They told me to keep the Sake cool. I lost the Sake.
Worse, the emissary saw me lose the Sake. Saw the Sake blown out from under me - my ship disintegrating.
I lost the Sake.
The Sake is now conjoined with the Tau barrier. Molecules of it would have bonded with the carbon ice shrouding the Gate. Perhaps I could scrape off the Sake.
It was never the Sake itself - it was the bottle that contained the Sake. If I had the same Sake vacuum packed and sealed in tupperware, it wouldn’t be the same Sake, despite being the same Sake.
I could delude him. I could find an identical bottle of Sake and he wouldn’t know the wiser. The Sake would behave for me. It’s very easy to make inanimate objects lie - but are fluids inanimate? Isn’t animation implied by the loose molecular bonds of the compound? Why do I need a bottle of Sake? He knows I can’t drink.
I’ve forgotten what the specific broken Sake bottle looks like. Was it off-brand? It didn’t have a label. Writes off the offie, then.
Yes, I’ll buy him another. I’ll creep up to Sapphire’s little witching tower under the pretence of visiting Raven and….
except, she’s here. She’s on the same deck, the same floor, the same room near enough yet three neighbours down. I could knock on her door and demand Sake, accuse her, throttle the sake out of her. She’d vomit the Sake up or I’d tear it out of her. I’d drink the Sake from her veins. I would break her body and sup her blood in benediction. Hunt would love me. The baby would understand.
Except there’s evil even in the little things, isn’t there? Surah 4:43. Oh you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated.
They ask you about intoxicants and games of chance. Say: In both of them there is a great sin and means of profit for men, and their sin is greater than their profit. That is the word of God. His unfathomableness isn’t totally off base, either. That Sake got me shot. He didn’t shoot for Sake, he shot for the shooting, but the Sake got what the Sake shot.
What?
What.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)