---OFFICIAL INDIGO FLEET TRANSMISSION--- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 13:18:03 +0930 From: Megan Swingler-Hill Subject: [INDIGO] SB OMEGA: The Pity Of War Is The Glory Men Find In It. NRPG There's been too little said by me recently, and way too much by others in the way of quotations. In an effort to redeem this sad state of affairs I have written this post and apologize, in advance, for any failures to comply with Starfleet Protocols, but some of them are a little beyond my poor civilian understanding. *winsome little smile* *bat eyelashes*
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FMD 7.0455
Scene: Sarax's Place - Promenade SB Omega

Sarax liked to believe he was a conduit through which all information must pass eventually. A lot of it would, of course, be false, but much would also be true. He also liked to believe that he was a pretty good judge (of character, validity and verity - or the paucity thereof) and would, twenty-nine time out of thirty, sort the wheat from the chaff. The problem now was that his sources of communication were all trying to feed him information at once. The small bug he'd placed in a Jeffries tube running off of the auxiliary communications room, kept picking up echoing whispers " . . . Eoghan what . . . do? . . . must . . . . . . difficult .. . . evade . . . . . . . friends . . . "

The tap he had into Starfleet communications (long dormant, but re-activating it a necessary risk in these troubled times) provided him with contradictory messages, and some blatant gaps where obviously something should/would have been said/sent but the message was being blocked, deliberately not sent, or just not sent to Omega. Sarax would pay good latinum to know the correct answer to that question, but it wasn't one he was going to discover anytime soon. He probably wouldn't know tha answer to _that_ one until about three dats after it would be of absolutely no use to him at all. That was the problem with the qualifier - eventually.

Stories of ships senselessly destroyed, stories of other ships surviving attacks with just as little reason. Trade in the sector was down, and the value of his own holdings so close to non-existent that to flee now would make less sense than dying. There'd definately be more profit in it anyway.

Sarax scratched his lobes and thought. What was really getting on his nerves, though, was that every time a Starfleet communications came through with stories of death and destruction, and a silly little homily by some so called Human 'War Hero' the damned voice in his head repeated that bloody poem.

Lines from the Human's Holy Books, other supposedly stirring words once spoken by Humans happily running their glorious wars from places other than the front line, brought swimming into Sarax's mind the same bloody poem, over and over again. "The Parable of the Young Man and the Old." by Wilfred Owen, and he didn't understand half of what it referred to, but it sounded in his head. drowning out all the other things he knew or heard, stopping him from thinking. He'd tried reciting the rules of acquisition, but they wouldn't stay straight in his mind.

Sarax's head was pounding and he felt ill, it kept getting worse. Round and round in his head, until all he knew was that damned poem. He staggered out in to the Promenade and, clutching his head he not so much said the words, as vomited them at the top of his lungs.

                         So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
                         And took the fire with him, and a knife.
                         And as they sojourned, both of them together,
                         Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
                         Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
                         But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
                         Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
                         And builded parapets the trenches there,
                         And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
                         When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
                         Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
                         Neither do anything to him. Behold,
                         A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
                         Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
                         But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
                         And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

The pain lessened. Sarax's vision swam. Security was coming to put an end to the disturbance he'd caused and he fainted gratefully into their arms. His last consious thought was that, yes, he had been right, The bloody poem made no sence at all, but like his mother had always said . . . better out than in.

--
Quisquarles Meglyn Alpha Plieadese-Pimor
aka Madame Mim
aka Mimi (thief on Radiant Darkness)
aka Sarax (trader on SB Omega)
aka Megan <meglyn@kern.com>
http://members.tripod.com/~MadameMim

"Pardon me for living, I'm sure."
NO-ONE GETS PARDONED FOR LIVING.
(Mort) Terry Pratchett
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