The t'ca [ship] left them, rolled and slewed off in a maneuver that made sense to a multi-brained snake. - C. J. Cherryh

A year of ending and beginning, a year of loss and finding...and all of you were with me through the storm. I drink your health, your wealth, your fortune for long years to come, and I hope for many more days in which we can gather like this.

So it fed him his courage back. He drew a deeper breath, reassessed himself and the pathetic ridiculousness, the childishness of the things stored in comp, the nature of the sealed compartments and the relics he lived among. So if she thought that, so if she felt that, then she would not laugh — and the others, these strangers they went to meet — she could handle. As long as she was with him; as long as she found nothing humorous in a man trying to be what he was not — who listened to voices instead of family, who had never had the strength to clear out all the debris of the past; who kept a secret voice that talked to a child who should have long ago grown up; excruciating things. A lifetime of illusions.

That’s the trouble getting involved in politics, nobody wears a name badge!