The Aldenata, however, were ancient and, while aggressively idealistic, well aware of the concept of treachery. The agreement said that the Darhel would be non-violent and the Aldenata made them that way. If any Darhel became excessively violent, even became over-excited much less killed another creature, a chemical switch went off, effectively lobotomizing them. The effect was called “lintatai” and every adult Darhel struggled against it every day. For Darhel were inherently violent, a warrior race that had been thrust into passivity will they, nil they.
The Darhel, however, had learned to channel their focus and fury. Unable to conquer through force of arms, they had taken to politics and business like a buzz-saw. Over a bare five hundred years they had gained absolute control over the workings of the Federation, to the point that nothing happened without their approval.
However, every power has its weaknesses. Ceel was only a junior Darhel executive but he knew a few of them. The Epetar Clan-corp had only recently been utterly destroyed by a group of lucky human rebels who managed to catch them on the wrong side of a leveraged investment. He had, however, just been apprised of a very crucial weakness, one so dangerous it could spell the end of all Darhel power. And he’d been handed the slippery end of the stick.
His first thought, once he assimilated the mess he’d been dropped in, was to wonder who hated him enough to do this to him. Darhel were the essence of acooperative; business among the Darhel was if anything slightly more abusive than the Darhel practiced on other races. Darhel could not kill but they were more than happy to contract out the occasional assassination. Back-stabbing and character assassination were considered simply good business. Banash, therefore, had to assume that someone had it in for him.