“Ten Lubak!” I jumped up and One Tarnal, our section leader, ushered me into the Lower Prefect’s office. Going in numerical order, I was the last one of my group to go in. I was surprised when Tarnal didn’t come inside with me. And when my eyes had adjusted to the darker room, I was even more surprised to see only two people, the First Prefect and someone in civilian mufti standing with his back turned toward me pouring a drink. Where were the student evaluators? The Lower Prefect? Why would the First Prefect involve himself in a First Level evaluation? And who was . . . ?

“Hello, Elim.” The stranger turned and it was Enabran Tain!

“Ten Lubak.” The Prefect motioned me to the chair, but I couldn’t move. The two men just looked at me. All my preparation for the evaluation flew out of my head, and I felt as exposed as I had my first time in the Wilderness.

“Ten Lubak,” the Prefect repeated.

“Yes, Prefect,” was all I could manage. What was Tain doing here?

“Sit down,” he instructed. I obeyed. Tain passed an information chip to the Prefect, who consulted it. During the ensuing silence I stole a glance to Tain, who was wearing his avuncular smile. What do I call him, I wondered. Certainly not Uncle Enabran.

“What do you think you’ve learned here?” the Prefect finally asked. It wasn’t so much his question as his attitude that threw me off balance. The question I had expected; his air of boredom, as if the day was one student too long, I hadn’t.

“I . . .” He wasn’t even looking at me. Tain, however, continued to smile and wait patiently for my answer. Somehow his presence, disorienting as it was, encouraged me, and I found myself directing my answers to him.

“I’ve learned that appearances deceive and that the purity of my thinking creates a sure path to the truth,” I replied.

“So,” Tain began, “you believe all this to be a lie?” He gestured to the room.

“It’s deceptive.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because our thinking is impure. . . .” I still didn’t know how to address him.

“Is that all? The purity of one’s thinking?” he pursued.

“There are the hidden intentions of others.”

“How are they hidden?”

“By what they say they are. How they present themselves. But pure thinking is trained to penetrate these guiles and come into direct contact with the true intention.” My confidence was returning, and I was able to maintain a strong contact with Tain. Ordinarily it would be considered extremely disrespectful to look at an elder like this, but behind his genial demeanor was a serious challenge. It was like the game we had played when he’d tested the keenness of my observation on the street.

“How is pure thinking able to penetrate the appearance?” Tain’s smile was now gone. I hesitated.

“How, Elim?” The questions became sharper.

“Initially by watching the direction of the eye movement when the interrogee answers, the frequency or absence of blinking; the intonation of the voice, the inflection–was it flat? Overstated? Were the answers glib, prepared? The breathing. . . .”

“Yes yes,” Tain pushed me beyond the basics. “What else?”

“If the person can’t hold his space.”

“Space? Explain.”

“If the energy field around him loses its shape and dissipates, then he has no defense against my probe and I can penetrate to his essential core.” As I held Tain’s look, I realized that I was locked into hisenergy field. We were two Pit warriors engaged in a strategem.

“Who am I, Elim?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Someone I must never let out of my awareness.” This was the first time I was not terrified by his steady and unblinking eyes, which revealed nothing but my own reflection. After a moment he nodded and broke eye contact.

“And what do you think has been your most serious lapse of discipline, Ten Lubak?” the Prefect asked in his disinterested tone. Or was it rather an uninflected way of asking questions that would reveal nothing. I began to answer that there were certain classes where I had given in to the boredom and did nothing to motivate my interest.

“And what about your regnar,Elim?”

The breath flew out of me. I looked at Tain with naked amazement.

“Mila. Is that his name?”

In an instant, my carefully constructed mask for this meeting was ripped away, and I experienced a fear I had never felt before. I realized then that Tain knew more about me than I had ever imagined. The Prefect now looked at me for the first time.

“Ah, I see,” Tain continued when I couldn’t. “You think that you’re the only one who can ‘disappear.’ A big mistake, Elim.” He watched as I started to breathe again.

“Is there a lesson here, do you think?” he asked gently.

“If you’ve mastered a tool or technique. . . .” I began, but I needed more air, and my tongue was thick and dry. They both waited patiently while I swallowed and breathed. “. . . Then there are others who have done the same before you,” I managed to get out. Calyx first taught me this lesson.

“That’s right, Elim,” he said as if he were addressing a child. “Whatever your mind conceives or imagines already exists in the world. It doesn’t make the thought or conception any less valuable; it just means that this technique you’ve discovered must be used carefully, and with the understanding that if you use it against other people, it can also be used against you.”

With a clarity I’d never had, I heard what he was really saying to me. Charaban had deceived me by masking his true intentions, hiding them behind a friendship he’d never meant to extend beyond the Competition. I had taken it for granted that because he befriended me he had no hidden intentions. I felt a rush of shame. What a fool he had made of me. And then a disturbing thought attacked me: was Palandine doing the same? I knew what Charaban had wanted from me–but what did shewant?

“Then you know about One Charaban and One Ketay.” I looked at them both.

“So you havelearned this lesson. I’m impressed, Elim.” Tain turned to the Prefect. “I think this will suffice.” The Prefect nodded and turned the chip off.

“You will be leaving Bamarren,” the Prefect said to me.

I just stared at him. It was clear that this was the end of the review–and I had expected to receive my new designation.

“Leaving?”

“Today. The shuttle will meet you in front of the Central Gate before the Assembly,” the Prefect explained.

“But . . . this is . . .” It was a stunning blow, but I refused to submit. “This is unfair, Prefect. Yes, I admit . . . I broke rules. But I have done good work . . . in the Pit . . . ask Calyx! In the Wilderness! Charaban’s victory was. . . .”

“He probably would have won, but nowhere near as impressively as he did with your contribution. We know all this, Elim, even with his negative recommendation,” Tain added with his half‑smile. I wasn’t surprised by this last piece of information, but it sharpened the bitter taste in my mouth.

“You’re being assigned to another school,” the Prefect informed me.

“What kind of school?” I asked as my heart sank into the floor.

“You’ll discover that when you get there,” the Prefect answered. “Today you will return home. You will tell your parents only that you are awaiting reassignment. In the meantime, you will work with your father until the orders come. I advise you to make your preparations.”

I automatically stood up, but I couldn’t leave. There was so much that was unsaid, unresolved.

“What is it, Garak?” the Prefect asked, using my name. Just like that . . . I was no longer a student.

“If I had stayed. . . .” I began.

“But you didn’t, Elim,” Tain interrupted. “Pure thinking doesn’t include ‘what might have been if.’ ”

I snapped to, inclined my head and started for the door.

“Mila,” Tain’s voice stopped me. “A woman’s name for a male regnar?”