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to appear? What's the matter with you?"
Prosik's eyes became bird-alert, then dull.
"Speak up, Prosik!"
"I ahhh . . . I'm . . ."
"Bazeel, isn't it?"
Prosik lowered his gaze. Confession enough. But the chief monitor outraged
Mugly even more by what he said next.
"I have already told the full story to Jongleur."
He dared go over my head! He has a sneaky intelligence.
"What did you tell Jongleur?"
Prosik stared along the bridge of his horn-tool nose at the ground. "Ryll,
Jongleur's son, has been raising bazeel and providing it for me. The boy
obviously did it to incapacitate me and permit him to steal the ship."
"You see?" Mugly swept his gaze across the other aides. "You, who share our
secret that Earthers capture and imprison Dreens, must now have no doubts
about the peril from that deadly planet!"
They knew what he meant. Bazeel, a terrible substance with no antidote, the
only drug known to alter Dreen behavior, had originated on Earth. More and
more insidious things were appearing from that place once considered the
product of a Great Story -- Wemply the Voyager's supreme creation.
But the bazeel!
Earthers, totally unaffected by it, spiced their food with bazeel. Despite
severe warnings, Dreens persisted in bringing back large quantities of bazeel
from Earth. Clandestine bazeel gardens had been found even on Dreenor.
"I want the full story," Mugly said.
They listened quietly while Prosik recounted his sorry tale. Prosik spoke
loudly so Mugly would not be forced to lift an earflap, a thing certain to
increase the Elder's irritation.
"You frequently let him board Patricia?"
"He was a gifted student and Jongleur's son. I thought he was just playing.
He said his classes bored him."
"A gifted student, indeed! He undoubtedly figured out the controls in short
order."
"He gave me his solemn promise he wouldn't touch the controls without an adult
there to guide him."
"A solemn promise! I'm sure that makes this whole affair acceptable."
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"I assumed the son of Jongleur would act with honor."
"Honor? From the family of Jongleur? But is he not one of those who oppose
erasure of Earth?"
"Habiba herself opposes it," Prosik ventured.
"But I do not! Tell me, Prosik, to whom do you owe your Eminence? You owe it
to me! Did you not consider the possibility that Ryll might be his father's
agent sent to sabotage me?"
Prosik shifted from left feet to right feet and back. "But how could they
have known the ship's purpose?"
"Bazeel addled your brain!" Mugly accused. "They chose the perfect attack
time -- when the ship was ready to go."
"It is rumored that Ryll does not get along with his father," Deni-Ra said.
"The boy is known to have objected to the school for gifted children."
"Are you suggesting this was a schoolboy's lark?"
"It must be considered," she said.
She's right but that doesn't help matters. Damn them! My ship could go
nowhere but Earth.
Erasure is another matter. I am the only one who knows the full sequence. I
should have made the erasure automatic. Why didn't I plan for this
contingency?
Mugly was forced to be honest with himself.
I wanted personal credit for eliminating this terrible danger, that's why! By
the blasted-off hind foot of an untaxable demon! My ego got in my way.
"It's going to rain," Luhan said.
Mugly looked up at the suddenly cloudy sky. This would be the afternoon we
ordered rain!
"We should go inside," Deni-Ra said. She looked pointedly in the direction of
the Supreme Cone, reflecting Mugly's suspicion that Habiba could watch them
wherever they were.
Mugly agreed and, once in the guard station, took the only stool to sit and
think while the others stood in obedient silence.
What now? Other than secrecy, what resources do I have?
Mugly believed he concealed his thoughts during the Supreme Tax Collector's
weekly Thoughtcons.
It was then that Habiba absorbed stories from people Mugly invited to her
Sharing. Mugly's aides certainly suspected his ability but knew better than
to inquire. He had stumbled onto the method:
idmaged disconnection of those neurons carrying conspiratorial memories -- a
piecemeal alteration
Dreens considered impossible. It was timed to last a day and left him feeling
hazy, wishing
Dreens had doctors.
Mugly knew his concealment technique was dangerous.
Do I create a different self by my disconnections?
She gives no sign she suspects me.
Habiba was always more interested in stories of lesser Dreens -- the brightest
Junior
Storytellers, government tax collectors and the like. She displayed obvious
fascination in these stories that were the currency of Dreenor. And along
with stories went every other morsel of data in the minds of the ones Mugly
invited to a Thoughtcon.
She thinks she knows everything and that's supposed to keep us honest. But
the good of our universe requires me to carry out my conspiracy.
Mugly did not know if he were the only Dreen capable of hiding his thoughts
and he dared not
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If two people know a thing, it is no longer a secret.
That was one valuable concept acquired from Earth.
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