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Tremovan, just as the alliance I created by duplicity benefits both mankind
and Nuel."
"It will also truly be better for Kees vaan Loo-Macklin's personal interests.
So you will place the Tremovan, who are not even aware of what you've already
done to them, under your domination as well. They'll never know how it
happened to them, nor why."
Loo-Macklin said nothing.
"Tell me something, man," wondered Chaheel aloud. "When your _Tarsis_
was found drifting and helpless after having been pursued by the nonexistent
Tremovan fleet, half your crew was found dead or badly wounded." He gestured
with a tentacle. "You yourself had lost an arm."
"My crew thought the attack, the fleet, was all quite real. I couldn't trust
the secret to them as well as to the engineers who assembled the false
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Tremovan ships. They had to act as if the attack was in earnest. I made
provisions for a private warship, suitably disguised, to attack us. The
explosions everyone saw while I was delivering my warning were real."
"And how many of your own, trusting people did die?"
"No more than was necessary."
"And your arm?"
"I was in a heavily shielded part of the _Tarsis_. The attacking warship had a
schematic and did their best to avoid damaging that section.
Verisimilitude was vital. I had one of my own people shoot me several times,
carefully, while I was sufficiently narcotized to drown most of the pain. My
wounds were as real as those received by the rest of the crew." He looked
thoughtful. "An old man did that, on my orders. He died soon afterwards. Of
natural causes. His name was Nairn Basright and he was the closest thing to a
friend I ever had. Funny. I once offered him the friendship I denied everyone
else, and he declined it." His thoughts returned from the place where they'd
been lingering. He flexed his left hand.
"The artificial one works well enough. I don't really miss the original."
"Monster. I truly should have slain you when I had the chance. I could do so
now."
"I think not, Chaheel Riens. We are both older and slower and you could not
get to me in time now as you might have those many years ago. It's true
I've been responsible for the deaths of many people. I killed my first man
when I was twenty-two. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. It was simply
something, which had to be done. There have been many deaths since, none of
which I enjoyed, nor disliked. All were necessary."
"One such death to serve personal interests is too many," Chaheel said,
rejecting the argument. He moved close, not to kill but to try and learn.
"Why, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin? Not to save humankind and Nuel from each other,
surely."
For the first time, for the last, Chaheel Riens saw something no one else had
seen before or ever would again. He saw Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, effective
emperor of the worlds of the Families, of the eighty-three worlds of the UTW
and perhaps soon of the Tremovan as well, confused and uncertain.
"I think I know why, but even I'm really not positive. What motivates a man,
truly? Greed? I care little for money, only for the convenience it bestows.
Power? I told the truth when I said I never sought it. Ego? You will not
believe me, but I have less ego than most men. Or Nuel.
"I've acted and reacted as I have all my life because something has driven me
to do so. I remember when I was very young most of all. I did not have what
you would call a..." he hesitated, "...a pleasant childhood. I was abandoned
by a parent who was not ignorant. That I could have accepted. But she was
intelligent, and wealthy. I was simply ... an encumbrance on her life style.
An object in the way, to be disposed of.
"Subsequent to that I was shunted from place to place. My physical appearance
was abhorrent to most people. You should sympathize with that."
Chaheel said nothing, merely listened intently.
"What remains with me, what drove me from my earliest conscious years, was no
quest for power, nor for revenge. Those are strong feelings, Chaheel
Riens. I lost the ability to feel true emotions before I was seven. It was an
emptiness inside me, a feeling of utter helplessness, of having nothing to say
about my own destiny. I was treated like an object. So I turned myself into an
object. My reactions were purely instinctive, physical.
"I resolved to do two things: to survive, and to ensure that no one, _no one_,
could ever control my life again except myself."
He went silent. It was quiet in the vast chamber for a long time. When
Chaheel Riens spoke again it was without the anger he'd felt on entering. This
man, this emperor, this unbelievably powerful individual, deserved his pity,
not his hate. He'd lived without family. To a Nuel, no greater crime can be
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perpetrated on the young.
No wonder Kees vaan Loo-Macklin had evolved as he had. But the psychologist
was wrong about one thing. The man was not warped inside. He was simply numb.
"So you've spent your whole life," he said softly, "spent the lives of others,
manipulated individuals and worlds and entire races, to ensure that only you
would be in control of your destiny. I sympathize truly, Kees. Most truly. But
I do not, cannot approve what you have done.
"I am not even certain I believe what you say of these Tremovan's
'incurable' tendencies to war. Why should I? Why should anyone believe
anything you say, knowing that whatever you do and say is ultimately because
you are acting to protect yourself?
"Where will it cease, Kees? How long must you drag all of civilization along
in your wake so that it will not make you feel helpless again? Must you
control it in order to ensure that it cannot control you?"
Loo-Macklin's expression was twisted. "I don't know, Chaheel Riens.
I've tried to change what I am. I cannot. I don't know how. I am what my life
has made of me. Wait until I die."
"Is that supposed to mollify me? Not that that concerns you. What happens
then? You are the glue that binds this still young alliance together, this new
government you've imposed upon men and Nuel."
"I'm sorry, but that doesn't concern me. I'll be finished with it. It will be
left to those who live after me to keep it intact."
"No one else has the ability to do that, not to mention the will or the
drive." Chaheel made a gesture of disgust. "It will all fall apart, this
grand, awkward alliance of yours. There will ensue chaos, dissolution, war and
worse."
"I don't think so, Chaheel. I think that what I've built for my own needs will
hang together. I believe there are enough individuals of purpose and
intelligence to manage it. You, for example."
The psychologist emitted a grunt of surprise.
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