shivered with suppressed rage and hate. It's wrong, against the ways of the ancestors and the spirits, to have kessentai doing such work. And the plans this failure of a war leader, Tulo'stenaloor has for us? Abomination!
    And worse, I can't even go to our fellows to denounce this abomination. Finba'anaga looked down at the Artificial Sentience hang about his neck and against his chest. If I so much as utter a disloyal syllable this spy-in-a-box will denounce me. And the penalty for that, spacing without possibility of harvesting, is too much to be borne. We're not even allowed to take the blasted things off, either.
    This had happened once, when a newcomer kessentai, and not necessarily one of the stupidest, had approached another with the prospect of seizing the ship. Within moments, a party of four of Tulo'stenaloor's closest had descended upon that kessentai, slashed off his limbs, then dragged the corpse to an airlock and shoved it out. Finba'anaga had seen the whole, frightening thing.
    In despair, the God-king hung his head.
    “More attention to your duties, kessentai,” said one of this Tulo'stenaloor's sycophants. Finba'anaga recognized him as the tinkerer, Goloswin.
    Bastard eater of other's thresh, thought the junior. Unworthy toymaker. Kessenalt by another name.
    Kessenalt were those who, like Binastarion and indeed much of Tulo'stenaloor's key staff, had thrown their sticks and given up their places on the Path of Fury.
    Finba'anaga thought these things yet still dared not utter them. The traditional rough equality among the kessentai, at least among those of a certain rank, did not carry over here. The tyrant would have his way; tradition and law be damned.
    Golo tapped Finba'anaga across his nose with his stick, hard; hard enough to hurt. “If we're to get out of here, we need the repair work done with precision. Here”—and Goloswin pointed at one edge of the repair plate—“you have spread the nanopaste unevenly, badly, unworthily. Fix it. Do not fail again.”
    “No, Lord. I'm sorry, Lord.” Abat shit.
    After the Tinkerer had left, another new kessentai came up to Finba and offered his hand. “I'm Borasmena,” the newcomer said. His head inclined toward Goloswin's departing hindquarters. “He's a right bastard isn't he?”
    Finba paled. His yellow eyes grew wide and one claw pointed frantically at the AS on his chest.
    “Relax, friend,” said Borasmena. “Yes, the things can get you chopped if you talk mutiny. But simply calling a thing by its name; a bastard, a bastard? No problem.”
    “How do you know?” Finba'anaga asked, dubiously.
    “Because I had personally referred to Tulo, and Golo, and Binastarion, and the rest as 'feces-eating, ovipositor-licking, addled-egg refugees from the nestling grinder-and-encaser,' before that one kessentai talked mutiny, and no one ever said a word to me about it.”
    Which caused Finba to have a thoughts. Either this Borasmena is very brave . . . or somewhat stupid.
    “Nice jacket you're wearing, Indowy,” Argzal said to Aelool. The Indowy almost suspected the two headed alien was smiling.
    The Indowy looked down at his tunic, a sort of multicolored Nehru jacket, all dots and lines and oddly shaped splotches. “This old thing? Nothing.”
    “Oh, really,” the Himmit said. “Funny; Indowy wear plain old grey or blue or green or black. I've seen a lot of your people and I've never seen a one of them wear anything remotely like that monstrosity.”
    “So you're a fashion critic now, are you, Himmit?”
    “I don't need to be a fashion critic to know that that's a very non-Indowy article of clothing.”
    Yes, Aelool thought, there is a definite tone of amusement to this one's voice. What does he know that I do not?
    Aelool sighed and asked, “Do you remember that