By God. I could be the first ImpSec agent on-site. He'd have to be sure and point that out, in his report to Illyan. He had looked forward to making posthumous reports to Illyan. Now he wondered if he was going to live long enough.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-eight

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Baron," said the technician, "but your torture victim appears to be having a wonderful time."

Gorge grinned around the tube gagging his mouth as Baron Ryoval walked around him and stared. Admiring his amazing stomach, perhaps.

"There are a number of possible psychological defenses in these situations," Ryoval said. "Split personalities and identification with the captor included. I expected Naismith to work through them all, eventually, but—so soon?"

"I didn't believe it either, sir, so I took a series of brain scans. The results were unusual."

"If his personality is indeed splitting, it should show up on the scan."

"Something shows up on the scan. He seems to be shielding portions of his mind from our stimuli, and his surface responses certainly suggest a split, but . . . the pattern is abnormally abnormal, if that makes sense, sir."

"Not really." Ryoval pursed his lips with interest. "I'll take a look at them."

"Whatever is going on, he's not faking it. That I am sure of."

"So impossibly fast . . ." murmured Ryoval. "When do you think he snapped? How could I have missed it?"

"I'm not sure. Early. The first day—maybe the first hour. But if he keeps it up, he's going to be very elusive, to bring much force to bear upon. He can keep . . . changing shifts."

"So can I," stated Ryoval coldly.

The pressure in his stomach was growing into pain. Howl prodded anxiously, but Gorge would not give way. It was still his turn. The Other listened attentively. The fourth one always listened, when Baron Ryoval was present. Rarely slept, almost never spoke.

"I didn't expect him to reach this stage of disintegration for months. It throws off my timetable," the Baron complained.

Yes, Baron. Aren't we fascinating? Don't we intrigue you?

"I must consider how best to refocus him," Ryoval mused. "Bring him to my quarters later. I'll see what a little quiet conversation and a few experiments will yield, in the way of new directions."

Beneath his flattened affect, the Other shivered in anticipation.

*    *    *

Two guards delivered him/them to Baron Ryoval's pleasant living room. There were no windows, though a large holovid display took up most of one wall, presently running a view of some tropical beach. But Ryoval's quarters were surely underground. Nobody would break through windows here.

His skin was still patchy. The techs had sprayed the raw areas with some kind of coating, to keep him from oozing on Ryoval's fine furniture, and dressed the other wounds with plastic bandage, so they wouldn't break open and bleed and stain.

"Think this'll do any good?" the tech with the sprayer had asked.