beneficial to themselves. How else do you get rid of the
powers on your neck if there is no way to legally vote them away? If
you can't vote them--shoot them."

"Bloody revolution, it cannot be!"

"All right, no revolution," Jason said, getting up and wiping his
hands disgustedly. "We'll change the name. How about calling it a
prison break? No, you wouldn't like that either. I have
it--liberation! We are going to strike the chains off these poor
people and restore them to the lands from which they were stolen. The
tiny fact that the slave holders regard them as property and won't
think much of the idea, therefore might get hurt in the process,
shouldn't bother you. So--will you join me in this Liberation
Movement?"

"It is still revolution."

"It is whatever I decide to call it!" Jason raged. "You come along
with me on the plans or you will be left behind when we go. You have
my word on that." He stomped over and helped himself to some soup and
waited for his anger to simmer down.

"I cannot do it ... I cannot do it," Mikah brooded, staring into his
rapidly cooling soup as into an oracular crystal ball, seeking
guidance there. Jason turned his back in disgust.

* * * * *

"Don't end up like him," he warned Ijale, pointing his spoon back over
his shoulder. "Not that there is much chance that you ever will coming
as you do from a society with its feet firmly planted on the ground,
or on the grave to be more accurate. Your people see only concrete
facts, and only the most obvious ones, and as simple an abstraction as
'trust' seems beyond you. While this long-faced clown can only think
in abstractions of abstractions, and the more unreal they are the
better. I bet he even worries about how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin."

"I do not worry about it," Mikah broke in, overhearing the remark.
"But I do think about it once in a while, it is a problem that cannot
be lightly dismissed."

"You see?"

Ijale nodded. "If he is wrong, and I am wrong--then you must be the
only one who is right." She nodded in satisfaction at the thought.

"Very nice of you to say so," Jason smiled. "And true, too. I lay no
claims to infallibility but I am sure that I can see the difference
between abstractions and facts a lot better than either of you, and I
am certainly more adroit at handling them. The Jason dinAlt fan club
meeting is now adjourned." He reached his hand over his shoulder and
p