“The system he has devised has an incredible potential for evil. Suppose you get a man who sees other possibilities in the wrist computers and the implantations? Suppose he threatens a woman with the Punishment Mode if she doesn’t grant him sexual favors?”

“I—I never thought of that.”

“A really inventive mind could bring about the most effective tyranny in the history of the world.”

Nicole’s anger gave way abruptly to an earnest pleading. “Eric, I was born an orphan because six animals, with long hair and beards, were running around ‘free.’ So you’ve got to offer us something better than simply freedom, Eric. Much better.”

“No one can fault the Major for his dream of a society where men have learned to control themselves, but he overlooked the most important element of that dream. Even infinite power cannot make men be good. You can make them act in good ways, but to really be good, an individual must choose good things freely. It’s man’s most basic and sacred stewardship—to serve as the guardian of his own behavior.”

His eyes were in deep pools of shadow, but Nicole could almost feel them burning into her flesh as he stared at her and continued. “And it’s man’s blackest and most fundamental evil to try and overthrow that stewardship. You cannot—no matter how highminded your motives—you can never make a man good. Not with guns, not with the rack, and not with a silicon chip planted in the back of his neck.”

Shaken by his intensity, Nicole met his gaze for almost a full minute. Then finally, her voice barely a murmur, she asked, “Is implantation so horrible?”

His chin came up sharply, but he saw that she was not challenging him, but was accepting what he had said. It was her way of saying she understood. His hand came up slowly to rub at the back of his neck. “Before coming here, I might have asked that question myself,” he said. “But never again, Nicole. Never again.”

CHAPTER 22

For unknown millennia, the south fork of the Flathead River had been relentlessly chewing its way deeper and deeper into the floor of the canyon. Rushing and turbulent in spring, subdued and depleted in late summer, ice-encrusted in winter, the river had for countless generations sent its waters into the massive Columbia River system and eventually on into the Pacific Ocean. Then one day, the newest—and puniest—intruder into the forest had dropped a massive concrete plug into the ravine, wedged it tightly against the shoulders of both hillsides, and cut the water’s relentless flow. Now the river had to pay toll for passage by turning the huge generators buried deep in the concrete bowels of the dam.