place that they knew Calhoun to be.
But he wasn’t about to wait around on Xenex, because he didn’t need to sit there and attract more of the Brethren to launch assaults upon his people. That left Calhoun with one option.
He charted a course that would take him in a direct line from Xenex to New Thallon and set out. With any luck—something that they had not had in abundance, but he could always hope—he would intercept the Excalibur while they were en route to him.
There was, of course, the problem that he was piloting a ship that they would either not recognize, or assume to be hostile. Plus there was always the chance that Morgan, if she realized who he was upon encountering him, would wind up opening fire with the ship’s weapons. But there were only so many things that Calhoun could worry about at any given moment.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Calhoun, to his chagrin, almost jumped in surprise. He had not been expecting a voice to begin speaking abruptly from practically at his elbow. And of course, if an intruder had suddenly shown up on the ship, he would have relied on his sixth sense about danger to give him warning. So when a voice simply sounded out of nowhere, he couldn’t help but be visibly startled, which in turn annoyed the hell out of him.
He turned and saw exactly who he knew he was going to see: the Visionary. He was no longer even attempting to portray himself as other people, for which Calhoun was silently grateful.
“Well, well,” said Calhoun mockingly. “Look who decided to show his face, after making clear he had no taste for actual combat.”
“I would never lower myself to fight such as you,” said the Visionary.
“Such as me?”
“A lower life form.”
“A lower life form that could kill you with his bare hands quite easily.”
“Ah, you see?” said the Visionary. “That is all you can think of: solving matters with brutality and force, as if such approaches solve anything. That is what separates you from me.”
“I thought what separated us was the distance that you make sure to keep between us so that I don’t wring your neck.” Calhoun smiled disdainfully. He reached out and put his hand through the insubstantial hologram that hovered before him. “For all your pretensions, ‘Visionary,’ you’re just another coward who can’t bear to fight his own battles.”
“What do you know of battles when you cannot even see the scope of the war? The fact is, Calhoun,” and the Visionary circled him without moving his legs or otherwise displaying any indication of walking, “that you are flailing around without any true understanding of the outcome of your actions. And there will be repercussions. Repercussions that you will seriously regret.”
“At the moment, my only regret is wasting time talking to you.”
The Visionary sighed heavily, as if contemplating a great tragedy. “Tell me, Captain: Have you ever heard of a game called ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’?”
“Can’t say I have, no. But I suspect you’re going to tell me about it, whether I wish to hear it or not.”
“It’s a human children’s game, actually. There’s some dispute whether the original name of the game was ‘blind man’s buff,’ ‘buff’ meaning to give someone a small push, or whether the use of the word ‘bluff’ referred to its older meaning as a blindfold…”
“I really don’t care,” said Calhoun, crossing to the other side of the commander center. He had to step over the unmoving body of the Brethren. The armor was starting to cool, which was a relief. Once it did, he would haul it off the bridge and dump it in the cargo hold or somewhere so that he didn’t have to look at it.
The Visionary drifted after him and continued to speak. “In the game, the person who is the next participant—‘it,’ as they say—is blindfolded. And then he has to run around, preferably in some wide-open area so that he doesn’t injure himself, trying to lay his hands on one of the other children, thereby catching or ‘tagging’ them. It’s quite comical, watching whoever it is flail about, trying not to trip over his own feet while the other children call to him and confuse him and try to keep out of the way.”
“And I’m ‘it,’ is what you’re saying?”
“That is exactly right, yes. You are ‘it,’ staggering around, trying to tag one of the other children, with no clear vision of the terrain around you, or where