Free Death Wave by Ben Bova Page A

a life-changing experience. I killed a man.”
    The group gasped.
    â€œHe was a child molester. He had been convicted by the courts and released by the psychologists. But then he struck again and was arrested again. He was evil personified, and he had learned how to cheat the penal system. I was in jail with him. I had been arrested for hacking into the scoring program for the year’s high school examinations. I was fourteen years old.”
    The man paused. Every eye was riveted upon him. Every breath abated, waiting for his next words.
    â€œHe raped me. In my prison cell he beat me nearly unconscious and sodomized me. I thought my life had ended. I felt pain, and humiliation, and deep, deep shame.”
    Again he paused. Then, “It took me years to realize that I was not responsible for his foul deed, he was. It took me years to track him down. But I did it. I found him.” Holding both his hands in front of him like claws, he said, “I killed him. With these two hands, I destroyed the foul beast.”
    Nick stared at the man, just as every other man and woman in the little group was doing.
    â€œEver since, I have lived outside of society. Ever since, I have been an outcast. But let me tell you, it is better to be an outcast than a nothing. It is better to do what you must, to rid the world of evil, than to sit by comfortably and pretend that eradicating evil is someone else’s responsibility.
    â€œYou must take the responsibility on yourselves. You must rise and strike!”

 
    OFFICERS’ CLUB
    As the shadows of dusk lengthened across the Tarragona air base, Jordan and Aditi strolled to the Officers’ Club for dinner, with their airman “escort” walking along beside them. He stopped at the steps to the club, though.
    Almost blushing, he said in a low voice, “I am not an officer.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Jordan said in Spanish. “Thank you very much for guiding us.”
    â€œDe nada,” the young man said, smiling shyly.
    Inside the Officers’ Club, Castiglione was standing at the bar chatting with a pair of men in crisp, well-fitted uniforms. One was gray haired, with a chest full of ribbons. The other was obviously younger, probably the older officer’s aide, Jordan thought.
    The club occupied the entire ground floor of one of the smaller buildings on the base. It was far from plush, with wooden tables scattered across the plank floor and plain undecorated lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling rafters. Jordan almost expected to see the floor covered with sawdust. There was a stage at the far end of the room, with acoustical equipment and microphones stashed to one side of it.
    Jordan smiled at the lone bartender, a squared-off robot with four extensible arms, its metal body anodized army brown and a serial number stenciled across its chest. No gossiping with that bartender, he thought. No soulful philosophic conversations long after midnight.
    Smiling brightly, Castiglione introduced Aditi and Jordan to the two officers, a captain and a colonel in the Spanish Air Force. Jordan got the impression that they were both in the intelligence service.
    â€œYou are comfortable here?” the colonel asked in English as the bartender stood mutely awaiting their orders.
    â€œQuite comfortable, thank you,” Aditi replied.
    Jordan asked the bartender for amontillado for both himself and Aditi.
    â€œNot for me,” she said.
    With a knowing smile, Jordan said, “That’s all right. I’ll drink both of them.”
    Castiglione guffawed.
    Dinner was pleasant enough. Both the officers knew of Jordan’s old reputation as a diplomat, and both were curious about Aditi and her fellow natives of New Earth.
    â€œThe entire planet was built by your people?” asked the colonel.
    â€œBy our Predecessors,” Aditi responded.
    â€œPredecessors?”
    â€œIntelligent machines,” Jordan explained. “Millennia