Halvar into the confines of the Combat College.
'I apologise,' said Lupus, with some effort. 'I'm very sorry. I was wrong to speak to you in anger. You're my valued colleague, and I hope you know it. It's just – it's just that there's so much at stake. It's not you, it's Hatch who's making me angry. I'm very sorry I used that tone of voice to you.'
Lupus spoke thus because he had seen the patent shock and pain on Dog Java's face. In the city of Dalar ken Halvar, a lordly Ebrell Islander in his redskinned pride would never have apologised to one of the lowly Yara – though he might conceivably have essayed politeness in the presence of one of the Yara, a member of the rich and therefore Real upper class of the people Pang. But Lupus realized that the habits of Dalar ken Halvar could be fatal to his purposes, so he would have to control himself, and use the techniques of identification, encouragement and motivation which had been so carefully taught to him by Paraban Senk.
They worked, those Nexus techniques. But – they were so alien! It hurt Lupus to parley with this Yara creature as if it were almost an equal. But he had to – in order to serve his purpose.
With apologies done with, Lupus Lon Oliver and Dog Java got down to business. The business was simple. Lupus Lon Oliver was endeavoring to persuade Dog Java to murder Asodo Hatch. By now the last year of Lupus Lon Oliver's training had come to an end, sliding away in a dream-daze of eternal study, training and physical preparation – the physical preparation being essential, because the savagery of the mentally exhausting theoretical examinations would be quite sufficient to ruin the health of anyone who was not in peak physical condition. Those savage theoretical examinations had already begun, and were almost complete. The results were confirming was everyone in the Combat College had suspected for a long time.
Three years earlier, following the murder of Hiji Hanojo, it had been generally thought that a half-dozen elite students had a serious chance of winning the instructorship of the Combat College in competitive examination. Of those six, Darius Flute and Sefton Ten Guy were dead. Scorpio Fax had suffered a nervous breakdown, from which he had only recently recovered, and that had set his training back severely. And as for Son'Sholoma Gezira, why, he had been expelled from the College for arson and attempted rape.
That left the Frangoni warrior Asodo Hatch and the Ebrell Islander Lupus Lon Oliver to duel it out for the instructorship.
In the theoretical examinations, Lupus had proved to have an edge in pure mathematics, physics and mechatronics, but Hatch had surpassed him in linguistics, applied politics and non-coercive conflict resolution. When it came to military tactics and strategy, nothing separated the two. The end result was that both were proving equally qualified for the instructorship, so decision by combat was called for.
When it came to the question of a physical resolution of the competition for the instructorship, Lupus Lon Oliver preferred the certainties of murder, but was too intelligent to strike down Hatch with his own hand.
Hence this conspiracy with Dog Java.
The two had to meet inside the Combat College, for any connection between the two would certainly excite public comment if it took place in the city of Dalar ken Halvar itself. In public in Dalar ken Halvar, Lupus had ever held himself aloof from the Yara, even those who were fellow-students in the Combat College, and so any change in his habits would be noted.
Yet to conspire in the Combat College was difficult, since Paraban Senk could see and hear much of that which took place in most parts of the College.
However, there were, it was known, certain conditions under which the Combat College could not monitor student activity. When students met in the laboratory, for instance – since that great cave at the rear of the Combat College remained but a hollow in the living rock, untenanted by any of the machineries of the Nexus.
Furthermore, the illusion tanks themselves were an ideal venue for a conspiracy – under certain circumstances. When the illusion tanks ran a war program, Paraban Senk had the option of monitoring everything, count by count. But when the same tanks ran a peace program, Senk could only guess at what was happening. This was an idiosyncracy of the system. Either a design flaw, or something which had been deliberately arranged to give the students the psychological comfort of having some private sphere of action free from the overlording surveillance of the Teacher of Control. Certainly this idiosyncracy of the system was very convenient for those engaged in conspiracy.
Naturally, with twenty millennia of experience to back its judgment, Paraban Senk could often guess what was going on, and with some accuracy. Particularly when a student was doing, for example, a freetime run of that peace program program known as Backstreet Beds, or the related program known as Harem Lord, for in both of these illusion tank peace programs the range of options was strictly limited. But Lon Oliver and Dog Java had the freedom of an entire MegaCommand Cruiser, so Paraban Senk could only guess whether they were buggering each other or burning the Great God Mokaragash in effigy.
For the purposes of conspiracy, Lupus Lon Oliver had chosen to meet with Dog Java on the MegaCommand Cruiser in the environment generated by that peace program known as Routine Cruise. It was a tried and tested guidebook program which was free from glitches and caprices, a program in which it was guaranteed that nothing would go wrong. Nothing would attack, engulf, corrode, implode or otherwise imperil the illusionary MegaCommand Cruiser on which Lupus and Dog were busy with conspiracy. The crew would not fight, mutiny or orgy. Unless pressed hard for a reaction, both crew and ship would ignore the wandering students.
So.
The MegaCommand Cruiser.
In deep space.
Here the stars were an alien white. Even now, Lupus could well remember when he had first seen those white-bright stars, and had thought their lack of color to be a defect of the programming. Though Lupus had lived out his childhood under a white sun, he had still been surprised to learn that the white suns were the Standard Stars of most of Known Humanity, that these cold ice-chip lights were the dominant luminaries of the night skies of any planet in any universe in the Standard Probability Range, and that the Nexus seldom opened a Chasm Gate into a cosmos configured otherwise.
'Pretty,' said Dog Java, watching the stars.
'Pretty?' said Lupus.
Whatever doubts he had about Dog Java were confirmed by that one word.
Still, Lupus pushed on, and made his final offer to Dog Java. As has already been stated, Dog was a member of the Yara, the Unreal underclass of Dalar ken Halvar's dominant people, the Pang. Dog wanted to join the Free Corps, but membership of that august body was largely restricted to Ebrell Islanders and members of the Chem, the wealthy upperclass of Dalar ken Halvar's Pang.
'The Brick has reconsidered your application,' said Lupus.
'And?' said Dog.
'It has been agreed that you will be accepted into the Free Corps if you kill Hatch. Kill him and you can become Real.'
'Good,' said Dog, simply. Then said: 'Abort.'
With that word, Dog exited from the simulated MegaCommand Cruiser, leaving Lupus Lon Oliver alone with his anxieties. Dog was a poor tool. Lupus would much rather have employed someone with a streak of desperation in his nature – like Yolombo Atlantabara, the Frangoni deserter who was known to be living a precarious and criminal life somewhere in Dalar ken Halvar. If Lupus could only get Atlantabara, then – then he might have a serious hope of seeing Hatch dead. But Dog? Lupus was dubious about Dog's abilities.
Hence his anxiety.
For Lupus, winning the instructorship – by fair means or foul – was desperately important. It would mean wealth. And status.
And more.
In the years which Lupus had devoted to his studies in the Combat College, he had integrated himself with the life of the Nexus. In many ways, he had become one of the more intellectual and philosophical of the citizens of the Nexus, and in some ways this had made him a stranger in his own homeland.
So while it is true that Lupus ruthlessly pursued his ambitions because he desired influence, and power, and the satisfactions of mastery, it is also true that he sought a permanent position in the Combat College as an instructor because he did not want to be exiled from his home.
For Lupus, the Nexus was now home; and in a practical sense, for him the Combat College was effectively the Nexus. And he was possessed of a great and half-acknowledged fear of being exiled, of being cast out, of being
