World Of Ptavvs   ::   Нивен Ларри

But Garner was very old. He had his own, non-psychic way of reading minds. He said, as if to empty air, "We'll be landing in half an hour. Greenberg will be sleeping peacefully until we get there."

"Good," said Judy. She leaned forward and turned on the tridee screen in the seat ahead.

Kzanol felt a brand new and horribly unpleasant sensation, and woke up sputtering. It was the scent of ammonia in his nostrils. He woke up sputtering and gagging and bent on mass murder. The first slave he saw, he ordered to kill itself in a horrible manner.

The slave smiled tremulously at him. "Darling, are you all right?" Her voice was terribly strained and her smile was a lie.

Everything came back in a rush. That was Judy… "Sure, beautiful, I'm fine. Would you step outside while these good people ask me some questions?"

"Yes, Larry." She stood up and left, hurrying. Kzanol waited until the door was closed before he turned on the others.

"You." He faced the man in the travel chair. He must be in charge; he was obviously the oldest. "Why did you subject Judy to this?"

"I was hoping it would jog your memory. Did it?"

"My memory is perfect. I even remember that Judy is a sentient female, and that the idea of my not being Larry Greenberg would be a considerable shock to her. That's why I sent her away."

"Good for you. Your females aren't sentient?"

"No. It must be strange to have a sentient mate." Kzanol dug momentarily into Greenberg's memories, smiled a dirty smile, then got back to the business at hand. "How did you bring me down?"

The old one shrugged. "Easy enough. We put you to sleep with a sonic, then took over your car's autopilot. The only risk was that you might be on manual. By the way, I'm Garner. That's Masney."

Kzanol took the information without comment. He saw that Masney was a stocky man, so wide that he seemed much shorter than his six feet two inches, and his hair and eating tendrils or whatever were dead white.

Masney was staring thoughtfully at Kzanol. It was the kind of look a new biology student gives a preserved sheep's heart before he goes to work with the scalpel.

"Greenberg," he said, "why'd you do it?"

Kzanol didn't answer.

"Jansky's lost both his eyes and most of his face. Knudsen will be a cripple for nearly a year; you cut his spinal cord. With this." He pulled the disintegrator out of a drawer. "Why? Did you think it would make you king of the world? That's stupid. It's only a hand weapon."

"It's not even that," said Kzanol. He found it easy to speak English.