21-03-YC122

I suppose I can understand Aldrith's frustration now.  Commander Adams apparently ambushed him as he was returning to a station to reship.  Aldrith has a habit of carrying expensive implants and caught in his pod he did not stand any sort of chance.  For some reason, I cannot fathom why, Adams decided to collect Aldrith's clone and contract it to me.  I will presume his intention was that I give it a proper and appropriate funeral, though that seems a strange thing to do given Aldrith is still very much alive.  I suppose it is not something I have every thought about.  How does one arrange one's Last Rites when one is effectively immortal?

I also find it rather ironic.  For how long did I dream of having Aldrith all to myself?  Now, here he is, sitting in cold storage waiting for me to collect him.  Not exactly what I had in mind when I thought of calling his body mine.  I suppose I should let him know and ask him what he wants done with it.

Katya and Saira are settling in well.  Obviously, Katya is having a better time adjusting, having been born into slavery.  Saira shall no doubt take longer to come to terms with it.  Ishta's help and advice shall make it easier, I should think.  Katya has Ishta's old room, and I have given Saira those next to my rooms, the ones which once belonged to Sirna.  Strange.  It only just occurs to me now, in writing their names, how similar their names are!  It was a calculated move, of course, an attempt to win Saira over by showing her how she will be treated if she merely accepts her fate and learns to live with it.  Far better than the life she had, and far better than others she may have had.  I seem to have underestimate the emotional impact, however.  As soon as she saw the room she burst into tears, overwhelmed.  Perhaps that is only natural, given her childhood growing up on the streets of some non-descript city on some insignificant backwater planet in low security space.

Cardinal Duke Chakaid has been ranting his usual overbearing rhetoric again, threatening death and destruction on Floseswin and the Tribals generally.  I was under the impression that Floseswin was under Lord Sarum's jurisdiction, though it not unlike the Cardinal Duke to involve himself in other people's affairs.

No doubt Lord and Lady Newelle, as well as the Elkin Family, will be muttering about how the Cardinal Duke is a terrible threat that should be stopped.  I do not doubt that his tedious and ranting proclamations serve only to strengthen the resolve of the enemy, and I am sure there must be more productive ways in which he could expend his apparent boundless energy, but I cannot, in all good conscience, agree with this most worrying attitude of some of our most influential families.  They seem determined to set the Empire on a course for Civil War between the Royal Heirs.  That would serve no-one's interests save the enemies', and we have so very many enemies.  There are other, less direct ways of negating the Cardinal Duke's political machinations, whatever they may be.  If only people would see the sense in using clandestine techniques!  Everyone seems so deeply enamoured of grandiose, spectacular gestures, overwhelming shows of force, as though we were all little better than posturing animals, attempting to assert our dominance over one another by appearing the biggest, stronger, most threatening.  There has never been any intelligence in that sort of thing, it simply causes everyone else to try to look even bigger, even more threatening.

Whilst the big, bad Alpha males fight over mates and kills and territory, none of them ever notice the stealthy little Athran Wildcat sneak in and steal the food.  Fools.