Part 22 (1/2)

The guards seemed undecided. A couple of other soldiers were now waiting behind Ace, shuffling impatiently as they too waited to be admitted.

'You,' Ace pointed to one of the soldiers, 'tell these goons who I am.'

'Er, well I ' he seemed unsure.

'I don't believe this,' Ace fumed. 'I shall report you all to the Manact when I see him.' She pushed her way past the guard and went into the room, listening for the shout from behind, waiting for the sound of a disruptor pulse ripping through the air towards her. When the noise came she almost threw herself to the floor. But she realized in time that it was just the door sliding closed behind her.

The war room walls were lined with charts. Where there were gaps between the marked*up star maps it was to allow s.p.a.ce for a terminal screen which showed similar charts and schematics, but animated to show the movement of troop positions and s.h.i.+ps. The room was full of people, but they were dwarfed by the information around them.

Even the centre of the room was dominated by a huge simularity which presented a three*dimensional image of an engagement. The s.h.i.+ps of the opposing sides were represented by their transponder codes as they moved ponderously across the scene. The scale had to be huge to keep the relative speeds of the attack*s.h.i.+ps so slow. Ace wondered if she was looking at a real*time image of what was actually happening somewhere, a computer prediction of a battle yet to be fought, or an a.n.a.lysis of one long since lost or won.

At the far side of the room was another door. From the shape of the walls projecting into the room in that corner, the main room had been allocated to an office. Ace made her way across the room to the door.

A couple of Heletians were standing just outside, discussing a series of figures and co*ordinates being relayed to a screen not far from the office door. One of them turned his watery grey eyes to watch Ace as she pa.s.sed. She glared back at him and he looked away hurriedly. Ace knocked quietly on the door, hoping that there would be no answer. After a moment, she tapped the opening control. The door hissed open.

'Ah Manact. I have the report you wanted,' said Ace loudly enough for the men outside to hear. And she closed the door behind her.

'What's wrong with you?' snapped Marlock. The guards on the war room door had come to attention just too quickly, had put just too much enthusiasm into it for his liking.

'Nothing, Manact.'

Marlock considered for a while. 'Nothing will come of nothing,' he said quietly. 'Perhaps you would like to revise your opinion?'

The guards exchanged glances, and the second guard gulped. 'I must apologize, Manact. I fear we I may have offended.'

'Really?' This was getting more curious by the moment. 'And what pray have you done to give offence?'

The guard looked even more uncomfortable now, and Marlock could imagine the two bodyguards behind him suppressing their amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Your special emissary, Sir.'

'My what?' His eyes flared.

'We delayed her sir an error.'

Marlock rubbed a hand across his scarred cheek, 'My special emissary was here?' The guards nodded. 'And you delayed her?' They nodded again. 'How did you delay her exactly?'

'We asked to see her ident, Sir we didn't realize she was on an errand for you.'

'Let me see if I understand this,' Marlock's eyes narrowed and his voice became quieter, almost reasonable. 'You made my special emissary show you her identification, yes?'

'Well '

'Well, yes or no?' shouted Marlock. 'Did you see her ident?'

'No, sir.'

Madock's voice was quiet again. 'No. No you did not see her ident. Where did she go?'

'Inside, Manact. She is still there.'

'Good.' Madock smiled. He turned to one of his bodyguards. 'Have these idiots removed. I'll decide how to deal with them when I see how much damage has been done.'

It had been relatively simple to hack into the terminal in Madock's office and bypa.s.s the security measures which purported to protect his private data. Now Ace was reading through another of the reports locked within. Each seemed more horrendous than the last.

She had read of the planning and construction of the death camps; had examined the initial specifications for the genetic experiments; had almost cried in anger and frustration at the statistical a.n.a.lyses of the throughputs of the incinerators and rad*chambers on a dozen worlds. Now she was reading a report about the camps on Temenos. Although she considered herself to be a hardened soldier, although she had seen more death than she cared to remember, although she had watched countless numbers of her friends killed in action, Ace was close to tears.

'So, you are my special emissary?' Ace had not noticed Madock enter the office. 'I see you have been doing some research have you found anything interesting, I wonder?'

'You inhuman monster!' She launched herself across the desk at Marlock, her nails reaching for his good eye. He smiled and did not flinch. For a moment Ace though her anger and emotion would carry through her attack, but the moment before her fingers reached him a hand closed round her wrist and dragged it aside. She collapsed across the desk, and the bodyguard dragged her over it so she crashed to the floor, disks and papers scattering round her. Then she was yanked up again, her feet leaving the floor for an instant as the bodyguard pulled her to her feet in front of Madock.

Madock seemed amused by the whole thing, a thin smile creasing his distorted features. Then suddenly his lip curled at the end untouched by his scar and his hand lashed out. It caught Ace across the cheek.

The force of the blow knocked her from the bodyguard's grasp and sent her cras.h.i.+ng into the wall. Her head was in a spin and she could taste salt. She slumped down the wall and lay in a crumpled heap. From far away she could hear Madock and wondered who he was talking to.

'The problem with performance is that it is all an act. In real life, of course, an act is a lie. And liars have to be accomplished The Good Soldiers The Good Soldiers, if the accounts of the plot are to believed, will teach us that very clearly.'

The Manact's voice seemed to be receding, as if he were falling away from her. Ace tried to concentrate on his words, but they slipped away.

'Another problem we can easily solve, I think. Yes, even the Exec will approve of that. An execution, on stage immediately after the performance. A fitting way to round things off.'

The rest was silence.

Source Doc.u.ment 14 Extract from the examiner's comment on doctoral thesis by Fardal Konin (3931) Reproduced with the kind permission of Fardal Konin estate But despite these points, which taken alone would certainly merit a first*cla.s.s review, there is one major problem with the thesis as it stands.

You do not acknowledge your sources.

This is especially unfortunate, as your own ideas and theories are ably presented and supported by well chosen facts and statistics. But without the clear distinction between what you are arguing on your own account and what you are merely reiterating from previous research and theory, it is impossible to give proper credit to the original thinking that you have undoubtedly done.

The bibliography you have provided and the footnote acknowledgements which are included fall far short of the level of research that is expected for a thesis at this level. They are also obviously incomplete.

The result, I am afraid, is that while your argument concerning the development of forced perspective Pailadian scenery in the Zouxian Empire are undoubtedly worthy of merit, it is impossible to conclude that it is new work of your own rather than lifted piecemeal from an unacknowledged source. This is especially true since it follows directly from the section about the staging techniques of liturgical drama on Earth in the tenth century which is so obviously lifted directly from Wadan's interpretation of the Bishop of Winchester's Concordia Regularis Concordia Regularis.

Leontium Klasvik (Examiner)

Chapter 14.

Man of Destiny When looked at objectively, the whole notion of performance is, after all, absurd. The performer has very little to do with it. He interprets the words and actions written for him by the author Even when the author and performer are one and the same even in improvisation the actor is a slave to the part he must play. In a Stanislavskyan interpretation this is even more the case. The actor may feel he is in control, is bringing something of himself to the performance. But if this is so then the point is lost, for the actor should be striving not to involve himself but rather to exclude all of his own personality and character from the role.The role of any character within a performance work is dictated entirely by the author's words, by the character's words and actions within that text. The world of the performed character is a world of predestination. When Stoppard calls his play Rosencrantz and Guildensten as Dead Rosencrantz and Guildensten as Dead he is not merely quoting he is not merely quoting Hamlet Hamlet, he is predefining the end point of his play. Or rather he is making it even more apparent that Shakespeare had already done so. However an actor interprets either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern their final destiny is already written, defined three hundred years before the play was written, and reiterated in the t.i.tle.The characters in any play are men of destiny the ultimate existentialists.The Absurdity of Performance Wanlek Ackman, 2044 Wanlek Ackman, 2044 'Everything you say is certainly sustainable by the facts, Doctor,' Aronholt said. 'However, your interpretation of those facts is lacking in one important respect.'

'And what's that?'

Aronholt shook his head, smiling. 'Oh no, Doctor. I am the guardian of the plan as well as the creator of the machine, My very purpose here is to ensure that the machine's program runs its course.'