"They pursue our people as if they were themselves thresh, these threshkreen," muttered Athenalras. "It's . . . it's . . . indecent!"
Ro'moloristen repressed a Posleen chuckle; it would never do to annoy his chief and lord. Perhaps the junior was made of sterner stuff. Certainly he was of less senior stuff. Though somehow he thought himself to be less ruthless. Braver? He didn't know.
Yet he felt brave as he answered, "They do what they do for their people, as we do for ours. Yes, they have many disgusting habits. Yes, their architecture is somewhat absurd, their industry and science primitive. Yes, they do not fight as we do, in the open for all our peers to see and the Rememberers to sing of."
"But, my lord, they fight hard and they fight well. And there is something somehow touching in the way that their old will throw down their lives for their young, their males for their females."
Athenalras looked at Ro'moloristen as if the young God King had gone quite mad; for a human male to toss away his life for a female was as if a God King were to give itself up for a Posleen normal. It was very nearly the ultimate in obscene conduct, to a proper God King.
Ro'moloristen backtracked quickly. "I did not say I approved, my lord. It's just that such courage is somehow moving. As if these lessers, these females and nestlings, embodied some value so infinite we cannot even guess at it."