"Is it ugly here?"
Doon laughed. "Oh, my. My, oh, my. To think a human being should even have to ask that question. But you aren't exactly a normal human being, are you?"
"Count the arms and legs," Jas said. "Even the right number of heads."
"The only difference is that you can leave your head and walk around for a while in mine. The Swipe," Doon said, "is such a strange thing. Such a great power that for a time most ship captains in the Empire fleet and among our illustrious Enemy were Swipes. Instantaneous communication. No need for spies. Too bad that Swipes couldn't teach the gift to others, you know? But that little X chromosome modification just can't be transferred. Only passed from mother to children, and the gift only crops up in boys, whose pathetic little Y doesn't have the dominant to block out the telepathy link. How we do dance with the helixes, yes?"
Jas pulled a tuft of grass and sprinkled it on his naked chest and abdomen. It prickled. He brushed it off.
"But I don't have that chromosome. Neither did my mother."
"Irrefutable. You are correct. You are clinically not a Swipe. Bravo. Too bad the mob takes blood tests after they tear reputed Swipes to little pieces."
"Can't the law protect me?"
"If the law knew about you, my small, brilliant, naive friend, the law would certainly be stretched to include you. No, Jas. Your only safety lies in being part of my collection. If you should leave it — well, I simply couldn't stop them, could I?"
A breeze passed over them in the starlit darkness. Jas shuddered.
"Cold? Or merely afraid?"
"Cold," Jas said.
"Actually, the temperature is quite comfortable. Don't be afraid, Jason."
"I can't help it," Jas said, his teeth chattering a little.
"All your life you've been completely under other people's control. Your mother, the school, the constables. Now, suddenly, it isn't they who rule you anymore, it's one man, it's I, and that makes you afraid."
"I don't know what you're going to do with me."
"Why don't you look in my mind and see?"
Jas wondered why he didn't. But he didn't. "No."
"Do it. Test me. See what you find out."
Jas shook his head. "I don't want to."
"Why not? I'm asking you to. Or do you only like to peer in people's minds when they don't know you're looking?"
Jas shivered now with the cold he felt. "I don't want to look."
Abner Doon sighed. "I suppose my mind isn't all that lovely a place to visit, anyway. Never mind."
He got up and dressed. Jas still lay on the ground, except that he curled up on his side. His back was cold as the air touched it. Why don't I look in his mind? I'm afraid, Jas decided. I'm afraid I'll find my own death there.
"Tired?" Doon asked.
"Yes."
"Does your hand hurt?"
Jas nodded.
"Do you feel weak?"
Jas smiled. "No. I feel like ripping a tree into toothpicks."
Doon, dressed again in the steel and asbestos protective clothing, the stuffy, out–of–date suit, knelt beside Jas in the grass. "Jas, you've done a lot of studying over the years. Your teachers seem to feel that you never forget what you've read. Ever heard of the Estorian twick?"
Jas's mind reflexively found the reference. "Yeah. Deadly little animal. Wiped out the first colony on Estoria."
"What else do you know about it?"
"Marsupial mammal. Teeth like razors. Small, but it hangs on with its claws while it bores with its teeth. Once it gets on a person he has maybe thirty seconds to get it off. If it lands near something vital, you've got only five seconds or so. Could cause nightmares."
"Very good, Jas. How do you kill it?"
Jas laughed. "A laser. A cockle. I remember reading a story where somebody tried beating it with a rock and it just jumped on and started eating his hand."
Jas watched uncomprehendingly as Doon gathered all of Jason's clothing from the ground and held it in a bundle under his arms. "You don't happen to have a laser or a cockle, do you?" Doon asked.
"Yeah," Jas said. "I hid ‘em both in my mouth. I was only waiting for an opportunity to get you."
"In other words, no."
"I don't even have a toothpick," Jas said. "What are you doing with my clothes?"
"Getting them out of the way," Doon said. "Good luck."
"Good luck for what?"
"Good luck in the upcoming battle. In a few seconds an Estorian twick will be turned loose at the other end of my little garden here. He'll be headed your way."
And then Doon took off at a run.
Jas jumped to his feet, started after Doon, but only got a few feet when he realized that Doon was too far, already at the door, already closing it behind him. Jas turned back and looked into the darkness around the lake. The moon was rising, but there wasn't enough light. And if there was, Jas wasn't sure if he could tell what a twick was. Had he ever seen a picture? Yes — and as he remembered what it looked like, he saw a living one crouched on a tree branch about thirty feet away.
Weapon? Unlikely. Doon wasn't the kind to leave spare lasers lying around.
The twick darted forward on the branch. So quickly that Jas could hardly see the movement — it was simply a few meters nearer. The twick didn't take its eyes off Jas.
The words of the book flashed back. "Toys with its victims. Tries to seem harmless. Many fatalities among children who try to pet it." Useless information. What Jas needed to know was how to kill one without a laser.
I should have looked in Doon's mind, Jas told himself. At least I would have known the method he planned to use to kill me. Some kind of pervert, Jas decided. Likes to watch bloody death. Have fun, Doon. This one's on me.
Jas's injured hand throbbed.
The twick wasn't on the branch. One minute it was on the branch and the next minute it wasn't.
Jas looked down at the ground. Two meters away the twick crouched in the grass. It was absolutely motionless. Jas couldn't remember seeing any movement. Was the animal smiling? Jas wondered if an animal was capable of gloating over a victim. Its fur glistened. Apparently Abner Doon groomed his assassins well.
And suddenly Jas felt an excruciating pain in his right calf. He reached down to pry the animal off. For a moment the twick clung, still boring into Jas's leg. Then it wriggled out and in less than a second was burrowing into Jas's upper arm. The leg gushed blood.
With the twick tearing at his right arm, Jas could only strike at the animal with his left hand. It did no good.
I'm going to die, Jas shouted in his mind.
But his survival instinct was still strong, despite the terrible pain and the worse fear. Like a reflex he realized that the twick would simply jump from target to target on Jas's body. It was only a matter of time until it hit a vital artery, or until if found the boneless cavity of his abdomen and devoured his bowels. But Jas could delay. Jas could force it to move.
He threw himself to the ground, trying
(hopelessly) to crush the animal under the weight of his body. Of course the twick was uninjured. But the maneuver had won Jas a moment's respite — the animal wriggled out and away, and it crouched two feet from where Jas lay on the ground.
Jas leaped to his feet and started to run. Of course the twick struck, but Jas's back was turned, and the animal only dug into the muscles under the shoulder blade.
Jas threw himself violently to the ground, backward. This time the twick made a sharp sound (pain?) and scurried a little further away. Jas tried to run again. He knew he couldn't outrun the twick, especially now with his back ripped open and his calf torn up so that every step was agony. But at least he was doing something.
The twick landed on his buttocks and tore at him. Jas broke stride, fell to one knee. Then he noticed that the lake was only twenty feet away, parallel to his line of flight. He had instinctively been avoiding the water. But maybe —