Raven Stratagem

– Я запомню это место на случай, если однажды решу, что мое истинное призвание – контрабанда.
Начальница станции ухмыльнулась и отключилась.
– Что такое? – спросила Кируев, увидев мрачную физиономию Наджада. – Вы никогда не мечтали о том, чтобы сбежать и стать пиратом? Вот на что похожа такая жизнь.
– Герои драм никогда не испытывают такой нехватки сырья для принтеров, как мы сейчас, – пробормотал Наджад.

People are already dying in this revolution of yours. Most of our systems would be under martial law if we weren’t, you know, always under martial law.

Shuos Mikodez finished knitting his scarf. The first two people he offered it to were unable to hide their suspicion that it would come alive and strangle them. With modern fibers it was hard to tell.

Most people gave servitors less thought than the wallpaper. If they had wanted to slaughter humans in their sleep, they could have managed it forever ago. It spoke better of them than the humans.

Jedao was evil, but that doesn’t mean he was automatically wrong.

Brezan wondered, very cynically, when Jedao had last known any form of human contact that didn’t involve killing people.

The command center was everywhere awash with light, red and gold, gold and red. Sometimes Khiruev thought that the Kel had an institutionalized horror of dying in the dark, with not even a candle for your pyre.

Kujen happened to know that even monsters seek companionship. Or an audience, anyway.

If Kujen was going to spend eternity with someone, he might as well guarantee that that someone would be pleasant company.

The hard part would be giving Jedao some sense of proportion. The man had a judgmental streak a planet wide.