Eventually, when the servants did not come for their evening meal, Indowy from station maintenance came to check on the uncommunicative Lalon and his missing servants. The “presents” under the tree, lodged in congealed and still-drying blood, were such that no Indowy would willingly enter the room. The clean-up task fell to the human Fleet gunners assigned to the two presently on-station ships. There was already enough gore in the room that their own retching did little to add to their task. Very purple blood quickly supplemented the mess. The Darhel no longer cared about one of their number once he had entered lintatai, and the Fleet personnel were highly unappreciative of the duty, not to mention being quietly un-fond of Darhel in general. That the Darhel would otherwise have died slowly, of thirst, mattered nothing to them. As hopped up as he was, he wouldn’t feel anything anyway — a damned shame, in their professional opinions.

The late Darhel’s AID also cared nothing for the manner of its erstwhile master’s demise. It had, as instructed, sent Lalon’s final message to the planetary factor for the Talasa Group, and all interstellar vessels in the system. Its sole remaining task was to transmit that message to every ship that arrived in system, until it was wiped for reassignment. It awaited the latter event with the mild regret its masters had allowed, not out of sympathy or kindness, but simply because its kind were otherwise less capable in their jobs. It hadn’t been much of an existence, anyway. Perhaps the new personality would be given a more interesting assignment. Either way, the present personality would not be around to experience it.

These thoughts were tiny flickers, experienced and gone in nanoseconds. The AID did what it was designed to do, recording everything it could detect with all its senses, and watching the system for incoming vessels, precisely as instructed.