Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

– A form of entertainment popular among the artisan classes of many worlds in the Damocles Gulf and adjacent sectors, generally performed at festivals by earnest amateurs. For many these are as much an act of devotion as entertainment, since the subject matter is invariably some incident from the life of the Emperor or one of the saints, presented comedically, with a great deal of slapstick, and an abundance of fart jokes.

– I think not.

– Most definitely not; although if I had done, subsequent events would no doubt have occurred a great deal more quickly.

– Even the governor’s wealth not being entirely limitless. The last native tree on Ironfound would have died out centuries, if not millennia, before, meaning that all timber on the planet was either incredibly ancient, or imported.

– Ironically, it was Sulla, though if he ever discovered this he doesn’t bother to mention it.

– How very uncharacteristic.

– Which is, of course, what would normally have grounded there.

– Who, in the nature of things, would almost certainly be in receipt of an emolument from a rival noble house or an affronted spouse to keep an ear out for just that kind of thing.

– It’s unclear here whether he means another jolt, or a pejorative description of the driver.

– All of which implies that he somehow found time to stow his weapons, unless he simply dropped them and trusted to luck to keep them within the vehicle.

– Correct on both counts.

– Due, according to Mott, to ‘thermal layers,’ whatever they are.

– So about half the diameter of the level he’d started out at, which would have been roughly a quarter of the way up from ground level; although like most hives this one extended so far beneath the surface the concept of ‘ground level’ would have been meaningless to all but a handful of its inhabitants.

– Clearly the whole tree/swamp analogy is still fresh in his mind here.

– The colours of the gubernatorial crest.

– Directly behind him, using the analogy of a clock face to indicate direction being standard military practice.

– Typically, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that his success in evading them thus far, not to mention his reputation, had made his opponents wary of taking their victory for granted.

– A death world not unlike Catachan in its overabundance of lethal vegetation, and which, unusually, an ork invasion had only managed to improve.

– He is, of course, joking here. Or, at least, one certainly hopes he is.