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shook his head wonderingly. "Artwork used as a weapon. What an insidious
concept."
I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. What is the calix
doing?"
Devaro sighed, swiveling his display back around toward him. "We don't know
for sure. If we had a brainscan record for you prior to your trip to
Quibsh but we don't. All we have to go on is this." He waved a hand at the
display. "And what this says is that, through your contact with the wood
fibers, the calix is changing you into something that matches its own pre-set
matrix. Turning you into God alone knows what."
The room seemed suddenly very cold. "But I don't feel any different," I
protested. "I mean... I should feel something. Shouldn't I?"
He leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingertips together. "You ever try
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to cook a frog?" he asked. "Probably not. Doubt anyone has, really, but it
makes a good story. They say that if you drop a live frog into a pot of
boiling water, it'll hop right out again. But if you put it in cold water and
slowly heat the pot to boiling, the frog just sits there until it cooks. It
can't detect the slow temperature change. You see?"
I saw, all right. "Is that what the calix is doing? Slow-cooking me?"
He shrugged. "It's trying. Whether it's going to succeed... that we don't yet
know."
The room fell silent again. I stared out the window, mentally taking
inventory of my mind, the way you would poke around your skin checking for
bruises. I
still couldn't find anything that felt strange.
But then, maybe the calix hadn't heated the water up enough. Yet. "Why me?" I
asked.
"A mistake, obviously," Devaro said. "The Kailth probably assumed you'd give
the calix to Convocant Sutherlan instead of keeping it for yourself. Or else
they thought you were more important than you really are, though how they
could make that kind of blunder I don't know."
"So what do we do?" I asked. "Do we " I hesitated " destroy the calix?"
He eyed me closely. "Is that what you want?"
"I " I broke off, the quick answer sticking unexpectedly in my throat. Of
course we should destroy it the thing was clearly dangerous. And yet, I felt
oddly reluctant to make such a decision. It was such a magnificent piece of
art.
And it had been a gift from Tawni.
"Actually, it's a moot point," Devaro said into my indecision. "I'm not sure
destroying it would do any good. The places where you hold the calix have
clearly had the greatest effect on you; but you said yourself you've touched
other spots on it, so you've probably already picked up at least some of the
programming embedded there."
Programming. The word sent a shiver up my back. "What are we going to do?"
"Three things," Devaro said. "First of all, we don't panic. You've been
affected, but we're on to them now, so we can keep an eye on you. Second, we
need to get more information on these calices in general." He cocked an
eyebrow.
"Which means you're going to have to go back to Quibsh and get us some more of
them."
I felt my mouth drop open. "Back to Quibsh?"
"You have to," Devaro said, his voice quiet but compelling. "You've met the
people there you're the only one who can pretend it's just a social visit.
Moreover, they gave you a calix, so it's reasonable you'd be back to buy more
as gifts."
This was coming a little too fast. "Gifts?"
"Certainly." Devaro smiled slyly. "What better way to guarantee their
cooperation than to tell them you want calices to give to prominent members of
the Convocation?"
There was a tone at the door, and a rollcart came in with two covered dishes
on it. "Ah dinner has arrived," Devaro announced, standing up and pointing the
rollcart toward one side of the room where a bench table was now unfolding
itself from the wall. "Let's eat before it gets cold."
"Yes, sir," I said, sliding off the rolltable and heading over. The delectable
aromas rising from the plates made my stomach hurt even more. "You said there
were three things we were going to do."
"Yes, I did," he said, setting the plates onto opposite ends of the table.
"The third thing is for us to learn exactly what the calix's programming does.
Unfortunately, core samples and structural analyses can get us only so far.
Which leaves only one practical approach."
I nodded. I'd already guessed this one. "You want me to keep the calix," I
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said.
"And let it keep doing whatever it's doing to me."
"We'll start that phase as soon as you get back from Quibsh," Devaro said.
"But don't worry, we'll be with you every step of the way. We'll take a
complete brainscan once a week more often if it seems justified as well as
monitoring your general health."
It made sense, I supposed. It was also about as unpleasant a prospect as I'd
ever faced in my whole life. "What about my work?"
"This is your work from now on," Devaro said. "You're on my staff now I made
the arrangements with Sutherlan earlier today."
"I see," I said, walking over to the table. The aromas didn't smell quite so
good anymore.
"You have to do this, Markand," Devaro said quietly. It was, as near as I
could remember, the first time he'd ever called me by my name. "It's the only
way we're going to get a handle on this Kailth plot. The only way to protect
the
UnEthHu."
I sighed. "Patriotism. You found my weak spot, all right."
"It's a weak spot many of us have," Devaro said. He gestured to the table.
"Come; let's eat. We still have a great many things to discuss."
Four days later, I was back on Quibsh.
I'd spent the whole trip worrying about how I was going to hide from Tawni the
sudden change in the way I now perceived her and her people. No longer as
friends, but as enemies.
Fortunately, the issue never came up. I'd barely stepped out of the half-wing
into the late afternoon sunlight when Tawni was there in front of me, all but
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