The Watchman sagged; his shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Geri barely suppressed a git I’ll get a lawyer. If they senc It’ll be very romantic.”le. “It’s all right. Hector. you to jail, I’ll visit you.
Odal sat in the darkness of the dueling machine booth, turning thoughts over and over in his mind. To remain as Kor’s experimental animal meant disgrace and the torture of ceaseless mind-probing. Ultimately an utterly unpleasant death. To join Romis meant an attempt to assassinate the Leader; an attempt that would end, successful or not, in death at the hands of Kanus’ guards. To refuse to join Romis led again—and this time immediately—to death.
Every avenue of choice came to the same end. Odal sat there calmly and examined his alternatives with a ool detachment, almost as though this was happening to someone else. It was even amusing, almost, that events could arrange themselves so overwhelmingly against a lone man.
Romis’ voice in his mind was imperative. “I cannot keep this link open much longer without risking detection. What is your decision?”
To stay alive as long as possible, Odal realized. Hoping that thought didn’t get across to Romis, he said, “I’ll join you.”
“You do this willingly?”
A picture of the armed guard waiting for him outside flashed through Odal’s mind. “Yes, willingly,” he said. “Of course.”
“Very well, then. Remain where you are, act as though nothing has happened. Within the next few days, a week at most, we’ll get you out of Kor’s hands.”
Only when he was certain that contact was broken, that Romis and the relay man at the machine’s controls could no longer hear him, did Odal allow himself to think: If I round up Romis and all the plotters against the Leader, that should make me a hero of Kerak again.