After he was certain that suitable progress was being made at the Lake, he would go on to Kharemough. He would work to solidify his new position, gaining influence, making himself an indispensable part of the new interstellar technology. He would keep his Police Com mandership, too, and build his power base from there.
Whatever it took, whatever was needed. . . .
He looked back again for a moment into the life that had brought him to this place, considered the ordeals that had prepared him for this future he had chosen, even as they had made it inevitable. They had seemed to him like the end of everything . . . and yet he had survived them all. None of them had been more than a prelude, a moment in time that had allowed him to begin the rest of his life.
There would be no more self-inflicted wounds, no
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more hesitation, no more blind allegiance to rules made by human beings as imperfect as himself. He would survive anything that got in his way, because he knew he could. He would return to Tiamat, and together with
Moon he would see that power passed into the right hands. Together they would start another future, they would set right old wrongs, they would-- He caught himself smiling again like a lovestruck fool. He sighed. No . . . never for the right reasons.
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His intercom bleeped loudly in the silence "Inspector?"
He turned back from the window, startled His sudden movement swept the antique watch from the windowsill onto the floor His heel came down before he could stop it, crushing the gold case, the jeweled animal faces, the fragile works within
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He lifted his foot, crouched down, picking up the pieces as gently as though he were lifting an injured child He placed the watch on the sill again, and stood over it, looking down His mouth trembled
"Inspector Gundhalinu? Sir, we ought to be leaving for the ceremony--"
He began to laugh, and went on laughing, helplessly What miracles we are, he thought, and what fools
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