me! Let me stop!"
And Doon stopped pushing the chair. A sudden silence fell in the corridor. The rhythm of Doon's running steps made the stillness shout deafeningly. Jas covered his face with his hands.
"What's wrong, Jas?" Doon whispered. "Why are you afraid?"
Jas just shook his head.
"Brilliant or not, Jason, you are still a child, I suppose. If you would only talk like a child, people would remember to treat you like one."
"I don't want to be treated like a child."
"Well, you sure as hell don't want to be treated like an adult. Remember that you applied for the Service?"
"They turned me down."
"They've already reconsidered. You'll begin pilot school as soon as your skin is healed."
"Pilot school?" Jas was surprised. "That was just my escape, to save my life - I never really wanted to be a pilot."
"Too intellectual for the Space Service, is that it? Well, consider it a lifesaver anyway, boy. Pilots live longer than anybody. If they don't get killed, of course - but you're a survivor, right? On all their twenty - and thirty - year flights, they're only awake for a few months at the most. The rest of the time, somec. Pilots are on a somec level that will keep you young and alive for five hundred years."
"And after that?" Jas asked, trying to be sarcastic.
"Why, further instructions, of course," Doon answered with a bland smile. "There are only a few people in the Empire who are on the somec level that pilots take for granted. The whole Cabinet will die before you. Only I will stay alive. And the head of the Little Boys. And a few of my most needed assistants."
Jas stared. "The somec usage is determined strictly by law!"
"And once upon a time there was a little girl with long blond hair that got involved with three talking bears. I control the people who control the somec, and that means I have control over life and death everywhere in the Empire. Rather a secure position to be in."
"I don't want to be a pilot."
"Then you want to be a corpse. That's the choice."
"I thought you said you didn't think you were God!" Jas shouted.
"I don't."
"Then get out of my life!"
"Why? Just because I want to make you great, whether you like it or not?"
"If I'm going to be great, I'm going to do it on my own. And I don't know if I even care about 'greatness'. Not everybody's a would - be worldmaker, Doon."
"You have no vision, Jas."
"I see better than anybody I know."
"Better, but not very far. Your father's dead."
"You think I didn't know that?"
"He died because he and some other Swipe ship captains weren't content to serve. They went into business for themselves, and so they lost the protection of the Empire. They thought they didn't need it. So they took a dozen ships and made war with the universe. They were heroes for a while, of course. Everybody loves a rebel - from a distance, and as long as the rebel loses gracefully. But when they were about to lose, they burned over some planets as a last - ditch effort. Then suddenly the Swipe heroes became Swipe bastards, and Swipes were hunted down and killed all over the Empire. And do you know why your father burned those planets?"
"No." Jas was grinding his teeth and couldn't stop.
"Because they wouldn't let him land. He requested permission to land and refuel, and they turned him down. He had to teach them a lesson."
"That's not true. They fired on him."
"You know that there's no weapon that can be fired in an atmosphere that can possibly do damage to a ship, Jas."
"My father burned them in self - defense."
"He was angry, and he had to teach them a lesson."
"No!"
"Like father, like son," Doon said.
Jason half - rose from the wheelchair, until the pain stopped him. "That's not true, you bastard! I'd never burn a planet, I never would - "
"You would, Jason. Right now you would, if they got you angry enough. Because you have no vision. You have nothing important to accomplish, no magnificent goal that keeps you from destroying yourself to achieve petty, transitory objectives. You don't even have a right to be free until you have vision and purpose. And so I'll rule you, Jason, and keep you safe until you're able to rule yourself."
They moved again down the corridor. Jas tried to look into Doon's mind, to see, if