nothing did,” said Keth. “She was your last resort, eh?”
“No,” Telzey said. “There were a few other things I could have done, but not immediately. I wasn’t sure any of them would work, and I didn’t want to wait until they were carving around on me, or doped you to start talking. Uspurul I could use at once.”
“Exactly how did you use her?” Keth asked.
Telzey looked at him. He said, “Relax! It’s off the record. Everything’s off the record. After all, nobody’s ever likely to hear from me that it wasn’t the famed Deboll ingenuity that broke the biggest racket on Fermilaur!”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Telzey said. “I knew Uspurul was around almost as soon as we woke up. She’s very easy psi material, so I made good contact with her again, just in case, took over her mind controls and shut subjective awareness down to near zero. Sorem thought she’d fainted, which would come to the same thing. Then when I had to use her, I triggered rage, homicidal fury, which shot her full of adrenaline. She needed it—she isn’t normally very strong or very fast. That gun was really almost too heavy for her to hold up.”
“So you simply told her to take the gun away from Barrand’s monster, shoot him and come into the next room to shoot Barrand and Nelt?” Keth said.
Telzey shook her head.
“Uspurul couldn’t have done it,” she said. “She’d never touched a gun in her life. Even in a frenzy like that, she couldn’t use violence effectively. She wouldn’t know how. She didn’t know what was going on until it was over. She wasn’t really there.”
Keth
“No,” Telzey said. “There were a few other things I could have done, but not immediately. I wasn’t sure any of them would work, and I didn’t want to wait until they were carving around on me, or doped you to start talking. Uspurul I could use at once.”
“Exactly how did you use her?” Keth asked.
Telzey looked at him. He said, “Relax! It’s off the record. Everything’s off the record. After all, nobody’s ever likely to hear from me that it wasn’t the famed Deboll ingenuity that broke the biggest racket on Fermilaur!”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Telzey said. “I knew Uspurul was around almost as soon as we woke up. She’s very easy psi material, so I made good contact with her again, just in case, took over her mind controls and shut subjective awareness down to near zero. Sorem thought she’d fainted, which would come to the same thing. Then when I had to use her, I triggered rage, homicidal fury, which shot her full of adrenaline. She needed it—she isn’t normally very strong or very fast. That gun was really almost too heavy for her to hold up.”
“So you simply told her to take the gun away from Barrand’s monster, shoot him and come into the next room to shoot Barrand and Nelt?” Keth said.
Telzey shook her head.
“Uspurul couldn’t have done it,” she said. “She’d never touched a gun in her life. Even in a frenzy like that, she couldn’t use violence effectively. She wouldn’t know how. She didn’t know what was going on until it was over. She wasn’t really there.”
Keth