Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) Read Online Free PDF Page A

game than those we have gathered into hand,” he pointed out.
    “Oh, agreed! But the eight are not themselves blameless. They, as much as those they serve, wish Korval’s destruction—we have it from their own lips. Otts Clark—”
    Otts Clark had no defenses against Anthora’s arts, which the eight agents of the so-called Department of the Interior had in abundance. He had willingly given the name of the man who had instructed him, and given him the toxin-tipped pin . . .
    . . . and then wept in honest horror and sorrow when the Scout team came back to tell him that they had found the man . . . dead.
    “Val Con,” Pat Rin murmured, interrupting these thoughts.
    She glanced at him, questioning, and found him staring abstractedly into the depths of his teacup.
    “Val Con?” she prompted when it seemed that he was in danger of becoming lost in his thoughts.
    He glanced up. “Your pardon, Cousin. It is merely that I had heard from Shan that Val Con had been . . . subverted by this same Department of the Interior. The description of the damage done was quite horrific, and I without Healer’s eyes, to truly know what had been done.”
    “I had heard the same,” Nova said quietly, “and yet he won free, while these others—”
    “Val Con won free because he had resources,” Pat Rin interrupted. “So Shan theorizes—and I agree. Val Con had Miri at his back, he had his music, his brothers of the Clutch—and he was raised under Tree, whatever that does to any of us! These others—they have no such resources nor any kind of aid. And it may be . . .” He looked to her, earnest and, as she read it, not a little distressed. “It may be that Val Con is the only one who is fit to judge their condition and in what manner they must be contained.
    “They admit of no clan, and in any case to return them to kin would seem a disastrous course. Certainly, they cannot advocate . . . rationally for themselves. Having fallen captive to their great enemy, Anthora reads that none expects the department they serve will seek to free them, and they find pride in being expendable. Each had a geas upon them, to die as quickly as they might upon capture—”
    “Which geas Anthora had been able to . . . circumvent,” Nova murmured.
    “Indeed—and so we come to my tale.” Pat Rin drew a breath, and recruited himself with a deep draught of tea.
    “Anthora and Natesa had devised a scheme which they believed would allow them to heed the Delm’s Word while being more productive of information. There was one among the eight who seemed to . . . revel less in her lack of worth. One, indeed, whom the conditioning seemed to push rather than . . . consume.
    “Anthora said to Natesa that she saw a—let us call it a fault line. She believed that she might separate the conditioning from the conditioned, and thus unlock a rational mind from which Natesa might then gain answers.”
    He looked down into his empty cup.
    Nova drank what was left of her tea, and considered. That her sister Anthora could do precisely what was described, she had no doubt; Anthora was one of the three most powerful dramliz in the known galaxy. And once Anthora had produced the correct conditions, there was no doubt at all that Pat Rin’s lifemate, Juntavas Judge Natesa the Assassin, would be able to extract much of value to the clan.
    All the while leaving the one under questioning intact and alive.
    Which was the Delm’s Word.
    She put her cup down and nodded. “So,” she prompted, “the attempt was made.”
    He shivered slightly, though they were quite snug where they sat, by the heater’s benevolent orange glow.
    “Indeed,” he said slowly. “The attempt was made. It was, one might say, a success. Natesa found herself speaking to a woman who was at first somewhat puzzled, and who grew more agitated as the questions proceeded. It was as if, Natesa told me, the personality had become detached from the deeds, and she was for a time able to describe those