Sunday February 8, 2009
Book 10: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse — Epilogue

Transcript

Narrator: Aboard the mercenary warship Touch-And-Go. . .
Captain Tagon: Walk with me.
Para Ventura: Yes, sir.
Captain Tagon: When the Reverend does his therapy thing, he listens a lot and makes you do the talking.
Para Ventura: That sounds about right.
Captain Tagon: Yeah, well, I'm not much of a listener so I'm going to let you do the listening while I talk.
Captain Tagon: I hired you to do robots. I did not hire you to be Commander Andreyasn's bodyguard. I've got plenty of hard-hitting, bullet-absorbing, sociopathic killing machines on payroll. Your job is to stand behind them, not out in front.
Captain Tagon: But sometimes the bullets and the bad guys get through like they did in Southport. Then your job is to stay alive so you can collect your pay.

Usually that means running.

Captain Tagon: Worse still, it might mean they have to kill other people. . .

Captain Tagon: It looks like you're one of those folks. You can kill. Congratulations.
Para Ventura: But. . . I wasn't trying to kill them. I'm not a killing machine! I"m just a green belt with one pugil-stick session to my name. I was trying to disable them.
Captain Tagon: That was generous. They were trying to kill you.
Captain Tagon: Low profile power-assist suits are tricky. You'll need a lot more practice if you plan to pull your punches and still win the fight.
Para Ventura: So I'm supposed to tell myself it's okay because it was an accident?
Captain Tagon: If that helps you sleep at night.
Para Ventura: But I enjoyed it!
Captain Tagon: Don't tell me that. I might have to raise your pay.