“That Captain Thermopyle was able to escape from UMCPHQ itself is sufficiently disturbing. However, our source in the office of the UMCP Director of Protocol has confirmed that the situation is worse than it appears.
“The difficulties revolve around a man who was at one time the Deputy Chief of Com-Mine Station Security, Milos Taverner.”
Oh, shit, thought Holt. Anxiety spread from his groin up into his chest. His lungs hurt as if they were getting old.
Like all dummies, the male head in the news broadcast was implacable. “Because he was responsible for the interrogation of Captain Thermopyle on Com-Mine Station, Deputy Chief Taverner was brought to UMCPHQ along with Captain Thermopyle, again on orders from the Director of Data Acquisition. Ostensibly Deputy Chief Taverner was reqqed by Data Acquisition to continue his interrogation of Captain Thermopyle. He was considered to have a unique and invaluable knowledge of the prisoner.
“Now, however, our source has confirmed that Deputy Chief Taverner was brought to UMCPHQ, not because of his specialized knowledge, but because he was thought to be the traitor who had betrayed Com-Mine Station Security. He was brought to UMCPHQ so that Data Acquisition might learn the truth about him—and so that the threat he represents would be neutralized.
“For reasons that are not clear at this time, Deputy Chief Taverner was not adequately guarded. Now, it appears, he has succeeded at breaking his former partner, Captain Thermopyle, out of confinement. Together they have stolen a ship and escaped UMCPHQ.
“The implications of this apparent incompetence on the part of the UMCP are vast and frightening for a species already threatened with extinction by the Amnion—a species protected only by the same men and women who have just allowed a convicted pirate and his most dangerous accomplice to slip through their fingers.”
There was more: a recap of Captain Thermopyle’s arrest and conviction, and a summary of Deputy Chief Taverner’s record, followed by an exhaustive analysis of events by a whole panel of self-appointed experts—genophobes, libertarians, free-market crazies, native Earthers; every political fringe group that wanted votes on the GCES and didn’t have them. Holt Fasner had stopped listening, however. He was already on the intercom, securing a channel between the home office and UMCPHQ—putting the fear of the Dragon into every technician and secretary between his mother’s sickchamber and Godsen Frik.
His hands shook the entire time.
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published July 1991
Bantam paperback edition / August 1992
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1991 by Stephen R. Donaldson
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-10150.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-75565-0
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada, Random House Inc., New York, New York.
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