"Are you going to keep pretending this is going to make you happy? When it didn't before, when applause from audiences all over Earth didn't?"
He dropped her arm in disgust, the visible part of his face flushed. "You're a fool, Minmei. This club of yours-it was a minor gift from me, haven't you figured that out yet?"
The cold metal of his half cowl contrasted with red anger on the rest of his face. "But before long I'll give you things that will satisfy you, things that only the greatest power and glory can command!"
He almost told her about the Living Computer, and what use he meant to make of it. Minmei had come to fill his waking thoughts and his dreams. Somehow evading his advances, somehow immune to the charisma and power he had plied so often before, she had only made him want her more.
Especially since she had once been Hunter's!
I will not be thwarted in this, he vowed. But in some way that he was at a loss to explain, the upper hand had slipped to Minmei. Edwards had roused himself wrathfully, not to be frustrated by this waifish little spellbinder; and in the all-out effort to make her love him, he had somehow made her the embodiment of all his desires and dreams. He saw that now, but it was too late to change things.
Be that as it might, some iron core of self-preservation and caution kept him from confessing his plots to her. Instead he leaned close, with a look on the exposed half of his face that made her cringe.
"Is it that ass Wolff? Is that who you think's going to come home like a white knight and give you some sort of happily-ever-after? If so, you hear me well, Lynn-Minmei: Wolff isn't fit to stand in my shadowl
"I'm the one who'll give you what you want and fulfill you at last! I'm the one who'll stop the aching in your heart!"
He vaguely knew that he was raving, dimly understood that whatever sorcery it was that Minmei had cast over all the others had been cast over him, too. Only, he was T. R. Edwards, and he was not about to meet some lovelorn fate.
He grabbed her arms, and Minmei felt such power in the grip that she knew it was useless to fight. He pressed his mouth to hers; she didn't resist but she didn't cooperate. He might as well have been kissing a corpse. He thrust her from him, and she landed on the floor with a small cry.
"Go on, then, Minmei! Pine for him, while he's thinking about the wife and child he left back on Earth! Do you really suppose you're anything but a hardship-tour convenience for Wolff?"
Then he was kneeling by her, lips drawn back from his teeth as if he might devour her. She put the back of her hand to her mouth and shrank away from him, but couldn't take her eyes off him.
"Perhaps I can't give you some doglike devotion, or whatever it is that you think love is, Minmei. But power and immortality and passion-those are what drive me, and you and I will share them."
She thought dizzily that he was going to grab her again, or-or something else, something she couldn't put a name to. Instead, as if he were teetering on the brink of an abyss, Edwards pulled himself back, rose, and stared down at her with all emotion closed from his face.
"And you no longer have any choice in the matter," he told her. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the club.
He had barely gotten out the door when his driver came rushing up to him. "Sir, a code
'Pyramid' signal from the Royal Hall."
Edwards didn't break stride. "Get me there. Now."
In the catacombs under the Royal Hall, past room after room of inert Inorganics stacked like cordwood, Edwards hurried to the chamber where the deactivated Living Computer drifted at the bottom of its tank.
On a nearby communications screen, Edwards saw an image.
The Regent, of course; he had seen photos and sketches from the intel summaries, had taken a good look at Tesla, and could extrapolate from there.
The Regent, for his part, glared down at the half-masked Human and drew conclusions of his own. The Living Computer hadn't been destroyed, nor had the Inorganics. Yet this couldn't be the leader of the Human expedition; there was a furtiveness about the way in which the Regent's communications signal had been received.
Ah, good! A schemer! Luck was with him again at last.
Bad luck had certainly had its run. The Regent had only received a few spotty reports of the Sentinels' onslaught before his commo links went dead. He had grown bored with inflicting horrible fates on advisers and, more to the point, it didn't accomplish much but diminish the available pool and make those around him very nervous.
Then came his master stroke: pretend to sue for peace! He cursed himself for not having thought of it before. Freeze the battle lines now. Call for negotiations and draw them out, and stall as long as possible while he rebuilt his armies and prepared to launch a sneak attack.
But instead of the REF council, he found himself staring at this half-flesh, half-metal face-the Human they called General Edwards. "Call back the forces that have launched this unprovoked sneak attack on my realm," the Regent blustered, "or I shall utterly and completely wipe them out of existence!"
"Can I rely on you to be thorough?" Edwards asked.
The Regent realized the game he was playing wasn't the one he had counted on. "Is there some semantic problem, or do I understand you to mean that you do not care that the pitiful Sentinels will be crushed like vermin?"
Edwards smirked. "You and your boys haven't been doing so well, huh? Mmm, here's something you might want to keep in mind, next time."
Edwards turned and grabbed a memory disk holding the full G-2/G-3 analyses of the Farrago, including its one glaring Achilles' heel.
The Regent could scarcely believe what he was seeing, and personally looked at an indicator there at the Home Hive to make sure all this critical information was being recorded. The key to destroying the Sentinels.
"Haven't you got anything for me?" Edwards asked disingenuously, with a nod toward the somnolent Living Computer.
The Regent was still recovering from his phenomenal success. "Hmm. Yes, yes, I do, provided that your information is accurate. I think that you and I must talk, General Edwards."
"By all means. But let's do it here on Tirol, eh?" Edwards's tone didn't brook much debate.
The Regent thought about that. "Indeed we will, friend General, indeed we will. Let me make arrangements and get back to you on the matter."
Edwards made an ironic salute with a forefinger. "Don't take too long; there's a lot to do."
"As soon as I've attended to the Sentinels," the Regent agreed.
"If they beat your boys on Karbarra, they'll be headed for Praxis next."
"Ah. Thank you. I look forward to communing with a, um, kindred spirit."
Edwards inclined his head in a courtly fashion, then blanked the screen, When he straightened, he saw Ghost techs looking at him in some shock.
"Wipe those looks off your faces!" Edwards jerked a head at the screen, and by implication at the Regent. "When the time comes, I'll handle him, too."
With a new lease on life, the Regent swaggered through the soaring halls of the Home Hive issuing orders and dictating memos. He had had his doubts about the Earther's veracity, but a battery of Living Computers verified what Edwards had told him, and the Regent was ready to gamble.
Even with the strategic data Edwards had given him, it might not be easy to destroy the Farrago.
Then there was the matter of this visit to Tirol. It was beyond the realm of possibility that the Regent would place himself in danger, and yet this gullible Edwards creature seemed to assume it would be normal. Perhaps there was some way to-The Regent stopped so suddenly that a hapless adviser plowed into him.