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not even partake of the usual character of the building's walls, except for
one stain in the alabaster which might have been the underside of a child's
footprint; otherwise, the veinings were mockingly meaningless. The only exit
was down, an orifice through which they had inserted him as though he were
being bom, and now plugged like the bottom of a stopped toilet. Could he have
broken through one of the lenses with his bare hands, he would have found
himself naked and torn on the highest point in
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Druidsfall, with no place to go.
Naked he was. Not only had they pulled all his teeth in search of more
poisons, but of course they had also taken his clasp. He hoped they would fool
with the clasp-it would make a clean death for everybody-but doubtless they
had better sense. As for the teeth, they would regrow if he lived, that was
one of the few positive advantages of the transduction serum, but in the
meantime his bare jaws ached abominably.
They had missed the antidote, which was in a tiny gel capsule in his left
earlobe, masquerading as a sebaceous cyst-left, because it is aulomatic to
neglect that side of a man, as though it were only a mirror image of the
examiner's right-and that was some comfort. In a few more days now, the gel
would dissolve, he would lose his multiple disguise, and then he would have to
confess, but in the meantime he could manage to be content despite the slimy,
glaring cold of the cell.
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A Style in Treason
And in the meantime, he practised making virtues of deficiencies: in this
instance, calling upon his only inner resources-the diverting mutterings of
his other personalities -and trying to guess what they might once have meant.
Some said:
"But I mean, like, you know--"Wheah they goin'T'
"Yeah."
"Led's gehdahda heah-he-he-he!" "Wheah?"
"So anyway, so uh." Others.
"It's hard not to recognize a pigeon." "But Mother's birthday is 20th July."
"So he knew that the inevitable might happen-" "It made my scalp creak and my
blood curl."
"Where do you get those crazy ideas?"
And others:
"Acquit Socrates."
"Back when she was sane she was married to a window washer."
"I don't know what you've got under your skirt, but it's wearing white socks."
"And then she made a noise like a spindizzy going sour." And others:
"Pepe Satan, pepe Satan aleppe." "Why, so might any man."
"EVACUATE MARS!"
"And then she sez to me, she sez-"
". . . if he would abandon his mind to it.'9 "With all of love."
And... but at that point the plug began to unscrew, and from the spargers
above him which formerly had kept the dampness running, a heavy gas began to
curl. They had tired of waiting for him to weary of himself, and the second
phase of his questioning was about to begin.
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A Style in Treason
CHAPTER NINE
They questioned him, dressed in a hospital gown so wom that it was more starch
than fabric, in the Traitor-in-Chief's private office to begin with-a
deceptively bluff, hearty, leather-and-piperacks sort of room, which might
have been reassuring to a novice. There were only two of them: Valkol in his
usual abah, and the "slave", now dressed as a Charioteer of the high blood.
It was a curious choice of costume, since Charioteers were supposed to be
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free, leaving it uncertain which was truly master and which slave; Simon did
not think it could have been Valkol's idea. The vombis, he also noticed, still
had not bothered to change its face from the one it had been wearing aboard
the Karas, implying an utter confidence which Simon could only hope would
prove to be unjustified.
Noting the direction of his glance, Valkol said, "I asked this gentleman to
join me to assure you, should you be in any doubt, that this interview is
serious. I presume you know who he is."
"I don't know who 'he' is," Simon said, with the faintest of emphasis. "But it
must be representing the Green Exarch, since it's a vombis."
The Traitor-in-Chief's lips whitened slightly. Aha, then he hadn't known that!
"Prove it," he said.
"My dear Valkol," the creature interposed. "Pray don't let him distract us
over trifles. Such a thing could not be proved without the most elaborate of
laboratory tests, as we all know. And the accusation shows what we wish to
know, i.e., that he is aware of who I am-otherwise, why try to make such an
inflammatory charge?"
"Your master's voice," Simon said. "Let us by all means proceed-this gown is
chilly."
"This gentleman", Valkol said, exactly as if he had not heard any of the four
preceding speeches, "is Chag Sharanee of the Exarchy. Not from the
Embassy, but directly 44
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