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my mother."
    "Irrefutable. You are correct. You are clinically not a Swipe. Bravo. Too bad the mob takes blood tests after they tear reputed Swipes to little pieces."
    "Can't the law protect me?"
    "If the law knew about you, my small, brilliant, naive friend, the law would certainly be stretched to include you. No, Jas. Your only safety lies in being part of my collection. If you should leave it — well, I simply couldn't stop them, could I?"
    A breeze passed over them in the starlit darkness. Jas shuddered.
    "Cold? Or merely afraid?"
    "Cold," Jas said.
    "Actually, the temperature is quite comfortable. Don't be afraid, Jason."
    "I can't help it," Jas said, his teeth chattering a little.
    "All your life you've been completely under other people's control. Your mother, the school, the constables. Now, suddenly, it isn't they who rule you anymore, it's one man, it's I, and that makes you afraid."
    "I don't know what you're going to do with me."
    "Why don't you look in my mind and see?"
    Jas wondered why he didn't. But he didn't. "No."
    "Do it. Test me. See what you find out."
    Jas shook his head. "I don't want to."
    "Why not? I'm asking you to. Or do you only like to peer in people's minds when they don't know you're looking?"
    Jas shivered now with the cold he felt. "I don't want to look."
    Abner Doon sighed. "I suppose my mind isn't all that lovely a place to visit, anyway. Never mind."
    He got up and dressed. Jas still lay on the ground, except that he curled up on his side. His back was cold as the air touched it. Why don't I look in his mind? I'm afraid, Jas decided. I'm afraid I'll find my own death there.
    "Tired?" Doon asked.
    "Yes."
    "Does your hand hurt?"
    Jas nodded.
    "Do you feel weak?"
    Jas smiled. "No. I feel like ripping a tree into toothpicks."
    Doon, dressed again in the steel and asbestos protective clothing, the stuffy, out–of–date suit, knelt beside Jas in the grass. "Jas, you've done a lot of studying over the years. Your teachers seem to feel that you never forget what you've read. Ever heard of the Estorian twick?"
    Jas's mind reflexively found the reference. "Yeah. Deadly little animal. Wiped out the first colony on Estoria."
    "What else do you know about it?"
    "Marsupial mammal. Teeth like razors. Small, but it hangs on with its claws while it bores with its teeth. Once it gets on a person he has maybe thirty seconds to get it off. If it lands near something vital, you've got only five seconds or so. Could cause nightmares."
    "Very good, Jas. How do you kill it?"
    Jas laughed. "A laser. A cockle. I remember reading a story where somebody tried beating it with a rock and it just jumped on and started eating his hand."
    Jas watched uncomprehendingly as Doon gathered all of Jason's clothing from the ground and held it in a bundle under his arms. "You don't happen to have a laser or a cockle, do you?" Doon asked.
    "Yeah," Jas said. "I hid ‘em both in my mouth. I was only waiting for an opportunity to get you."
    "In other words, no."
    "I don't even have a toothpick," Jas said. "What are you doing with my clothes?"
    "Getting them out of the way," Doon said. "Good luck."
    "Good luck for what?"
    "Good luck in the upcoming battle. In a few seconds an Estorian twick will be turned loose at the other end of my little garden here. He'll be headed your way."
    And then Doon took off at a run.
    Jas jumped to his feet, started after Doon, but only got a few feet when he realized that Doon was too far, already at the door, already closing it behind him. Jas turned back and looked into the darkness around the lake. The moon was rising, but there wasn't enough light. And if there was, Jas wasn't sure if he could tell what a twick was. Had he ever seen a picture? Yes — and as he remembered what it looked like, he saw a living one crouched on a tree branch about thirty feet away.
    Weapon? Unlikely. Doon wasn't the kind to leave spare lasers lying around.
    The twick darted forward on the branch. So quickly that Jas