The words came out like he'd tumbled them over and over, sharp rocks in the sand, until the edges wore down and he found them comfortable. He stood back by the rudder's long arm, tense and unsure, as far as he could get from me and his weapons. In his way he feared me almost as much as I feared him.

He stayed awake for three days, using pencil and paint and volcanic pigment and anything else he had to hand, to render what he'd seen in journalistic detail. In lieu of signature, he scribbled the demi-asuric precept at the base, we shall embody a wildfire starting, and shortly afterwards a dissident mole in the Hegemony central command arranged for it to appear in an official pamphlet. It spread, like a wildfire starting. He was arrested four days later.