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Perhaps Mikodez fancied himself a puppet-master; thought that crashhawks were easily manipulated. Brezan hoped to prove him wrong, not out of spite, but because interstellar government was too important to hand over out of naivety.
The first rule of any game was to assume you could win, even if you had to hunt through the universe’s cracks for a strategy, even if you had to turn the pieces inside-out, even if you had to tell so many lies to the opponent that they couldn’t figure out which way was up.
“Suicide calligrapher,” Emio said, unsentimental. “This is a new development. I should have been prepared.”
The difference is that people who know their own past have a chance of figuring out their own failure modes and how to avert them, and most of them don’t manage that even so. As far as I can tell, you’re operating on instinct. You have no way to prepare for your own reactions.”
Oh, no, she was crying. Crying was something it had only seen humans do in dramas, and in dramas they did it much more prettily, at dramatic moments, with swelling music in the background. Instead, the girl was getting mucus on her sleeve, and Hemiola didn’t understand the context, and it doubted she would appreciate it providing swelling music on her behalf.
