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“He’s spineless,” Thraxa moans. “He wouldn’t dare cross us.”
“Probably right.” Harnassus grimaces. “See, I’m not the sharpest on magnetism or waveform theory. My focus was practical mechanics. But I’ve got two hundred brains with a thousand degrees between them going step for step with him. He’s smarter than each of them in theory, but not all of them together. If he’s playing games, they’ll red-flag it. Long as we keep him happy, seems he’ll do what we need him to do.”
“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” I say.
“You want the genius happy, we need sardines,” Harnassus says.
“Sardines?”
“He says he gets headaches without sardines for breakfast on Tuesdays. Tomorrow is Tuesday and he’s fresh out.”
“You have to be joking,” I say for Thraxa.
“I don’t damn well know. This man’s been pissing into crystal decanters since he was a teenager. So far, no luck. If the Heliopolitan Silvers here have sardines, they’re denying it. We could raid their kitchens, but we’re on unsteady footing as it is.”
“Where’s Sevro when you need him?” I mutter. Harnassus raises an eyebrow in query.
“What? You think he just always smells like fish?” Thraxa asks.
“I think he smells like wet dog, personally,” I reply.
“Well, it depends if it’s raining or not.”
“Gods, the jungles were rough. You remember that trench foot he had?”
“Thought we’d have to amputate,” Thraxa says.
“Yeah, you tried.”
“Then he woke up. Heh. That was funny.”
Harnassus shakes his head. “This is not the conversation I thought I would have when the Reaper of Mars came to North Africa to make me a Praetor. I thought it’d be all fire and guts and devilish mayhem. Not prepubescent humor. You should check Sevro’s pantry. All sorts of illicit goods there, so I hear.”
“Why don’t you check it?” I ask.
“I won’t send any of my men in there.”
I sigh and motion Rhonna over from my bodyguards. “Go see if there’s any sardines in Imperator Barca’s stateroom.”
She goes white as a corpse. “Uh, isn’t that a task for support?”
“Not you too.”
“It’s just…well, there’s booby traps, ain’t there? Alexandar once tried to steal whiskey. Came back shaking like a softfoot on their first aerial drop.”
“Fine.” My bodyguards all find something very interesting in the contours of the deck. “Superstitious idiots. I’ll get the bloodydamn sardines.”
* * *
—
Ten minutes later I’m shrieking like a goat on the floor just inside Sevro’s room as a medicus pulls needles from my face, chest, and ass. Incredible pain races through my body as my hands and feet turn purple and start to swell uncontrollably.
A flat voice drawls from a hologram of Sevro’s face.
“Don’t touch my shit. Don’t touch my shit. Don’t touch my shit.”
“It’s pr
