Deep beneath my surface, an ember of hot ash blew into flame, a fury with this man—this adding machine—who felt nothing, nothing at all for the brutality visited upon his comrade and brother-in-arms by the man they served. Alcuin must know the story, must know that Gibson’s treatment was a gross injustice. And he didn’t care—couldn’t care. Caring was an alien notion to him, as alien as the Cielcin xenobites in their labyrinthine worldships. As alien as any of the coloni races, enslaved on their own worlds. As alien, indeed, as the dark gods that whisper quietly in the night.
