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glowing face of Nikolos Daru Ede fell into a mask of panic. And then a loud, almost whiny voice issued into the hall as Ede cried out, "No, please don't take me down!"
    At this startling event, Lord Sung pointed her plump finger at the devotionary and gasped. Sanura Snowden and several other lords cried out, "What? What's this?"
    Lord Nikolos just stared at the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede while he sat blinking his icy blue eyes. And then he said simply, "It speaks."
    "Oh, indeed, I do speak," the Ede said. "I see and hear, as well. The jewels on the devotionary's sides are computer eyes and — "
    "We're familiar with such technologies," Lord Nikolos said. He, too, had been bred to politeness, but he had no compunction at interrupting a machine.
    "I think, as well," the Ede said, "and therefore I am, as are you, self-aware, and I am — "
    "A clever program, nothing more," Lord Nikolos said. "We're also familiar with Ai programs, though it may be that this one is more sophisticated than any our Order has seen. The Lord Programmer will be able to determine — "
    "No, I must ask you not to take me down!" the Ede cried out again. Lord Nikolos and one hundred and twenty other lords gaped at the Ede hologram. No one had ever experienced an Ai program interrupting a human being.
    Ede turned his frightened face to Danlo.
    "Lord Nikolos," Danlo said, "I have borne this devotionary halfway across the Vild. I have valued its ... information."
    "Are you asking to keep it for yourself ?"
    "Yes."
    "But a pilot may not keep any discovery to himself. You know our rule."
    "Truly, I do. But this devotionary, this Ede, has aided me on my journey. I ... have made promises to him."
    For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Lord Nikolos asked, "You made promises to an idol programmed out of a machine?"
    "Yes. In return for helping me find Tannahill, I promised not to take him down. I promised to help him ... accomplish a thing."
    "What thing?"
    "His ... purpose."
    "And do I dare ask what purpose you might think this machine could be programmed to achieve?"
    Again, Danlo looked at the Ede hologram. He looked at Lord Nikolos and the Sonderval, and at the many other lords and masters. He felt his heart beating hard up through his throat and his face burning as if he had stood all day in the sun. He did not want to tell these cold-eyed men and women of Ede's purpose.
    "Well Pilot?"
    "He, this Ede, wants to ... "
    The Ede flashed Danlo a hand sign, and Danlo suddenly stopped talking. And then Ede addressed Lord Nikolos and the other lords, and said, "I want to be a man again."
    Lord Nikolos stared at the glowing hologram as if he couldn't understand the simple sounds of human (or artificial) speech. None of the lords in the hall seemed to know what Ede might mean.
    "The pilot, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, promised to help me recover my body, if that is possible. To help me live as a man again."
    Seeing Lord Nikolos' bewilderment, Danlo smiled and said, "I must tell you of his body."
    "Please do," Lord Nikolos said with a sigh.
    Danlo bowed his head, and then told the Lords of the Order of the body of Nikolos Daru Ede which the Architects had kept frozen in a clary crypt for three thousand years. He explained how the entire crypt had been stolen from Ede's Tomb on Tannahill. The Ede hologram hoped that his body might someday be recovered; he prayed that the Order's cryologists might be able to revive this body after reconfiguring the damaged neurons and synapses of its brain to instantiate the program of the devotionary computer. And thus to raise the dead. "We ... were going to ask the Architects for the return of this body," Danlo said.
    "I see," Lord Nikolos said. "You didn't by chance bear this body across the Vild in the hold of your ship?"
    "No, there were terrible events. I ... was unable to recover it."
    Again Lord Nikolos sighed as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders. "Why don't you finish your story, Pilot?"
    And so Danlo stood within the circle