could he trust her now in a social situation, or a tentative one, where some
hypno might just put it on her to try and sell her some stupid junk or to have
a good time? He'd have to think about this one.
"Well, thank you for the warning. All right, everyone shall we see what our
new home looks like?''
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It felt good to be in command, to be in space, to have his own ship and the
level of freedom and responsibility that went with it. Perhaps he would sour
on it later, perhaps the predicted bore-
dom would get to him, but, for now, it was just who and where he wanted to be.
The sealed orders could not be opened and fed into the ship's computer until
they were well underway. Only then did he re-
ceive his first operational orders:
'' You will proceed to the frontier post grid location now being fed into your
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computer. Upon reaching that point, you will patrol the assigned region from
boundary to boundary, coordinating your picket with the other ships like yours
in the region, and subject to the orders of Zone Military Control. Under
normal duty, you will respond to any calls for aid or assistance from any
Imperial colony or vessel within your range, and you will also intercept and
capture or destroy any enemy vessel encroach-
ing on your zone. Our military forces are light in the region, where our
border is pinched to a mere sixty-two light-years, with the Mizlaplan to one
side and the Exchange to the other. Al-
though much of the work will be tedious, you may expect the unexpected in the
region, as we have operatives working the enemy frontier zones and they
undoubtedly have some in ours.
Applicable known star maps, tactics, and codes are included with these orders,
not only for us but for the other two Empires
250 fack L Chalker as much as we know them. Any enemy movements or communi-
cations, even outside of our own space, will be monitored and reported at all
times. ..."
It was pretty clear, and pretty much what he expected. The primary problems
aboard, after that lifetime year of training, would be fighting boredom and
keeping in reasonable physical shape. After that. Destiny would have to take a
hand.
It was a long journey, and he spent much of it drilling them over and over
again and trying to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. Also, in
his command chair above the rest, he got around to reading their full files,
starting with Kalia. It ex-
plained many, although not all, of her enigmas.
She was far younger than he thought a mere twenty-four, or so they estimated,
with a face and mind and body of someone much older. She had been born a drol
on Pusabi, as he already knew, in a fiefdom ruled by a knight named Mahaht, a
sado-
masochist with a fancy for very pretty, very young giris- She was picked out,
brought to the manor house, and for many months thereafter she became his
favorite plaything.
The psychological officer who did the report thought she had been no more than
eight years old at the time.
After that, she was put to work as a housemaid and was no better than a dro!
with a higher standard of living until she blossomed, early, at about age
eleven or twelve. With puberty had come the emergence of her empathic talent.
She was then sold or given to a freeman named Peshwar who ran some sort of
traveling entertainment troupe on Pusabi. He then trained her as a woman of
pleasure, a special kind of slave. Young and
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Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt attractive empaths of both sexes
were part of the Pleasure Corps.
as Peshwar called it. She was fed hormones and drugs to make her extra pliant,
then conditioned and trained by hypnos using a combination of their Talent and
electric shock to remold the empath staves into new creations capable of
becoming whatever the freeman or noble customer might want.
Apparently she was not beyond servicing large numbers of people, like security
troopers for fiefdoms and even quads. Us-
ing broadcast empathy to leave no customer unsatisfied, she and the others in
her group were forced to suffer any level of abuse and degradation demanded by
their hypno handlers.
Shit! No wonder she hated hypnos!
And no wonder she couldn't resist them.
After several years of this. when she was beginning to show
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THE DEMONS AT RAINBOW BRIDGE
251
a lot of wear and tear, an elderly Duke took a fancy to her for some reason
and got her from Peshwar. With the scars and mark-
ings she already had from years of other people's idea of fun, he no longer
considered her a long-term asset, since he had others and, particularly, since
he'd have to pay for cosmetic re-
pairs in a while.
The Duke was an odd sort who wanted her around only for the pleasure of
looking at her with her slave chains. He appar-
ently hadn't desired his concubines, in some time, either, and the chief one
mistakenly saw Kalia as the reason why she was no longer in favor. This
concubine apparently played up to the
Duke's guard, got into his bedroom when he wasn't there, caught
Kalia chained and alone, took a ceremonial dagger, and pro-
ceeded to carve a few new notches in the girl. The most obvious was that
disfiguring facial scar.
Security hadn't realized the concubine's intent, and now the guard knew that
thereo be hell to pay when the Duke found out.
He freed Kalia, got her immediate medical attention, then tried to figure out
what to do. While he was still deciding, she got up, sneaked out, found the
chief concubine, and slowly stran-
gled her to death.
The psychologist said that the years of conditioning and that sort of life and
treatment in one so bright had affected her mind, creating a kind of split
personality, often called "possession"
by the untrained. The second Kalia was all that the first was not;
most importantly, where sex was everything to the original, the other
substituted violence. The new Kalia was a violent, sadistic killer with a very
short fuse, whose empathic ability was used to instill fear and terror and
helplessness in others. She got a particular charge out of causing someone's
death.
The Duke had been enraged when he saw her disfigured face.
and had tossed her out. He was better able to accept the murder of the
concubine, seeing it as justice.
Kalia I and Kalia II were always both present; remarkably.
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt she could bring either one she
wished to the surface with near total control. It was this that gave her an
innate ability to totally confiise telepaths.
Using her empathic powers to induce guilt in the guard, she managed to become
an adjunct to the local security staff, where her ability to befuddle even
skilled telepaths drew quick notice.
The staff undertook to train her and get her into condition. A [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]