I chased the space pirate all the way to Heraclius, one of those worlds that's nothing but grains and farm drones. I expected him to have some goons, a hideout, or at least a cache with a few guns there, but when I tracked him down, he was doing nothing but staring at a rock stuck on a couple other rocks.
"I remember," he said without turning around. "They argue whether a member of one species can be reborn as another, but it has to be true because I remember. I was a great magus once (for by that name we called those with the strongest psychic talents) and kings bowed to me even in their own palaces of brown-purple marble. They put before me the rich flesh of the uyilla, the delicate hobtgui roots, and I undid their difficulties. But even my wisdom failed when . . . Oh, I see the towers, how they crumble! The dead fill the streets and the wails of the living form inescapable clouds! Iauvne, where have you gone? Plellol ecsa, plellol monsa!"
"Fine, but I'm still going to arrest you."
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I should have waited for a convenient time to come here, but you sort of get these ideas in your head, you know?"
I wasn't interested in conversation with scum, so I didn't answer, but I knew all right.
Finis
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