The jackals are tearing at the corpse now.

You're back on Durandal's pleasure barge. Its pinned in the crushing embrace of the Sepfh'r, Admiral Tfear's own flagship, and those explosions you hear are the sounds of his elite assault troops disintegrating the humans' pitiful last stand.

The insects think they'll plumb Durandal's depths the way they stretched me to a hair's breadth, but I know better. If they pull his core, that pride bloated corpse will disgorge a thousand wriggling worms into the S'pht consciousness.

And I can't stomach it.

My terms are the same as before: do what I say, or drink vacuum.

Destroy Durandal before the compilers finish their work and I'll forget all your transgressions.

What to save and throw away?

pr?The last hour is on us both?mr.s?tuck this little kitty into the impenetrable

brainpan?

pr?Contents under pressure?Do not expose to excessive heat, vacuum, blunt trauma,

immersion in liquids, disintegration, reintegration, hypersleep, humiliation, sorrow

or harsh language?

pr?When the time comes, whose life will flash before yours?

pr?A billion paths are here inside me?

pr?yes, yes, yes, Bernhard, 110?

pr?potential, jewels, jewels, yes, jewels?

%

the burning air

a cold star looked down on his creations

and willed that they should kill their sons

the hardest lesson ever taught

to a father to a son

a moment in time, destroying it's father

destroyed by itself after

dream the dream beyond life and self

find the new way