“I see only two options. Let him marry the Princess, and launch the Third Expedition without you, and she might be able to restore the faith of the people that another lode of endless energy is coming.”

“Pox on that. I’d rather see the world catch fire. What’s the other option?”

“Put the genie back in the bottle. Remove all the antimatter, every gram.”

“That’s impossible. Any third option?”

“You could always ask him to abdicate. Let him at least give up his monopoly on the antimatter. Like you said, have the price rise to meet the market, and have a bidding war rather than a shooting war.”

“I think he’d be afraid for his life if he stepped out of his office. He is not like Washington. He is like Napoleon. Even if they put him in exile on Elba, someone else would just haul him back in front of his cheering armies, and try to put him back in power.”

“Elba? Take him with you. To the stars. And get him to destroy the machine version.”

“But that also might cause a war.”

Cyrano looked pensive. “It is like most things in life. The only way to forestall a war is to risk one. The only way to preserve his world-empire is to give up his imperial crown.”

“I know him. He cannot do that. He won’t risk it. So…”

“So?”

“So, he is just trapped.”

“Well, Boss, so are you. This is a dream, and you are still in a jail cell. Hey, wake up. Three guys are coming to take you to some secret medical cell of Del Azarchel’s, and I think he might prefer you back the way you were, when you were Crewman Fifty-One, crazy but someone he could almost control.”

“Does that mean I am not crazy now? That is good to hear.”

Of course, he was awake when he said that, and there was no one in the room but him.

It was pitch-black in the room, and three men came in (he could tell by the change in the air motions when the cell door silently opened). They were wearing light amplification goggles, because presumably it is easier to deal with a prisoner who is unable to see his handlers.

Montrose was wearing metal wrist-restraints, which was too bad, because he could not think of an easier way to do this. He smashed his hand against the floor hard enough to crack some of his left metacarpal bones, which allowed him to pull one hand free as he flung himself at knee-level across the room, his right fist using the still-locked ring as impromptu brass knuckles.

In his mind’s eye, the men in the dark before him became tripartite fractal patterns of vector motions, with arcs of all his possible limb-movements, masses, and velocities printed in his imagination with crystal clarity. He saw his own constellations of counter-attacks, parries, and strikes. With casual thoroughness, he rotated the two four-dimensional motion-graphs in his mind until he found a way to set the two patterns together in a minimal–maximum configuration.

Then he was sitting on his face on the cold, padded floor of the corridor outside with the first guard’s baton in his hand. He had landed atop it. From the heft of it, he could feel that one end of the baton was opened like a switch-blade, and hissing with a sinister electronic sort of hiss, fortunately not touching the conductive fabric of his gown (which was designed to assist shock weapons). But the blade was jammed into the floor-panels, and he could not pull it free. Montrose was bruised along his forearm, his knuckles were bleeding, and he felt like his foot was broken.

He heard groans. There was a flare of electricity—in the absolute dark it looked dazzlingly bright. In the flash of light, he could see his first opponent face-down on the floor, a gloved hand crooked at a horrible angle: it looked as if Montrose had broken his fingers. The look of surprise on his face was greater than the look of pain.

Unfortunately, he only saw one other opponent. This second man was off-balance, stumbling, but had projected an electric wire from his baton whose live head (glancing off a metal boot stud) was making the momentary flare of light.

It was too good an opportunity to miss. Montrose spat, and the spittle passed through the live spark and struck the bare leg of that second man above his boot where his insulating legging had ripped free. The string of liquid was just enough to make a circuit. The man jerked in a spasm. Montrose knew he would not be awake long enough to actually see the man fall.

(Montrose contemplated the shock on the toppling man’s lower face. It was clear enough that these guys did not know how Montrose knew they were fakes. To them it must seem miraculous, bizarre, unexpected. That was sort of disorienting to Montrose: were things so obvious to him, so opaque to them? The noises they had made while approaching the door did not match the standard noises, the pauses, the click of thumb keys, the sleeve-rustle as salutes were exchanged, of real guards. How could they be surprised? They were like children trying to fool a grown-up.)

Since he did not see the third man, and since he did not have enough time to twist and bring the baton under him up to parry, all he could do was jerk his head forward, hoping the blow from behind would do less damage if the relative velocity were less.

He had two last thoughts. First, Del Azarchel’s men, despite their orders, would not dare take him anywhere else but the prison infirmary. Once there, there would be too many official records, too many witnesses, for a second abduction attempt. By the time Del Azarchel organized his next moves, Princess Rania’s attorney should have him freed. Second, he wondered what Dr. Kyi would have said, had he known how reckless Montrose was being with the brain they both so admired.

Then, a blunt impact to the base of his skull scattered his consciousness, just as if he had been of ordinary intelligence. It seemed somehow unfair.

2. Recovery

Montrose seemed to have more time to think things over, but his experience in the fight told him his nerve cells were not firing any faster than a normal man’s. It was a question of more efficient neural organization, not a fundamental change on the cellular level. A man’s brain is not that different from an ape’s, from a chemical and biological point of view: for that matter, a Winchester rifle was built along the same lines as a harquebus.

Montrose was in a bed, or a bath—it was a gelatin of smart material that partly encased him, a simplified form of an open biosuspension capsule, leaving his head, shoulders, and hands free. There were no intravenous needles, no diapers or catheters, since the jelly was able both to force nutrients into his membranes through his skin, and carry away waste. He was almost eating solid food again: just that morning the nurse had spoon-fed him a poached egg and bread soaked in milk. He kept it down without nausea or vomiting, and he was as proud of that accomplishment as any in his life.

Sunlight slanted through window of alternating dark and pale stripes, which he had deduced to be military glass, something that would deflect bullets and diffuse directed energy. He could not see, but he could hear traffic outside the window.

The traffic was horse-drawn carts and electric ground-effects vehicles—even the passage of one hundred years had not returned petroleum production to pre-Jihad levels. Montrose calculated the logic loop involved, and could not find an answer. Even with the drop in motor cars after the post-Jihad petroleum shortages, one would not expect new roads not to be built. Then he factored in two other variables: first, the cost of energy was so miniscule that the inefficiencies of hover vehicles versus wheeled vehicles meant nothing; and second, the chance of bombardment from orbit (roads, rails, and aerodromes made large and tempting targets) was so great, and so recent, that no market and no public pressure was present. The depthtrain carriages were cheaper, and the Hermeticists might not want public roads controlled by local municipalities.