“Not now they don’t. But we can drop hints in a few places, suggesting they exist. For a start, you could plant it around MacDougal’s office. That place leaks information out faster than it goes in. When rumors get back to the Pipe-Rillas, it will confirm their ideas. And then after a while we give them the plans themselves.”

“How?”

“You leave that to me. I have a delivery system already in place. They’ll accept what I give them.”

“The Pipe-Rillas think you’re a traitor?”

“That concept is not in their vocabulary. In their view, I will be allowing the better side of my nature to triumph over natural human wickedness. They don’t seem to understand cheating.”

“But I do. And so do you.” Luther Brachis leaned across the table. “How do I know this whole thing isn’t just some game of yours, setting me up for something?”

“I realize I’ve got to prove that to you. I will.” Mondrian motioned slightly with his head. “Later. For now, it’s a truce. Here come Tatiana and Godiva.”

The two woman had appeared in the doorway and were threading their way through the tables. A tall waiter was in front or them, carrying a broad covered dish. He placed the silver tureen between Brachis and Mondrian and straightened up.

“With the compliments of the management,” he said stiffly. “I will return shortly to take your order.” He hurried away, bowing his head deferentially to Godiva and Tatty as he passed them.

“That’s peculiar,” said Brachis. “I’ve been here a dozen times, and I’ve never before had free appetizers.”

He reached out and took hold of the cover, lifting it from the dish. As he did so the fire opal at Mondrian’s collar changed color. It pulsed with a vivid green light, and a high-pitched whine came from it.

“Drop that!” Mondrian leaped to his feet, glanced around him, and grabbed the tureen off the table. He hurled it away to his left. “Get down, all of you!”

He grabbed the end of the table and tilted it upwards so that it served as a shield. At the same moment Luther Brachis dived at Tatty and Godiva, gathering one in each arm and knocking them off their feet. He dropped on top of them.

There was a hollow, deep whomp and a bright flash of white light. The table that Mondrian was holding flew violently backwards, smashing into him and throwing him down on top of Brachis. A sound like violent hail rattled on the other side of the table. After it came a sudden and total silence.

Tatty found herself lying on her right side, ears ringing. Sharp pain tingled and stung all the way along her left arm. Brachis and Mondrian were on top of her, making it impossible to move. As she tried to wriggle out from under them she heard a curse and a pained grunt from above.

“Ahggh! Esro, for God’s sake get your head out of my guts. Esro?”

The weight on top of her rolled away. Tatty could move to one side, and finally crawl free. She stood up, dizzy and aware of the dull, padded feeling inside her skull.

She peered around her. The table, upside down, showed a cracked, splintered surface. The plastic was pocked and cratered, with metal splinters embedded all over its surface. Off to the right the whole wall showed a similar pattern of shrapnel impact. Godiva stood at the other side of the table. She looked astonished, but unharmed.

“Help me.” Tatty nodded to Godiva to take hold of the other end of the overturned table. Between them they lifted it off the two men. Mondrian was unconscious. Tatty dropped to her knees, looking first at his face and then feeling for his pulse. It was slow and steady. She noticed in a detached way that her own left arm was punctured and bleeding and marked by scores of metal fragments.

Luther Brachis had finally made it to his feet. He was holding his head in his hands and staring vacantly around him. His right shoulder and neck were riddled with metal fragments and bleeding profusely. The restaurant staff had finally appeared and stood looking helplessly on.

“Medical care,” said Brachis gruffly. “Did anyone send for help?”

One of the waiters nodded.

“All right, then.” Brachis motioned to Esro Mondrian. “Take him outside. I don’t want him in here a second longer than he has to be.”

“But moving him — ” began Tatty.

“He’ll live, but we have to get him to a hospital. Don’t worry, Princess Tatiana, I’ll see to that. And well get you patched up, too. And then” — Brachis shivered, and his voice dropped to a whisper — “and then I’ll get after the bastard who did this.”

He shook his head as though to clear it, reached for his shoulder, and gasped. He tilted, straightened, and started a slow crumpling. Tatty and Godiva reached out for him together. They lowered him gently to the floor. Their hands came away from his uniform covered with fresh bright blood.

Tatty wiped her palms absently on the front and side of her white dress. As she did so she suddenly thought of Chan. Where was he, what had he been doing?

A lot of things were beginning to make sense. The picture of Mondrian, back on Horus — it had been the spur that drove Chan towards intelligence. She had used it that way on purpose, to relieve her own feelings. And then the way that Chan had looked at Mondrian’s image when he came onto the display screen to ask her to go to dinner with him.

She had created Chan’s feeling deliberately, a focused and intense hatred. Was this the terrible result?

Please God, no.

But Tatty felt sure that she was right. It was her fault, she was the one who had caused this carnage. She dropped to her knees, cradled Esro Mondrian in her arms, and hid her face against his dark tunic.

First there had been that sudden, terrible moment when the whole world rushed in on him. It had created nausea, pain, and disorientation. At the time Chan would have said that nothing could ever be worse than those final few minutes in the Tolkov Stimulator. And it could never happen again. Self-awareness and loss of innocence occur at a unique moment in a life.

But there are degrees of torture, refinements of pain beyond the simple and the immediate. A more complex animal can admit more subtle agonies. Those came later, and more gradually.

Even now, when he could speak perfectly well, Chan could not put his suffering into words. All he had was analogy. It was as though the illumination level of the world around him had been increasing, hour by hour and day by day. The light had been constant and dim for many years, until the Tolkov Stimulator produced that first flood of light. Ever after that the radiance level had risen, little by little. More and more detail became visible — and the brightness reached the point of discomfort, and far beyond.

Occasionally a single event would produce a flare, a quantum change in the brightness around him. The sight of Esro Mondrian, earlier in the day, had been a supernova. It brought in a torrent of new sensation. He knew Mondrian — but how, and when, and where?

Chan brooded on the question. Mondrian’s drawn, aristocratic features were utterly familiar, more familiar to Chan than his own face. The memory was there in his brain, it had to be — but he was denied access. Thinking about it only made his mind regress along an endless loop.

Finally Chan had wandered over to Tatty’s apartment. He had no particular reason for going there, no explicit goal in mind, but he wanted to talk to her. Maybe she could help him; if not, she might be able to comfort him.

It was a shock to find Tatty preoccupied with her own affairs, rather than being wholly devoted to Chan’s. He found her cold, remote, and unsympathetic. She was obviously far off on her own mental journey, and she did not want company.

When she went into the bedroom it was a clear hint for Chan to leave. He didn’t. Instead he hung around the apartment, convinced that he had nowhere else to go.