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“nervous impulses” moved a hundred times more rapidly than any organic human’s would have had plenty of time to get his eyes closed and his “breathing” started up again. But Merlin had no intention of getting sloppy about the minor details. There were sufficient peculiar tales already circulating about
Seijin
Merlin and his powers as it was.
    Of course, even the most peculiar tale fell far short of the reality, and he planned to keep it that way for as long as possible. Which meant
forever
, if he could only pull it off. That was the entire reason he had decided at the outset to assume the persona of a
seijin
, one of the warrior-monks who came and went through the pages of legend here on the planet Safehold.
Seijin
were reputed to have so many different marvelous capabilities that almost anything Merlin did could be explained away with the proper hand-waving.
    Assuming the hand-wavers in question can keep a straight face while they do it, at any rate
, he reminded himself.
    So far, the tiny handful of people who knew the truth about Merlin had managed to do just that . . . helped, no doubt, by the fact that the truth would have been even more bizarre. Explaining that he was a
seijin
was ever so much simpler than explaining to a planet systematically indoctrinated with an antitechnology mindset that he was the Personality Integrated Cybernetic Avatar of a young woman named Nimue Alban who’d been born on a planet named Earth . . . and been dead for the better part of a thousand years. All too often, Merlin found it sufficiently difficult to wrap his own mind about that particular concept.
    His artificial body, with its fiber optic “nerves” and fusion-powered “muscles,” was now the home of Nimue’s memories, hopes, dreams . . . and responsibilities. Since those “responsibilities” included breaking the Church of God Awaiting’s antitechnology stranglehold on Safehold, rebuilding the technological society which had been renounced a thousand years ago in the name of survival, and preparing the last planet of human beings in the entire universe for the inevitable moment in which it reencountered the species which had come within an eyelash of exterminating humanity the first time they’d met, it was, perhaps, fortunate that a PICA was the next best thing to indestructible and potentially immortal.
    It was also fortunate that no more than twenty-five people in the entire world knew the full truth of who—and what—Merlin was, or about his true mission here on Safehold, he reflected, then frowned mentally. All of those twenty-five people happened to be male, and as he watched Empress Sharleyan’s personal detachment of the Imperial Charisian Guard punching bullets steadily through their targets on the palace firing range, he found himself once more in full agreement with Cayleb that there should have been at least one
woman
who knew the truth. Unfortunately, deciding who was to be admitted to the full truth about humanity’s presence here on Safehold—and about Merlin—was not solely up to them. If it had been, Sharleyan would have been added to the ranks of those who knew both of those secrets long before Cayleb had sailed from Charis with the invasion fleet bound for the League of Corisande.
    You can’t have everything, Merlin
, he reminded himself once again.
And
sooner or later, Maikel is going to manage to bring the rest of the Brethren of Saint Zherneau around. Of course, just who’s going to do the explaining to her with Cayleb—and you—the better part of nine or ten thousand miles away is an interesting question, isn’t it?
    Personally, Merlin was of the opinion that Archbishop Maikel Staynair, the ecclesiastic head of the schismatic Church of Charis, couldn’t possibly convince his more recalcitrant brethren soon enough. “Captain Athrawes” sympathized completely with the others’ caution, but