A strange uneasiness stirred in me. Shifting, I slid my arm about her; pulled her to me. "Celeste, Celeste...."

"Mark...." Her words came muffled. "Mark, why is it that you hate them more than any other man does?"

"I don't. All of us are fighting—"

"No! That's not true!" Celeste's face came up, the grey eyes feverish. "The rest aren't fighting like you are. They haven't gone against Controller Kruze's orders. They haven't violated warping regulations. They haven't thrown a planet into chaos with a deportation edict!"

I rocked back. "Celeste—! What is this?"

"Don't you see, Mark? Everything you've done is different from the others! All the rest—they fight out of discipline, or fear, or maybe even desperation. But you—there's hate in the way you go about it. You don't rest, you don't slow down, you don't stop to think of consequences. To watch you, anyone would swear your children's blood was on Kel hands."

The uneasiness inside me grew. I looked away, not speaking.

"What is it, Mark? Tell me! What's happened to you that makes you hate them?"

"Nothing, rack you! Nothing at all!" The words came out in a rush, almost before I knew that I was speaking. "I'm just like any other agent, except that Psychogenetics picked me to be de-conditioned."

"You were—de-conditioned?—I mean, before you came in contact with the thrill-mills?"

"Yes, of course. Psychogenetics thought a free mind might work better in a fight like this than one pinned down to pattern."

"And what do you think?"

"You've seen what I've done, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes." A pause. "But no one else has acted like you, have they?—Not any of the thrill-mill people?"

"No."

"Then what is it, Mark? Why don't the others behave like you?"

My head was beginning to ache. I gripped it between my hands, trying to fight back the undercurrent of rage that somehow kept trying to well up in me. "Let me alone, will you? I've had nothing but trouble ever since the first time that Psychogen bunch pulled me in."

"The first time—!"

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