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admiration and fear. Allgood knew that fear. He had worked for other ruling trios, but none who had his measure as did these three … especially Calapine.
    The throne base stopped with Nourse facing the open segment. “You came,” he rumbled. “Of course you came. The ox knows its owner and the ass its master’s crib.”
    So it’s going to be one of those days, Allgood thought. Ridicule! It could only mean they knew how he had stumbled … but didn’t they always?
    Calapine swiveled her throne to look down at the meres. The Hall of Counsel had been patterned on the Roman Senate with false columns around the edges, banks of benches beneath glittering scanner eyes. Everything focused down onto the figures standing apart from the acolytes.

    Looking up, Igan reminded himself he had feared and hated these creatures all his life—even while he pitied them. How lucky he’d been to miss the Optiman cut. It’d been close, but he’d been saved. He could remember the hate of his childhood, before it had become tempered by pity. It’d been a clean thing then, sharp and real, blazing against the Givers of Time.
    â€œWe came as requested to report on the Durants,” Allgood said. He took two deep breaths to calm his nerves. These sessions were always dangerous, but doubly so since he’d decided on a double game. There was no turning back, though, and no wish to since he’d discovered the dopplegangers of himself they were growing. There could be only one reason they’d duplicate him. Well, they’d learn.
    Calapine studied Allgood, wondering if it might be time to seek diversion with the ugly Folk male. Perhaps here was an answer to boredom. Both Schruille and Nourse indulged. She seemed to recall having done that before with another Max, but couldn’t remember if it had helped her boredom.
    â€œSay what it is we give you, little Max,” she said.
    Her woman’s voice, soft and with laughter behind it, terrified him. Allgood swallowed. “You give life, Calapine.”
    â€œSay how many lovely years you have,” she ordered.
    Allgood found his throat contained no moisture. “Almost four hundred, Calapine,” he rasped.
    Nourse chuckled. “Ahead of you stretch many more lovely years if you serve us well,” he said.
    It was the closest to a direct threat Allgood had ever heard from an Optiman. They worked their wills by indirection, by euphemistic subtlety. They worked through meres who could face such concepts as death and killing.
    Who have they shaped to destroy me? Allgood wondered.
    â€œMany little tick-tock years,” Calapine said.
    â€œEnough!” Schruille growled. He detested these interviews with the underclasses, the way Calapine baited the Folk. He swiveled his throne and now all the Tuyere faced the open segment. Schruille looked at his fingers, the ever
youthful skin, and wondered why he had snapped that way. An enzymic imbalance? The thought touched him with disquiet. He generally held his silence during these sessions—as a defense because he tended to get sentimental about the pitiful meres and despise himself for it afterward.
    Boumour moved up beside Allgood, said, “Does the Tuyere wish now the report on the Durants?”
    Allgood stifled a feeling of rage at the interruption. Didn’t the fool know that the Optimen must always appear to lead the interview?
    â€œThe words and images of your report have been seen, analyzed and put away,” Nourse rumbled. “Now, it is the non-report that we wish.”
    Non-report? Allgood asked himself. Does he think we’ve hidden something?
    â€œLittle Max,” Calapine said. “Have you bowed to our necessity and questioned the computer nurse under narcosis?”
    Here it comes, Allgood thought. He took a deep breath, said, “She has been questioned, Calapine.”
    Igan took his place beside Boumour, said, “There’s