This was their first meeting since that night of torture.
He tried to hope that his haunting fear would somehow vanish, an illusion born of pain, when he met Stephen Oreo under these new circumstances.
Yes, the officer said, there was a telephone, but its use was forbidden.
“You saw my orders,” Bob Star insisted.
“It’s necessary for me to speak with Merrin.”
After a conference with the commandant, it was arranged.
Bob Star was left alone hi the square, gray room outside that crystal wall.
A magnetic speaker thumped, and then he heard the clear, rich baritone of Stephen Oreo:
“Greetings, Bob!
I’m amused at your efforts to touch that red button.”
Bob Star felt his face stiffen.
“Laugh if you like,” he muttered harshly.
“But I can do it—if I must.”
“Try again, if you like.”
Oreo’s taunting laughter rang loud from the speaker.
“No, you’ll never do it, Bob.
Not since that night with the Iron Confessor—I’ve seen too many times what that ultrasonic pulse does to brain tissue and the thing called courage.
I’ve never been afraid that you would kill me.
And I’m certain no other will— because of a foolish code the Legion has.”
Shuddering with a sick humiliation, Bob Star swung desperately toward that red button.
He reached for it grimly—but his old fear yelled, you can’t!
A numbing chill struck down his hand.
He staggered back, his shoulders sagging with defeat.
Tears blurred his eyes.
His hands knotted impotently.
“I’m really glad to see you,” Stephen Oreo’s voice was booming.
“Because you must have been sent here upon the foolish hope that you could destroy me.
That means that my already rather fantastic defenses are considered inadequate.
I conclude therefore that I have powerful allies outside, and that I may hope shortly to be set free.”
“Not if I can prevent it!”
“But you can’t, Bob.
I’ve beaten you.”
Bob Star was astonished and disturbed to see the black enormity of hate that peered suddenly through that mocking levity.
“I’ve broken you, forever.”
Oreo’s voice was suddenly lower, a breathless, thickened rasping, monstrous and clotted with his hate.
“When I first learned of your existence, while I was only a child, it filled me with fury to think that an utterly incompetent weakling, through no effort or merit of his own, should one day become the most powerful of men—while I had nothing.
I resolved then, before I had ever seen the gilded boy of the Purple Hall, to crush you and take all your heritages for myself.”
Stephen Oreo paused.
His wide mouth broke into a sudden, brilliant smile of satisfaction, and his tone was light again when he resumed:
“You weren’t hard to break, Bob.
The Iron Confessor killed all the danger in you, that first night.
Afterwards, I admit, ethical questions disturbed me, but time soon answered them.
Consider it this way: One of us has AKKA given to him; the other must discover it by his own efforts.
Which better deserves it?”
“The keeping of AKKA isn’t any sort of selfish advantage,” Bob Star answered huskily.
“It is a tremendous task, that fills the life and finally demands the death of the keeper.” He caught his breath.
“But how—how did you discover it?”
The prisoner smiled patronizingly.
“I’m going to tell you, Bob,” he said blandly.
“If only to establish my superior rights to the secret and the perfect justice of my actions.