Page 71 of Defiant

“And sleeping when you’re comfortable?” I asked.

“Also the best way to approach life,” he said.

“Bless your stars,” Kimmalyn said.

“Nah, but you can bless my snores,” he said, grinning as he dug harder into the caked-on gunk on the landing gear.

Hesho hovered a little closer and picked his own section—some gears that were too tight for us to reach into—and cleaned there with a very small rag.

“You all know my friend Mask,” I said.

“Yup,” Nedd said.

“I must admit,” Hesho said to them, “I am not…accustomed to interactions of this sort. Please don’t mistake my stiffness for dislike.”

“That’s right,” Nedd said, wagging his rag at Hesho. “Mask,Iheard you were someone real important before.”

“I…I was,” Hesho said. “But I don’t know if we should discuss…”

I gave Nedd a glance, but he winked at me. “I heard,” he continued, “you were a babysitter.”

“Yeah,” Sadie said, “like, you had to wrangle preschoolers. An entire country’s worth of them.”

“Seems like it would be a relief not to have to deal with that sort of thing anymore,” Nedd said, still working. “I feel for you, my friend. When did youeverget to take a nap?”

Hesho paused, then seemed amused as he responded. “Well, I shall say, I didnotget to take many. It was quite the project, wrangling all those…preschoolers. I often didn’t even have time for meditation or composing poetry!”

Nedd gasped. “No poetry?”

“You compose poetry, Nedder?” Hesho asked.

“I love the stuff,” Nedd said.

“You donotcompose poetry,” Arturo said, walking past.

“Forgive him,” Nedd said. “ ‘His wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard.’ ”

“Aswhat?” I asked.

“It’s Shakespeare,” Nedd said.

Nearby, Arturo froze. He pulled out his datapad and looked through it, then looked back at Nedd, his jaw dropping. “ItisShakespeare. FromHenry the Fourth.”

“ ‘A most notable coward,’ ” Nedd said, thumbing toward Arturo. “ ‘An infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.’ Man, that dude had the best insults. I love them.”

“Who is this again?” I asked.

“Ancient English dude,” Nedd said. “Wrote poetry. A lot of it survived the destruction of theDefiantand our records. You’d like him, Spin. Surprised your grandma didn’t tell you stories about him. You know,Hamletand crud like that?”

“Hamlet…?”I said.

“It is the single most famous work of human literature,” Hesho replied. “Even I have studied it. And I find, Nedder, your taste in insults to be exceptional. You are obviously a man of great refinement.”

“See, Arturo,” Nedd said. “The preschool teacher agrees with me.” He gave Hesho a wide grin.

Nearby, Arturo was still staring, slack-jawed. As if he’d found out that his mother had secretly been a ninja all his life. “You,” he said, “havememorizedquotes fromShakespeare.”

“Forgive Amphi,” Nedd said, leaning closer to Hesho. “He’s a little on the slow side sometimes. We try to be accommodating.”

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