Shas’O Vrel knelt, inspecting a patch of filth. Rancid, tacky to the touch, spattered across the floor. Perhaps it was blood. Perhaps only blood. Fresh, even. That would be good. He returned to his desk. Sat, slowly. Spoke, at last.

‘It was angry.’

‘No, Shas’O.’

A water caste attache stood at his shoulder. Standard furniture for any command unit fielding auxiliaries. Desk, chairs, charts, tactical monitors, comm array, screens full of field reports, Por’Tio. Cultural Intermediary.

‘Its beak was practically touching my eye,’ said the Shas’O. ‘When it squealed, I could taste its breath.’

He did not meet the intermediary’s gaze, did not see the carefully crafted expression of patience, encouragement, understanding.

After a discreet pause, the intermediary made an attempt.

‘The Shaper was giving the signs of embarrassment-’

‘These auxiliaries are an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment to need this – these…’ The field commander gestured loosely towards the sticky stain in front of his workstation. ‘I think it left scat on my floor, Por’Tio.’

A shorter pause, and the intermediary continued, ‘It is the wrong word, Shas’O. Shame, perhaps, is close. We will say that the Shaper was expressing shame. That will do. Not anger or embarrassment, but something like shame. He is venerable, Shas’O, and I believe it was difficult for him to bring a request like this to you. His grasp of T’au is, ah, partial.’

Shas’O Vrel could still hear the low crackle of the Kroot’s voice, its high whistle, its bark and rasping roar, sometimes inches from his face, thick grey spittle pattering his cheek, as the animal had repeated its single rote-learned phrase again and again. ‘It is my right,’ the thing had croaked, had hissed, had screamed. ‘It is my right,’ at odd intervals, as the intermediary struggled to translate and retranslate the request, ‘It is right, my right, my right,’ tightening into a frantic mantra. Pale quills rattling against each other. Bone talismans swinging wildly on sinew-thin cords, tangling in its cracked maw.

The Shas’O watched the stain on his floor the thing had left behind.

‘Was its cloak made from ork skin?’

‘They have some customs that would make that likely, Shas’O.’

‘Its cloak was wet.’

‘Yes, Shas’O.’

‘It is not raining.’

‘No, Shas’O.’

If there is one thing a cultural intermediary learns by the time they reach the rank of Por’Tio, it is the value of patience.

‘My floor will need to be cleaned. Maybe the room. The oxygen-recyclers will trap this stink for weeks.’

‘Just so, Shas’O.’

The commander slumped over the desk. Tired of this siege, tired of this posting, tired of being obliged to use and work with whatever tools he had.

‘Don’t they usually sort these things out among themselves? Why involve us? If its heavy auxiliaries are sick, let it make use of the medics or exercise its right on its own terms.’

It had stood, dripping onto his floor, hunched and beaked and barbarous, demanding no less than three fire teams to put down its small warband as they slept. An execution.

Even Shas’O Vrel, who had never before been required to work with auxiliaries, could see the warband’s physical deviation from the typical variations described in his briefing half a lifetime ago. The squat stances and barrel torsos, the thick arms dangling near the knees, the broad lower mandible jutting out. Their leathery skin mottling green.

True, they were inconsistent in following orders, in adapting to tactical updates, in returning from their scavenging runs as a complete unit. But they carved through ork assaults like a hammerhead’s rail gun. It would be a tremendous waste. The suggestion of a suicide run, he understood from intermediary Por’Tio, had been either misunderstood or deemed unworthy of reply. Nothing but putting its kin to the pulse rifle would suffice, at the end of the negotiation, such as it was. A waste, but auxiliaries – this type of auxiliary, especially, had discretion in such matters.

A further thought occurred to the Shas’O. ‘Why not handle things itself somehow? How would he deal with this sort of thing if we weren’t here?’

The intermediary hummed delight, as if pleasantly surprised by a bright novice.

‘He would not be able to. Not without others of his kind. He has not the means. His charges are grown, ah, resilient. Thus, the Shaper requires intervention from your fireteams. He needs this from you, Shas’O, and this is why he expresses shame.’ He nodded, pleased with his own summary and his commander’s progress.

‘It is a shame. Useful things it bred,’ murmured the commander as he swiped through a duty roster, allocating fire teams seven, nine and fifteen to a briefing with the intermediary. ‘See it done, this time, and draft a standard protocol for me to review. Next time a Kroot eats something that it doesn’t agree with, it can clean up its own mess.’

Later, much later, after a cleaning crew had seen to both Shas’O Vrel’s office and the Kroot encampment in that order, the intermediary sought out the Shaper. 

The Cultural Intermediary had spent the morning rehearsing the first phrase every member of the water caste learns in an alien tongue. His throat hurt from approximating the clicking growls, but he had played back a recording many times and was proud of the result.

The Shaper had been collecting his warband’s still-warm bones, plasma-scorched and scattered across the now-silent encampment. Maybe he was piling them into an order that he thought was beautiful.

With an appropriate expression of sombre care, the Cultural Intermediary told the Shaper in fluent Kroot that, while today must have been difficult, he was sure it was for – yes – the greater good.

‘It is my right,’ returned the Shaper, in his whistling, whispering T’au, his eyes insect-black and unblinking. His quills at rest. His posture hunched, but aren’t they always?

Whatever the Shaper was displaying, it was not shame.

Perhaps we do not have a good word for it.