"Damn you, Bruen! Shut your lying mouth!" Her eyes glazed in amber fury and her face twisted.
Yes, she is ready. I can do no more with her. The time
has come to send her to Butla. Oh, Bruen, you doddering senile fool, you will miss her, too. You're too old for revolution.
Bmen pointed down to the pulse pistol that had centered on his belly, safety off. Color washed from her face, her mouth dropping open. The pistol, so rock-steady before, began to tremble before it fell clattering from er lifeless fingers.
"Call it what you will," he said, humbly, picking the weapon up and clicking the safety on before handing it back to her. "Not only would you raise your voice to the High Priest, you would have clawed the fat girl's eyes out."
The anger still smoldered, though tempered by shame. "Normally, Magister, I don't lose my temper like that."
"Oh?" A withered eyebrow went up. "Remember the day I told you you would make an excellent assassin? Itreatic teaching machines are very expensive. and extremely difficult to obtain, I might add. I most vehementy obect to you smashing such precious computers against large rocks. I believe it was a previously established fact that rock is more durable than n-dimensional superconductor. Fydor has tried valiantly to save bits and pieces, but he says the gallium arsenide chips are hopelessly fractured."
Her shouders fell along with her gaze. "I'm sorry. I… Oh, Rotted Gods, nothing, forget it! Wy am I so confused? What's happening to me?"
He chuckled gently and lifted her chin with a fragile finger. "It is that temper, dearest, which is your strength."
And it is that temper we have worked so hard to channel and dam in that beautiful mind of yours. Still, quantum func tions affect the mind. An unlucky random event, and the carefully set trigger could snap, initiating a catastrophic explosion. I must watch myself more closely. She is so very sensitive to sexual stimuli.
His arm around her shoulder, he led her to an unevenly canted bench under a sweeping Ponderosa branch. "Here, sit. Let's talk about assassination and death."
She pulled her long legs up under her robe. "I'm not even sure I could come right out and kill a person. I've never even killed a. "
"But I have, haven't I?" He glanced away, taking a deep breath. "You've learned all we can teach you here.
We're sending you to someone who can give you what we can't."
"Sending me away?"
He smiled to still her sudden panic. "He's the best, Arta. The time has come for you to learn from a master."
She closed her eyes. "Why, Magister? Why me? What makes you think I'll be an assassin?"
"Because it's your talent. You know the goals of the Seddi. You know how the universe works. The dance of the quanta are the reflection of God's thoughts — neither good nor evil. Those concepts are the creation of the human mind. To improve the lot of humanity, we must act to replace the tyrants who oppress the human condition with those who would nurture it and stop the suffering. Assassination is but one of the ways to achieve that end. More than once, you've asserted your desire to help us free humanity from the tyrants. Do you wish to renounce your vows? You can, you know. Simply tell me."
She shook her head. "No. I've studied the history too well. I know what's happened in the last two centuries."
He nodded sagely. "Yours is a special talent. We've seen it in you from the beginning."
"How do you know all this about me? Of all the people on all the worlds, do you watch each of them?"
His face crinkled into corduroy. "I wish we could. In your case, dearest girl, one of our agents spotted your fiery spirit the day you were sold to the Etarians. We spend a lot of time watching the slave markets. The potential there is surprising. The most interesting people sell their children into slavery."
She thought about that. "And do you know who my parents were?"
"Many people — in this wretched age of ours — have lost their parents."
She shuddered and jerked her head in a quick nod.
"You're fine as you are, precious Arta." He paused and pushed her away, seeing the upheavals his words had created. "Ah, to be young again. Maybe I could allow my virtue to slide and take advantage of your confusion? It's been so long since I've ravished a 'nice' girl! Since you don't approve of my dalliances with prostitutes—"
"Magister! You never give up!" she laughed nervously, color rising in her alabaster flesh.
"No, dearest, I never do." And if you could only know the curse of those words.
Andray Somsen sat before the monitor in Skyla's quarters with a foot pulled up so he could brace his chin on his knee. For long moments after the record cube Skyla had taken from the Myklenian hospital had played out, he sat in silence, a pensive frown on his blunt face.
Unable to stand it any longer, Skyla asked, "Well?"
Andray took a deep breath and gave her a sidelong look out of languid brown eyes. "How did you get the courage to play that tape? Knowing it was taken of the Lord Commander in a very private moment?"
Skyla bristled. "I didn't bring you up here to analyze me. I want to know what the Praetor did to Staffa in that hospital room."
Andray worked his lips and made a clicking noise with his mouth. "You know, I've made a study of Staffa — on the sly, of course. His coldly dispassionate approach to problems has always intrigued me. Hearing the Praetor call him a machine was very enlightening." Andray's eyes gleamed as he met her hot glare. "He was, you know."
"Was? Past tense?"
Andray nodded. "Computer, replay, please. Wing Commander, watch closely. This is fascinating. A study in psychological brilliance."
Skyla watched the scene in the hospital as Staffa and the Praetor talked.
"Freeze." Andray gestured at the monitor. "Here's where the Praetor gives the first clue about what he's done. He tells Staffa, 'I am your creator.' And this second claim, 'What a master forges, so can he break,' that's significant. Look at the old man. He's gloating, assured of success at what should be his last and most bitter moment in life— he's practically gleeful instead."
"And Staffa misses it all. He should be growing wary at this point." Skyla shook her head. "That's not like him."
Andray smiled humorlessly. "Precisely. You see, Staffa
has already begun to fall into the trap. The Praetor sprung it with the word 'creator.' With that, he pulled the first brick from the dam that bottled Staffa's emotions. Now, watch what happens."
The cube resumed its play.
"The Praetor brags again about his ability to destroy Staffa," Andray told her. "He sets him up, knowing full well how thorough the conditioning is in Staffa's mind. See? He's laying the foundations for guilt which will eat at the Lord Commander once the hypnotic conditioning is broken."
"Freeze," Skyla ordered, pointing at the screen. "What about this business of 'the people.' What's the Praetor trying to do here?"
Andray tugged at his ear. "It's a setup, a trap. No matter what, Staffa still respects the Praetor — and his old mentor is telling Staffa that he has a flaw. You know the Lord Commander as well as anyone, Wing Commander. What will his response be?"
"He'll act immediately to correct the deficiency." Skyla's gut crawled. "Blessed Gods, of course!"
Andray cocked his head. "That strikes a chord, does it?"
"He pumped me about. going out among the people." She propped herself against the desk, eyes closed. "That's what he's done. Staffa, you fool! You played right into his hands!"
"But he doesn't know that," Andray told her mildly. "This next part is critical. Chrysla and the infant have obsessed Staffa for years. Remember, his emotional responses were suppressed, inhibited, so Chrysla and the child became mythic in Staffa's mind. Therefore when the Praetor admits that he not only took Staffa's only happiness from him, but sold his son and enslaved and raped his wife, that pulls the final brick from the wall and the whole thing tumbles into nibble before an unleashed tide of conflicting emotions that Staffa doesn't have the ability to deal with."