naged to get three Brothers working there, with orders to
keep him informed of anything and everything she did. His agents'
first report, the following day, told him that Cortin was under
constant guard by a minimum of two troopers, and usually had Captain
Michael Odeon with her during the day.

As the report continued he frowned, wondering if he shouldn't laugh
instead. Odeon had brought her texts for the Academy's
Inquisitor-specialist students, and that evening the course's ace
instructor had spent several hours with her. Cortin, studying to
become an Inquisitor? Not only didn't it seem her style, he wouldn't
have thought her capable of the toughness or the deliberate violence it
required.

He could be wrong, he acknowledged--he'd been wrong before, about her
and other humans too--but it seemed impossible he could be that far
wrong. In his harshest moment, he couldn't truthfully call her exactly
soft . . . but on the other hand, he'd never respected her for her
resolve. He'd be astonished if she turned out to have the necessary
toughness now--but if she did, he certainly wouldn't hesitate to make
use of it. Because if she were able to pass muster as an Inquisitor at
all, the Bitch would be the Systems' best--a suitable punishment for
any of his men who managed a particularly bad foulup.

As reports continued to come in, it became clear that she was not only
excelling in her studies--Illyanov's evaluations said she was doing
quite well, which for him was extravagant praise--she was apparently
enjoying them, which Shannon found almost impossible to believe. This
was only the theoretical work, though, he reminded himself. While he
conceded that she could endure considerable pain, the question was
whether she could deliberately administer it.

And that answer would have to wait. In the meantime, he had a campaign
to plan.

* * * * *

Cortin was recovering faster than Shannon liked. That she was
recovering at all, of course, was unfortunate--but given that, he
couldn't honestly be surprised at the speed of her recovery. It looked
like her return to duty would be about the time that collection of
Special Ops men--and the woman auxiliary who'd once been his
"lover"--was complete. He was concerned about that; the necessary
limitation of his powers made him dependent on normal systems of
information, and security around the gathering was unusually tight.
Since there were similar g