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revealed a perfect match with the number of troopers wounded during his resistance to the Confed. In six months of operation, Khadaji took out two thousand three hundred and eighty-eight of the Confed's finest soldiers. He never killed, he did it alone, and he never missed. Not once."
    It was a propaganda piece, Dirisha knew, but even so, she felt a chill touch her. It was amazing, no matter how you looked at it. Total dedication.
    The scene faded, like a holoproj deprived of power, and once again, Dirisha was in the classroom, watching the gray figure of Pen.
    "Emile Khadaji was a rich man, when he undertook his mission against the Confed," Pen said. "He could have stayed within the system, wanting for nothing, respected and elite. He did not, for Khadaji knew the great dinosaur of the Confederation was dying. He sought to hasten its death, by being an example to free men and women—by showing them that resistance need not be thought of as futile.
    If one man, alone, can do so much, what might a hundred dedicated people do?
    "Ah, but there are other ways to fight. The power of education, the pen rather than the sword, is one. Change a tyrant's philosophy and you might avoid shooting him.
    "Khadaji is our icon, but our methods are different. Those of you who have been selected to become matadors—the word is from an ancient language, it means 'killer'—shall serve not by killing the flesh, but by slaying those twisted ideas held by the Confed. The man or woman whose life is in your care will learn to trust you. You can whisper into important ears, pass on beliefs, perhaps change a pivotal mind. A seed planted may grow; from the dying body of the Confederation will eventually spring new powers.
    Perhaps, just perhaps, one of those powers may embody the ideas Khadaji knew to be truth: that mankind should be free; that initiation of deadly violence against another man or mue is wrong. This is why Khadaji chose the spetsdod for his weapon; so, too, will you master the non-lethal ways of self-defense. That is our purpose."
    Pen paused. He waved his hand again, and Dirisha floated in deep space, watching a giant, wheel-shaped ship sail by. An antique, the thing was, and it looked familiar, somehow. It was obviously pre-Bender in design, not stuck in the gravity well of a planet or star—wait, she recognized it now, it was—
    "Heaven Star," Pen said. "The first extra-system ship built by humans, on its way to an epic voyage. Those of us who are matadors consider ourselves to be like this ship. Pioneers, of a sort, willing to risk everything for our cause. As a new student, you would not be here, did you not have certain talents or skills or similar dedication."
    Pen stopped talking, and moved from behind the lectern. He walked down a short aisleway toward Dirisha. When he stood a few meters away, staring at her, he spoke again.
    "You can leave at any time, if what we want is not what you want. Your memory will be left intact—we are not the Confed—and you may speak to us as you will. What we do here is not illegal, by the standards of this world or those of the Confederation. As long as we do not actively resist or counsel active resistance, the Confed allows some dissent, if only a small token."
    Dirisha regarded the real-unreal Pen before her. She had never been political; her only desire, from the time she had left her mother, was to achieve martial enlightenment. The Confed could hang, for all Dirisha cared.
    But she was tired: tired of playing against the Musashi flexors; tired of drifting from world to world, searching for the next Art. This sumito Pen offered, the Ninety-Seven Steps, was something special, she could sense that.
    And there were people here who intrigued her: Pen, Red, Geneva, Bork. And more, they wanted her, enough to have kept tabs on her, to have her watched. Besides, augmenting her bodyguard skills would do her no harm. It was still as good a place as any.
    "I'll stick around for awhile," she