though making a gift. They smelled of warm summers passed.There must be some way to die. Theremust be some way to die. Her arms were tied down, of course. But if he came close enough, she still had her teeth. Maybe, if he was enough of a fool—
He reached out, gently touched her shoulder. Anne twisted hard around, caught a bite from the Podmaster’s groping hand. He pulled back, leaving a trail of tiny red drops floating in the air between them. But he wasn’t enough of a fool to kill her on the spot. Instead, he glared across the ranked equipment at someone out of sight. “Trud! What the devil have you done to her?”
She heard a whiny voice that was somehow familiar. “Pham, I warned you this was a difficult procedure. Without her guidance, we can’t be sure—” The speaker came into view. He was a small and nervous-looking fellow in a Balacrean tech’s uniform. His eyes widened as he saw the blood in the air. The look he gave Anne was satisfyingly—and inexplicably—full of fear. “Al and I can do only so much. We should have waited till we get Bil back…. Look, maybe it’s just temporary memory loss.”
The older fellow flared into anger, but he seemed afraid, too. “I wanted a deFocus, not a god-damned mindscrub!”
The little man, Trud… Trud Silipan,retreated. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll come around. We didn’t touch the memory structures, I swear.” He shot another fearful glance her way. “Maybe… I don’t know, maybe the deFocus worked fine and we’re seeing some kind of autorepression.” He came a little closer, still beyond her hands and teeth, and gave her a sickly smile. “Boss? You remember me, Trud Silipan? We’ve worked together for years of Watch time, and before that back on Balacrea, under Alan Nau. Don’t you remember?”
Anne stared at the round face, the weak smile. Alan Nau. Tomas Nau. Oh… dear… God. She had wakened to a nightmare that had never ended. The torture pits, and then the Focus, and then a lifetime of being the enemy.
Silipan’s face had blurred, but his voice was suddenly cheerful. “See, Pham! She’s crying. She does remember!”
Yes. Everything.
But now Pham Nuwen’s voice sounded even angrier. “Get out, Trud. Just get out.”
“It’s easy to verify. We can—”
“Get out!”
She didn’t hear Silipan after that. The world had collapsed into pain, sobbing grief that took away her breath and senses.
She felt an arm across her shoulders, and this time she knew it wasn’t the touch of a torturer.Who am I? That had been the easy question. The real question,What am I?, had eluded her a few seconds more, but now the memories were flooding in, the monstrous evil she had been since that day in the mountains above Arnham.
She shuddered from Pham’s arm, only to encounter the straps that held her down.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and she heard the shackles fall away. And now it didn’t matter. She curled up into a ball, barely aware of his comfort. He was talking to her, simple things, repeated over and over in different ways. “It’s all right now, Anne. Tomas Nau is dead. He’s been dead for four days. You’re free. We’re all free….”
After a while, he was quiet, only the touch of his arm on her shoulders announcing his presence. Her tearing sobs wound down. There was no terror now. The worst had happened, over and over, and what was left was dead and empty.
Time passed.
She felt her body slowly relax, unbend. She forced open her tight-shut eyes, forced herself to turn and face Pham. Her facehurt with the crying, and how she wished she could be hurt a million times more. “You… damn you for bringing me back. Let me die now.”
Pham looked back at her quietly, his eyes wide and attentive. Gone was the bluster she had always guessed was a fake. In its place, intelligence… awe? No, that couldn’t be. He reached down beside her and laid the white andelirs back in her lap. The damn things were warm, furry. Beautiful. He seemed to consider her demand, but then he shook his head. “You can’t go yet, Anne. There are more than two thousand Focused persons left here. You can free them, Anne.” He gestured to the Focusing gear behind her head. “I got the feeling that Al Hom was playing roulette when he worked on you.”
I can free them.The thought was the first lightness in all the years since that morning in the mountains. It must have leaked out into her expression, because a hopeful smile appeared on Pham’s lips. Anne felt her eyes narrow down. She knew as much about Focus as any Balacrean. She knew all the tricks of reFocusing, of redirecting loyalty. “Pham Trinli—Pham Whoever-You-Really-Are—I’ve watched you for many years. Almost from the beginning, I thought you were working against Tomas. But I could also see how much you loved the idea of Focus. You lusted after that power, didn’t you?”
The smile left his face. He nodded slowly. “I saw… I saw it could give me what I had spent a lifetime fighting for. And in the end, I saw the price was too high.” He shrugged, and looked down, as if ashamed.
Anne stared into that face, thinking. Once upon a time, not even Tomas Nau could deceive her. When Anne was Focused, the edges of her mind had been sharp as razors, unencumbered by distraction and wishful thinking— and knowing Tomas’s true intent was no more use to her than a hatchet knowing it is for murdering. Now, she wasn’t sure. This man could be lying, but what he asked of her was what she yearned to do more than anything else in the world. And then, having paid back as best she could, then she could die. She returned his shrug with one of her own. “Tomas Nau lied to you about deFocus.”
“He lied about many things.”
“I can do better than Trud Silipan and Bil Phuong, but still there will be failures.” The greatest horror of all: There would be some who would damn her for bringing them back.
Pham reached across the flowers and took her hand. “Okay. But you will do your best.”
She looked down at his hand. Blood still oozed from the gash she had opened on the side of his palm. Somehow the man was lying, but if he let her deFocus the others… Play along. “You’re running things now?”
Pham chuckled. “I have some say. Certain Spiders have a bigger say. It’s complicated, and it’s still in chaos. Four hundred Ksec ago, Tomas Nau was still running things.” His smile widened with enthusiasm. “But a hundred Msec from now, two hundred Msec, I think you are going to see a renaissance. We’ll have our ships repaired. Hell, we may have new ones. I’ve never seen an opportunity like this.”
Just play along. “And what do you want of me?” How long till I am
“I—I just want you to be free, Anne.” He looked away. “I know what you were before, Anne. I’ve seen the story of what you did on Frenk, your final capture. You remind me of someone I knew when I was a child. She also stood up against impossible odds, and she also was crushed.” His face half-turned back to her. “There were times I’ve feared you more than Tomas Nau. But ever since I’ve known you were the Frenkisch Orc, I’ve prayed you could have another day.”
He was such a very good liar. Too bad for him that his lie was so bald-faced, so pandering. She felt an overwhelming urge to push it over the edge: “So in a few years we’ll have functioning starships again?”
“Yes, and probably better-equipped than we came with. You know the physics we’ve discovered here. And it looks like there are other things—”
“And you will control those ships?”
“Several of them.” He was still nodding, blundering his deception forward.
“And you just want to help. Me, the Frenkisch Orc. Well, sir, you are uniquely qualified. Lend me those ships. Come with me to Balacrea and Frenk and Gaspr. Help me freeall the Focused.”
It was amusing to see Pham’s smile freeze as he boggled on her words. “You want to take down a starfaring empire, an empire with Focus, with just a handful of ships? That’s…” Words for such insanity failed to come, and he just stared at her for a moment. Then, amazingly, his smile was back. “That’s marvelous! Anne, give me time to prepare, time to make alliances here. Give me a dozen of your years. We may not win. But I swear, we’ll make the attempt.”
Whatever she asked he simply agreed to. It had to be a lie. Yet if true, it was the only promise that could make her want to live. She stared into Pham’s eyes, trying to see behind the lie. Maybe the inevitable destruction of deFocus had taken her sharpness, for however deeply she looked, she only saw awed enthusiasm.He’s a genius. And lie or truth, now he has me for twelve years. For just a moment she relaxed into belief. For just a moment she fantasized that this man was not a liar. The Frenkisch Orc might yet free them all. The strangest thrill flowed out
