“That can’t apply to me.”

“No, sir. But may I ask you what you’re planning to accomplish? We have more than one million inmates here.”

“I know that.”

“Yes, sir. But if you’re just trying to prove a point, I thought you might want to know what effect it has on other people.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sir, for one thing, if I let you pass, I’ll lose my job.”

“My heart bleeds, Lieutenant.”

“Captain, sir.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I anticipate.”

“Very funny, sir. I’m not talking about that. After your last visit, the chaplain made the penalties very clear if you came again. As I say, I am unable to prevent it. But . . .”

“Please, Captain, spare your breath. Any punishment they give you has been earned a hundred times, I’m sure.”

“Do you know what the penalty is for treason, sir? Have you seen it?”

Thanakar said nothing, and the captain licked his lips. “That’s all right, sir,” he resumed. “I won’t beg.

I’ve got my pride. I’m God’s soldier, and I do what I’m told. But as long as you’re such a humanitarian, sir, I thought you might care to imagine what your life might have been like if you had been born with my name and my tattoos. Do you think we’re here on voluntary service? No offense, sir. It would be different if you could do some good up there. But as long as you can’t, don’t you see, it’s a selfish act, and it’s not you who’ll bear the consequences. What can they do to you?”

“You think it’s selfish of me to risk my life . . .”

“Not your life, sir,” interrupted the captain. “My life.” A drop of perspiration ran down behind his ear and under his uniform. He swatted it as if it were a fly.

“I’m sorry to speak so blunt, sir,” he resumed. “I’m not complaining. I do what I’m told. But I thought I’d ask.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Locke. I’ve made up my mind.”

The man licked his lips. “Then that’s all right, sir,” he said. “No reason to apologize.” He stepped back towards his desk and picked up a ring of keys. “Heretics, was it? I’ll run you up myself.” He called into an inner room, and a young man came out and stared with dumb horror at the doctor and the ring of keys.

“Not to worry, Sergeant,” continued Locke. “I’ll take him up myself. Just mind the store.” Relief washed into the young man’s face, but the silent question stayed unchanged until the captain answered it with a grim, almost imperceptible shake of his head.

* * *

The biter reined his horse at the gates of the Temple of Kindness and Repair. He had been riding since before dawn, and he was happy and not ready to dismount. So he pulled his horse away and spurred it savagely up a slope of loose rock to the left of the gate; after the long ride, the animal was exhausted and bewildered, and it slipped and almost stumbled at the new exertion. The biter snarled and cut it with his whip, but at the top of the slope, he could see the city in the distance and the black mountain rising to the clouds. There he relented, and reached back behind his saddle to stroke the cut skin. He loved this horse, not a miserable, beet-fed barbarian creature, but a real horse, huge, wild, carnivorous, black. He stroked its bloody flank.