Free The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card Page B

the morning, and dozed in the worm on the way to school. He went to his morning classes as usual, ate the free lunch that was usually his best meal of the day, and then the headmaster came and invited him to his office.
    “What about history?” Jase asked, trying to act unconcerned.
    “The rest of your classes today are canceled.”
    Torrock was waiting in the headmaster's office. He looked pleased with himself. “We have prepared a test. It's no more difficult than the one you took yesterday. Except that I didn't write the questions. I don't know the answers. Someone will be with you all the time. If you could perform an act of genius yesterday, surely you can do it again today.”
    Jason looked at the headmaster. “Do I have to? I was lucky yesterday, I don't know why I have to go through this test.”
    The headmaster sighed, glanced at Torrock, and raised his hands in helplessness. “A serious accusation has been made. This test is an allowable act.”
    “It won't prove anything.”
    “Your blood test is— ambiguous.”
    “My blood test was negative. It was from the time I was born. I can't help who my father was!”
    Yes, the headmaster agreed silently, it's hardly fair, but “There are other tests, and your genetic analysis shows—irregularities.”
    “Everybody's genes are different.”
    The headmaster sighed again. “Take the test, Master Worthing. And do well.”
    Torrock smiled. “There are three questions. Take as long as you like. Take all night if you like.”
    Shall I take your secrets out of your memory and tell them to the world? But Jase did not dare look behind Torrock's eyes. He had to take this test with no knowledge of anything he should not know. It might have been his life at stake. And yet even as he denied himself any illegitimate knowledge, he wondered if it might not be better to know as much as possible. To know what the real object of the test was. He felt helpless. Torrock could make him do anything, could make the test mean anything, and Jase had no recourse.
    At the table, staring at a pattern of stars moving in the air, he despaired. Even the question made no sense to him. There were two symbols that he didn't understand, and the movement of the stars was eccentric, to say the least. Who were they, to play God with his life?
    They had been playing God with his life from the beginning. He was only conceived because of old Ulysses's command; Jason was not brought to life because of love, but because a half-mad widow followed someone else's dead ancient plan. Now, his life hinged on someone else's plan, and he couldn't even be sure that knowing what it was would help him to survive.
    But despair led nowhere. He studied the stars and tried to understand the eccentricity; studied the figures and tried to eliminate possible causes.
    “Do I have to answer the three questions in order?” Jase asked.
    The headmaster looked up from his work. “Hmmm?”
    “Can I answer these out of order?”
    The headmaster nodded and went back to writing letters.
    Jason went from question to question, one two three, one two three. They were related problems, building from bad to worse. Even the curve theorem wouldn't help. What did they think he was, a genius!
    Apparently they did. Either a genius or a Swipe. If he didn't prove himself one, he could prove himself the other. So he set to work.
    All afternoon. Torrock came in at dismissal time, and took the headmaster's place in the room. The headmaster left, and came back an hour later with dinner for all three of them. Jase couldn't eat. He was getting a handle on the first problem, learning things from the data on the second question that helped explain what was going on in the first. Before Torrock had disposed the tray, the first question was answered.
    He fell asleep about eleven o'clock. The headmaster was already asleep. Jase awoke first, hours before school was supposed to start. The second question was still there, waiting for him. But Jason saw