"I didn't mean to wake you. I'll be quieter next time."
"I had the computer set to wake me when a certain kind of contradiction came up. The contradiction that triggered it was, of course, your score on the astrodynamics test."
"I wish I'd flunked it."
"No you don't. I don't mean the first astrodynamics test. That was routine. It merely identified you as a Swipe, and the computer would have been content to let you die. Luckily for me and the Empire — and you, of course — you're a survivor. You lived long enough to take the second test."
Jas remembered how he had labored over the answers to that one. "I didn't pass that one by checking in on anybody's mind, Doon."
"I know. After all, whose mind would you check in on, as you so colorfully put it? There isn't a single mind — or computer, for that matter — in the Empire or out of it that could have given you all the answers. You missed one test question, of course. But there were three questions on that test for which we didn't have an answer."
Doon paused. Jas slowly realized the implications of that.
"You mean I moved beyond —"
"I mean," Doon said, "that you are a reasonably bright young fellow with prospects for a satisfactory career in astrodynamics. My engineers assure me that they can now construct a ship that moves not the piddling triple–light–speed that our scouts now muster, but rather a dazzling eleven lights. Nothing, my young friend, goes eleven lights. And you twisted up the physicists' understanding of mass somehow, though they despaired of trying to explain the difference to me. I'm not mathematical. I hardly need tell you what this does for the Empire."
"I suppose it will speed up the mail."
"You have a very flippant attitude today," Doon said.
"I always antagonize the merely bright," Jas retorted.
"You might recall that I can have you killed if I like."
"You might recall that I have already faced about the worst you can do to me. Kill me if you like. I hardly give a damn."
Doon punched something else on the computer, and in the space over a large table in the middle of the room, a star map formed. The stars were fairly dense. Another code, and most of them disappeared. Now all that were left were pale blue stars and bright red stars. "Us," said Doon, "and Them."
"They surround us," Jas said, surprised.
"Colonies all around, yes indeed. We're hemmed in. And much as we hate to admit it publicly, this war is all about colonies. Whoever has room to expand will eventually win. Whoever is hemmed in will eventually lose."
"Too bad for Mother, then, I suppose," Jas said, though such an unpatriotic attitude jarred even him — one didn't forget one's entire upbringing in a single fit of pique over a mere attempted murder.
"Too bad until now, anyway. With the new eleven–light drive, my young friend, we shall soon be colonized far beyond them — and before they can steal the drive and duplicate it, we'll be firmly entrenched. It will remove the whole question of encirclement forever, I am quite confident."
"So play the national anthem and give me a medal, Mr. Doon. Don't have me eaten alive by little animals. It doesn't feel like a suitable reward."
"Does that still bother you? Surely you understand that it was a test."
"What were you testing for, how good I taste? Or how long I can hold my breath underwater?"
"Actually, I was testing to see if your clever and creative mind would keep you alive in a situation of high pressure. You're a survivor."
"And what if I had failed the test?"
"You'd be dead. I was willing to risk my whole waking on that one test."
"A whole waking. While I merely risked the rest of my life."
"You are annoyingly egocentric, Jas. What difference would it make to the world if you dropped dead right now? An infinitesimally smaller daily food demand for Capitol. In this universe you don't amount to horse manure — you recall what horses are? No matter how bright you are, my boy, you are worthless and trivial to the universe until and unless you get into a position where you can make a difference."
Doon walked behind Jas and abruptly began pushing the chair toward the door.
"I spent the first thirty years of my life, Jason, just getting where I am. For thirty years I manipulated and connived and sacrificed — I passed up five chances to go on somec before I was finally satisfied that I had the organization that I needed. I let myself reach thirty physical years of age, in order to get the position I have."
"Assistant minister of colonization."
"I had that at twenty–two. The rest of the time was spent getting control of the computers, winning Mother's Little Boys to my group, getting men and women who ultimately reported to me in every level of the bureaucracy. And I had to keep it all secret so that someone didn't pull the plug while I was under somec."
Jas involuntarily started to laugh at the juxtaposition of the archaic phrase "pull the plug," but caught himself, and merely smiled. "The ultimately efficient megalomaniac," he said.
"Of course. Megalomaniacs are simply people who know damn well they can run the universe better than God or the present governors."
"You've been doing a super job," Jas said. "Everybody's happy."
"What the hell do I care if anybody's happy?" Doon asked. "Least of all you. Heredity has dealt you a full deck, my boy. So you're going to play cards until you win or go broke. You're in my collection, and if you do as you're told, you'll eventually reach a position where you can make a difference to humanity. But if you decide to do things on your own, you'll step outside my protection. Do that, and if Radamand Worthing doesn't get you, Hartman Tork will."
Doon pushed the chair quickly down the corridor. And as Doon's last statement hung in the air, Jas felt a tremendous vertigo. The chair was not moving forward, it was falling down the corridor, and he was powerless to stop it. He wasn't afraid of hitting the end — it was the falling itself, the powerlessness itself that made him throw his hands out in front of him and shout, "Stop me! Let me stop!"
And Doon stopped pushing the chair. A sudden silence fell in the corridor. The rhythm of Doon's running steps made the stillness shout deafeningly. Jas covered his face with his hands.
"What's wrong, Jas?" Doon whispered. "Why are you afraid?"
Jas just shook his head.
"Brilliant or not, Jason, you are still a child, I suppose. If you would only talk like a child, people would remember to treat you like one."
"I don't want to be treated like a child."
"Well, you sure as hell don't want to be treated like an adult. Remember that you applied for the Service?"
"They turned me down."
"They've already reconsidered. You'll begin pilot school as soon as your skin is healed."
"Pilot school?" Jas was surprised. "That was just my escape, to save my life — I never really wanted to be a pilot."
"Too intellectual for the Space Service, is that it? Well, consider it a lifesaver anyway, boy. Pilots live longer than anybody. If they don't get killed, of course — but you're a survivor, right? On all their twenty– and thirty–year flights, they're only awake for a few months at the most. The rest of the time, somec. Pilots are on a somec level that will keep you young and alive for five hundred years."