any of the things on the list. Not before the session; not after. Another of the things they were trained to do was be inconspicuous. A trail of battered and bleeding toughs . . . a trail of battered and bleeding three-horned killer bulls . . . it would not do. Even a trail of glowing satiated go-come girls would not do. The list wasnât for actual planning purposes. The list was to pump up your ego to such monstrous inflated proportions that it would carry you through the session. The supershrink, like any med-Sammy, had been sure he was right; he had insisted that it would do that very well.
He had been wrong. The ego jolt never lasted even through the short flight up to the asteroidâs well-camouflaged dock. It might happen that youâd take your seat thinking serenely, I AM ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MEN IN THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM, I HAVE EXTY MILLION MEGACREDITS IN MY SECRET ACCOUNT, I OWN A PRIVATE ASTEROID WHERE I AM KING AND POPE AND SULTAN AND MAGUS AND THERE IS NO OTHER POWER BEFORE ME. That could happen. But it leaked out fast. You sat in the cramped passenger compartment of the tiny automatic Air Force flyer and watched the digits on the left-to-go spot get smaller and smaller; and while you watched, your ego got smaller and smaller, too. Long before the tone sounded to tell you that the flyer had docked and that you could enter the corridor in the conference room where the Aliens were waiting, the last of it had evaporated and you were wishing they had chosen you for something else. Anything else. Never mind the exty million megacredits and all the rest; you would rather have been a servomechanism supervisor on a tourist asteroid than a member of the elite corpsof seven handpicked men to which you actually belonged. It was only an elite corps while you had your feet firmly on the surface of the Earth, or some colony of Earth, and could revel in the idea that nobody around you knew the wondrous secrets you knew or had all the wondrous goodies you had or had seen all the wondrous sights youâd seen. You were a man who could call up the President of the United States and give him orders , for example; that was a tremendous consolation while you were on Earth and made up for many disadvantages. But it was no use to you when you actually set out, twice a year, to do the job for which you had been so painstakingly selected. Kony would have given up making the sillyass list, it was so useless, except then how would he have spent the nights before the sessions?
He was always afraid to go to sleep. Even with drugs to make sure the sleep was dreamless, he was afraid. And if you were awake, the seconds crawled toward eternity. So. He kept on making the list called âList.â Maybe the shrink had known a little bit more than they gave him credit for? Naah . . . the poor simple bastard. How could he possibly not have realized that once heâd done his task he could not be allowed to keep walking around the world, carrying the information he carried? Heart attack, my sweet ass, Kony thought. Anybody who cared to take a look at the statistics about mental illness, nervous collapse, drug addiction, alcoholism, and general status tapioca-brain and free-flowing mouth among shrinks would have known that a heart attack was the next thing on the poor guyâs schedule after he was handed his generous fee for services rendered. Poor simple bastard.
Special Ambassadors, on the other hand, were safe . Like the bottoms of chasms. Minds of solid aluminum, plated with platinum, studded with emeralds and rubies and priceless pearls. If Kony hadnât been absolutely sure of that, he would have taken the quitpill he always carried, instantly, without a secondâs hesitation. If he ever so much as noticed himself getting nervous, he would take that quitpill. Except during the night before a session, when it would have been a hell of a lot more demented to be calm than to be a mass of flinching nerves that had
He had been wrong. The ego jolt never lasted even through the short flight up to the asteroidâs well-camouflaged dock. It might happen that youâd take your seat thinking serenely, I AM ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MEN IN THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM, I HAVE EXTY MILLION MEGACREDITS IN MY SECRET ACCOUNT, I OWN A PRIVATE ASTEROID WHERE I AM KING AND POPE AND SULTAN AND MAGUS AND THERE IS NO OTHER POWER BEFORE ME. That could happen. But it leaked out fast. You sat in the cramped passenger compartment of the tiny automatic Air Force flyer and watched the digits on the left-to-go spot get smaller and smaller; and while you watched, your ego got smaller and smaller, too. Long before the tone sounded to tell you that the flyer had docked and that you could enter the corridor in the conference room where the Aliens were waiting, the last of it had evaporated and you were wishing they had chosen you for something else. Anything else. Never mind the exty million megacredits and all the rest; you would rather have been a servomechanism supervisor on a tourist asteroid than a member of the elite corpsof seven handpicked men to which you actually belonged. It was only an elite corps while you had your feet firmly on the surface of the Earth, or some colony of Earth, and could revel in the idea that nobody around you knew the wondrous secrets you knew or had all the wondrous goodies you had or had seen all the wondrous sights youâd seen. You were a man who could call up the President of the United States and give him orders , for example; that was a tremendous consolation while you were on Earth and made up for many disadvantages. But it was no use to you when you actually set out, twice a year, to do the job for which you had been so painstakingly selected. Kony would have given up making the sillyass list, it was so useless, except then how would he have spent the nights before the sessions?
He was always afraid to go to sleep. Even with drugs to make sure the sleep was dreamless, he was afraid. And if you were awake, the seconds crawled toward eternity. So. He kept on making the list called âList.â Maybe the shrink had known a little bit more than they gave him credit for? Naah . . . the poor simple bastard. How could he possibly not have realized that once heâd done his task he could not be allowed to keep walking around the world, carrying the information he carried? Heart attack, my sweet ass, Kony thought. Anybody who cared to take a look at the statistics about mental illness, nervous collapse, drug addiction, alcoholism, and general status tapioca-brain and free-flowing mouth among shrinks would have known that a heart attack was the next thing on the poor guyâs schedule after he was handed his generous fee for services rendered. Poor simple bastard.
Special Ambassadors, on the other hand, were safe . Like the bottoms of chasms. Minds of solid aluminum, plated with platinum, studded with emeralds and rubies and priceless pearls. If Kony hadnât been absolutely sure of that, he would have taken the quitpill he always carried, instantly, without a secondâs hesitation. If he ever so much as noticed himself getting nervous, he would take that quitpill. Except during the night before a session, when it would have been a hell of a lot more demented to be calm than to be a mass of flinching nerves that had
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