He would have liked to prohibit The Game, but Lewis had warned him off this, and his own good sense had agreed. There was no way to prevent The Game without wasting too much manpower policing all the hatches. Besides, The Game vented certain impulses of violence.

Legata running the perimeter?

Certainly not!

Efficient damned woman! She was expected back at work by evening, the physical marks of her Scream Room experience almost gone. He looked at the notes beside his left hand. Unconsciously, he had addressed them to her.

“Check on possible relationship between waxing of Alki and growth of ’lectrokelp. Have Lab One begin two LH clones. Map new data on dissidents—special attention to those associated with Rachel Demarest.”

Would Legata even take his orders now?

The picture of Legata’s face from the holorecord kept slipping back into his mind.

She trusted me.

Had she really trusted him? Why else would she go back to Lab One when her misgivings about it were all that apparent? With anyone else, he would have laughed at such musings, but not with Legata. She was painfully different from the others and he had already taken her too far.

Entertainment time.

It had not been as entertaining as he had expected. He recalled the first potent look of betrayal in her eyes when the sonics hit her. The sonics had driven away the clones; they already had taken their entertainment. But even heavy pain had not moved Legata. Despite sedation, she could hear Murdoch’s commands. And the sedation had been designed to suppress her will . . . but she resisted. Murdoch’s commands told her what to do, the clone was prepared, the equipment set—but even then, she had to be totally awash with pain before inflicting anything like her own agony on the clone. Most of the time, her gaze had sought out the holo scanner. She had stared directly into the scanner, and the dimming of her eyes gave him no pleasure, no pleasure at all.

She won’t remember. They never do.

Most of the subjects begged, offered anything for the pain to stop. Legata simply stared at the scanner, wide-eyed. Somewhere in her, he knew, there had been awareness that she was totally helpless, totally subject to his every whim. It was a conditioning process. He wanted her to be like the rest. He could deal with that.

But he had been unprepared for the shock of her difference. Yes, she was different. What a shock, finally discovering this magnificent difference, to know that he had destroyed it. Whatever private trust they might have had was gone forever.

Forever.

She would never again trust him completely. Oh, she would obey—perhaps even more promptly now. But no trust.

He felt himself shaking with this knowledge. Tense, distracted. He had to force himself to relax, to concentrate on something which comforted.

Nothing is forever, he thought.