Quote Originally Posted by Ramil
9

The master of immortality met the sunrise in his study. It was neither the markedly humble study where he had reasoned Kay into working with Arthur nor it was the ostentatiously open one on the roof of the tower.
This study, hidden under the surface, resembled the cockpit of a medium cruiser. Curtis indeed copied the austere style of military ships where he had spent his youth. There was a time when he was dreaming of commanding of such a ship. This was very long ago, almost two hundred years…
His occupation at the moment would seem more than strange to anyone. He was sitting away in his armchair and leaning his head sideward. He was drawing. A light pen was sliding across the screen leaving thin varicolored strokes. Something started to emerge, something very familiar, resembling a human face, but from a very strange point of view. It was as if an ant was trying to discern a man through a varicolored prism.
“Like this.” said Curtis and lowered his pen. He looked at the side screen. There, on the yellow sand, stood Kay and the bulrathi. They had been fighting in a sparring only a minute before. Now Key was taking off his armor and carefully putting segment after segment on the sand. A red dot was glowing near his image – a mental sensor indicated the intensity of emotions.
“Enlarge, sound on!” commanded Curtis and moved his armchair closer. The cameras managed to process a freestyle command their owner gave/had given and were already picking out Kay’s face. “What are you up to, lad?” murmured Curtis.

“Why have you played us off with the Sakkra?” asked Kay while removing the last segment of his armor. The bulrathi closely watched his moves. His strange diamond shaped eye pupils narrowed into thin slots.
“It’s tactics. We have adopted your own method: divide and conquer.”
“You didn’t succeed.”
“No, we didn’t.”
Slowly, in the same manner as he had been taking off his armor, Kay took off his white shirt. Then he stretched. His muscles rolled under his skin.
“Bulrathi, you said that you had consulted the Sakkra during their war for the Three Planets. Perhaps you even participated in the landings?”
“Perhaps.” the bulrathi spread his palms a little. The forefinger on his left hand was missing which made its size matching a human hand.
“I am from the Three Planets, bulrathi. From the Three Sisters as they were called then. These were quarrelsome sisters… but they didn’t covet other worlds. We were on the border of the sector and we were the first to meet the Sakkra’s attack.”
“That’s amusing.” said the bulrathi.
“There were too many of them. They crushed our defense. The cruisers from Terra didn’t make it in time. The children and some women were loaded onto the freighters… we had a good freighter fleet. Most of us made it to Altos… Two hundred million spongers/refugees, bulrathi! We were hated on Altos. The other worlds didn’t accept us. Our fathers died fighting the frogs – that wasn’t the best way a man can die. The Three Sisters have been burnt by meson bombs – there had been no other choice. Nobody needs them anymore.”
“A buffer zone.”
Kay went silent. He moved his palm over his chin as if he was checking his shaving.
“You know, I wept when the last Sakkra world had died in flames. I wept because I had nobody left to take revenge upon. I was growing up for too long…”
“I am forbidden to kill you,” said the bulrathi, “Curtis Van Curtis needs you.”
“I know. Bulrathi, your mother ate grass and washed in hot water. Your father reared/was the lowest in the ranks. Your children dug ditches in the fields.”
The fingers of the bulrathi sprouted claws. His voice became thin as a flute:
“You’re taking risks, human. Even my debt doesn’t cancel my honor…”
“Cuzuar buul-rathi, kh, haa! Kh, haa, buul!”
“Hazr, khomo!” the bulrathi sooner sang it rather than spoke.

Curtis Van Curtis bolted from his armchair. In two leaps he reached the center of the study where opalescent flickers were dancing in the air.
“Arabia, the range!” he shouted while taking a small gun that resembled a toy from the pocket of his trousers. Curtis knew that he would not arrive in time.
He indeed had arrived when it was too late.

Kay was sitting beside the corpse of the bulrathi. He lost all his strength and might in his death. From five yards it could be mistaken for a dead cow of northern breeds. The body was crooked having taken the form of a quadruped creature. The muzzle was pushed into the sand its bared fangs first. Only two deep furrows under the still legs didn’t tally with the peaceful look.
“What happened here?” asked Curtis putting away his gun. Kay turned slightly to face him. Until that very moment he looked totally unharmed yet Curtis saw a long but shallow wound on his stomach.
“I think he had a spontaneous heart failure,” said Kay mildly. “Fortunately, he had the time to teach me everything he thought would be necessary… and everything he knew.”
Curtis leaned and lifted the head of the bulrathi looking into the dead face. Its look was somewhat surprised.
“Spontaneous, you say? Poor Aggash, he sincerely believed that an unarmed human can kill a bulrathi using only one way. I hadn’t got around/got round to dispelling his illusion. Take it, Kay.”
He threw his light grey coat to Kay. Kay pressed it to his stomach without a word.
“Where did you learn about the reflex spots?”
“I had a friend who had fought through the Feud War.”
“I see. Aggash was a valuable employee.”
“Then he deserves a ceremonial funeral.”
“A bulrathi that died from the human hand? You’re kidding, Kay.”
“Was there anybody who said something about the hand? Or about murder?”
“I suppose, there wasn’t. You don’t know what you said to him, do you?
Kay shook his head.
“You permitted him to lick your excrements.”
“And that’s all?!” said Kay rising from the sand. He cast Curtis’s coat onto the body and accidentally it fell onto the Aggash’s face. Without even knowing it, Kay managed to humiliate the bulrathi even after his death.