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in a few minutes," he said.
    Dirisha leaned back and the form-chair extruded itself to accomodate her, the machinery whirring so smoothly she could feel, but not hear it. This organization had money. Viral-inject was expensive, and a layout like this took more than a few stads. And, what was the ultimate purpose of all this?
    Not just high-tech bodyguards, surely—
    Abruptly, Dirisha found herself sitting at a desk, surrounded by other people at identical desks, watching an empty lectern. After a moment, the shrouded figure of Pen appeared at the entrance to the room, and glided as though on wheels to the lectern. Dirisha grinned. Whoever had programed the ed virus had a sense of humor.
    "Welcome to the Matador program," Pen said. "This session and the ones to follow are designed to introduce you to the scope and purpose of the training; you'll learn how and why we came to be, and basic information which will allow you to enter the mainstream classes at current levels." Pen paused a moment, then waved his hand. The room faded—
    Dirisha sucked in a quick breath. The Jade Flower! The illusion seemed perfect: it was the same rec-chem pub she'd worked in three years past, as a bouncer. The soldiers sat around the octagonal room, drinking or smoking or just smiling around the edges of whatever chem they were stoned on; there was Butch, the head tender; there was Anjue, the doormaster; there was Khadaji himself, smiling and moving through the throng; and there—there she was!
    A pang of nostalgia hit her. It was as if she were actually in the pub; she could feel the body heat of the troopers, smell the cooked-cashew odor of flickstick smoke, see the smallest detail.
    Khadaji laughed at something a soldier said, then moved to the center of the room. He seemed to grow a bit larger, and the room around him seemed to fade as her former boss stood there smiling. The background murmur of the place died, and Dirisha heard Pen's voice.
    "Emile Antoon Khadaji," Pen said, "former Jump-trooper, former pubtender, former smuggler. At this point in his life, he is rich, adept at many things, and filled with a sense of purpose. Nearly a decade and a half earlier, Khadaji had a moment of cosmic realization, at which time he saw the fall of the Confederation and what part he must play in it. Here, operating from a small pub on Greaves, Khadaji has just begun his one-man resistance to the Confed."
    The interior of the Jade Flower vanished; a moment later, the image of Khadaji, standing alone against a backdrop of trees and shrubs, appeared. He wore a set of plain tan or-thoskins and a pair of spetsdods. He spun, to face the woods, as four troopers emerged. Each of the troopers was armed with an explosive-slug carbine. The rattle of automatic fire tore the quiet air; Khadaji snapped off two rounds, dived, rolled, and came up firing again. The four soldiers fell, knotted into balls as their muscles clenched involuntarily.
    Spasm-poisoning, Dirisha remembered. The hospitals on Greaves had been full of such wounded troopers. Six months, it took for the stuff to wear off.
    Muscle relaxants didn't work, it was CNS viral and self-replicating. No antidote.
    Khadaji raised from his fighting crouch and turned to face his unseen audience. He smiled.
    "Emile Antoon Khadaji," Pen said again. "One man who took on an army.
    When those troops he disabled began to recover and he knew he would be identified, Khadaji walked boldly into the office of the planet's military commander and paralyzed him, a final gesture.
    "Shortly afterward, Khadaji allowed himself to be imploded, rather than taken alive."
    Dirisha remembered. Sleel had been working and she had been off, but she had arrived in time to see the attack on the armored drug room of the Jade Flower. The super-condensed ball which had been an entire room and its contents had crashed through the pub's foundations and sank into the ground.
    Pen's voice-over continued. "An inventory on Khadaji's ammunition supply