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incessantly of death.
 I tell you I was married once? Raynor volunteered.
The chasm of personal interaction yawned wide and deep at Mike s feet.  It
hasn t come up, he said calmly, hoping that he was not expected to share
back.
 Married. Had a kid. He was  gifted, they said.
 I heard the quotation marks around that. Gifted like in ghost material?
Psionic powers? Telepathic?
 Uh-huh. Sent him off to a special school. Government scholarship. A few
months later, we got a letter.
There had been an  incident at the school.
Mike had heard of such letters. They were unfortunately as common as grass
when dealing with telepaths. Another of the Confederacy s dirty little
secrets, rarely broadcast.  I m sorry, Mike said, because that was all he
could say.
 Yeah. Liddy never recovered. She just sort of wasted away, that winter she
went down with the flu.
And afterwards, I threw myself into my work. Found out I liked working alone.
 It s an easy trap to fall into, hiding in your work, said Mike, looking at
the transmit light of his commlink, which meant his report was being sent out
into the void.
 Anyway, I wanted you to know, said Raynor.  You may have thought I was being
hard on Kerrigan for being a telepath. Maybe I was. But I have my reasons.
 She s got her own problems, you know. Like everybody else, and like no one
you ve ever met. You might want to cut her a little slack.
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 It s kind of hard, when she knows what you re really thinking.
 Kerrigan seems to be a good soldier, said Mike, the image of her as a
death-dealing dervish rising unbidden to his mind.  She may be wound a little
tight, that s all.
 I think she s dangerous, said Raynor.  Dangerous to the troops around her.
Dangerous to Mengsk.
And dangerous to herself.
Mike shrugged, unsure how much he could comfortably reveal to the ex-marshal.
He settled at last for
 She s had a tough life.
 And we ve had it easy so far?
 All the more reason to keep an eye on her. Watch her back. Whether she knows
it or not, though she probably will. We all need guardian angels.
The conversation shifted after that to questions of what worlds were in
rebellion and what effect Duke s defection would have on other military
leaders. Finally Raynor took his leave and abandoned Mike to the soft urgency
of the communications room.
Mike looked at the half-empty pack of cigarettes. The taste of the first one
was still pungent in his mouth.
 Hell, he said, reaching for the pack and the matches.  I guess, around here,
you can learn to tolerate just about anything.

CHAPTER 11
CHESS
I played chess with Arcturus Mengsk. I lost regularly, by theway. Someday I ll
probably be dragged before some high justice and told that this was a crime
against the state, but I willhave no defense. Other than losing more times
than I won.More often than not, Mengsk would dangle some bait infront of me in
a game, and I would snap at it, only to discover too late that I had been
distracted from the trap he wassetting.
The entire human campaign against the Zerg was similar, consisting of a series
of defeats, each one more gallingthan the last because each time we ignored
what was reallygoing on. Our first warning that the Zerg were planetsidecame
usually too late, when the creep appeared at our doorsteps or the Protoss
warped in with the thunder-godships.
We thought we could escape it. Some of us, includingMengsk himself, thought we
could control it.
But we were allpawns in a greater game.
No, not pawns. Dominos. Each falling in turn, planetafter planet, person after
person, until we reached the biggestdomino of them all, the one called
Tarsonis.
 THELIBERTYMANIFESTO
 THE COMPARISON HAS BEEN MADE BETWEEN war and chess, said Arcturus Mengsk,
forking his knight to threaten both Mike s queen and his bishop.
 You re very good at both, said Mike, moving his queen to take Mengsk s rook.
 Actually, I find the comparison to be false, said the terrorist, moving his
knight to take the bishop.
 Checkmate, by the way.
Mike blinked at the board. Mengsk s strategy was obvious now, in the same way
that it had been totally opaque mere seconds before. The reporter mentally [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]