The Expert System's Brother (Expert System, #1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

wheedling

daubed

convalescence

reticence.

veneer

deputation

insuperable

depredations

Better a thief than a corpse, yes, but better a thief than a beggar as well. The world finds it harder to say no to a thief.

querns

darn

denuded

I thought he wanted to lie with me like some men preferred, and though that had never been for me, I would have gone with him gladly. Human contact was human contact, and he was strong and charismatic and clever, and so choosing me would be the sort of compliment my life had been very short of.

Humans need humans. Bottom line

His village had been some place called Pavo

A town called turkey

And how much better it was to suffer because I was special, than just because I’d been a clumsy fool once when I was thirteen!

antipathy

breechclouts

timorous

votaries.

Without struggle, nothing could get better,

I am ashamed of who I was that night, more so because I became a man who has always been within this body but held back by the regard of others. When we surround ourselves with people who call evil good, how quickly we accept their definitions and speak them back, round and round until every way we experience the world is tainted by it.

Tell me who you chill with, I'll tell you who you are.

It is a great poison, to know you have a destiny and that everything you do is right by default.

A world of threats was hidden between his words.

countenance.

demurring

compunctions.

Abruptly I was Severed twice over, an outcast amongst outcasts.

blearily

This is legit my eyes

indignation

piecemeal.

The ghosts were not meant to decide for them, but if you came into the world with a wise voice always telling you the best way, would you not grow accustomed to doing what it said?

Our ancestors made sure that we would never lack for advice, but they did not realise that meant we would forget to find things out for ourselves.

browbeat

the night sky is full of places we might go, if we can only change ourselves enough to live there.