“Which I have a funny feeling will be never. I can now field strip and reassemble every one of your blasted gadgets in the dark. I am a dead shot with this cannon. At this present moment, if I bad to, I could write a book on the Complete Flora and Fauna of Pyrrus, and How to Kill It. Perhaps I don’t do as well as my six-year-old companions. But I have a hunch I do about as good a job now as I ever will. Is that true?”
Brucco squirmed with the effort to be evasive, yet didn’t succeed. “I think, that is, you know you weren’t born here, and…”
“Come, come,” Jason said with glee. “A straight-faced old Pyrran like you shouldn’t try to lie to one of the weaker races that specialize in that sort of thing. It goes without saying that I’ll always be sluggish with this gravity, as well as having other inborn handicaps. I admit that. We’re not talking about that now. The question is, Will I improve with more training, or have I reached a peak of my own development now?”
Brucco sweated. ‘With the passage of time there will be improvement, of course….”
“Sly devil!” Jason waggled a finger at him. “Yes or no, now. Will I improve now by more training now?”
“No,” Brucco said and still looked troubled. Jason sized him up like a poker hand. -
“Now let’s think about that. I won’t improve, yet I’m still stuck here. That’s no accident. So you must have been ordered to keep me here. And from what I have seen of this planet, admittedly very little, I would say that Kerk ordered you to keep me here. Is that right?”
“He was only doing it for your own sake,” Brucco explained. “Trying to keep you alive.” -
“The truth is out,” Jason said. “So let us now forget about it. I didn’t come here to shoot robots with your offspring. So please show me the street door. Or is there a graduating ceremony first? Speeches, handing out school pins, sabers overhead….”
“Nothing like that,” Brucco snapped. “I don’t see how a grown man like you can talk such nonsense all the time. There is none of that, of course. Only some final work in the partial survival chamber. That is a compound that connects with the outside-really is a part of the outside-except the most violent life forms are excluded. And even some of those manage to find their way in once in awhile.”
“When do I go?” Jason shot the question.
“Tomorrow morning. Get a good night’s sleep first. You’ll need it.”
There was one bit of ceremony attendant with the graduation. When Jason came into his office in the morning, Brucco slid a heavy gunclip across the table.