"To continue: I fled. You remained in Iowa Province. Those who loved you sought you, finally found you." "You mean van Alen? He tried to bring me here--to Antarctica." "Yes. He failed; you and he were separated. Once again you drifted into dealings with the Dukes--and when they realized who you were, they immediately desired your death, both Miguel and Winslow." "_Why?_ Why'd they turn on me like that?" "For that," Daveen said, "the simplest answer involves the lifting of the first of the psychic blocks I laid upon you. Are you ready?" "I've been waiting for this since you started talking." Again Daveen chuckled melodiously. "In all your wanderings you've learned but little patience. Now you will begin to understand." He held forth the object he had been holding. Kesley now saw that it was a musical instrument of some kind, fashioned of a dark-hued, glossy plastic. It had three hair-fine strings running its length; at the top, above the bridge, were three white buttons. "My music-maker," Daveen said. "My constant companion always. It holds the keys to your mind, my friend." "What do you mean?" "Listen." Daveen touched the three buttons lightly with his long fingers, and a tone appeared, shimmering delicately, followed by a second and a third. They hung in the air, meshing their subharmonics, quivering and blending. It was, thought Kesley, like no music he had ever heard. Daveen began to play--a slow, mournful, lingeringly lovely melody. Melodic lines intertwined in complex polyphony; Kesley found himself following the music with breathless excitement. It soothed and tensed him at the same time. Daveen sang a deep, lulling, wordless chant. Beneath his voice the music swept to a gentle crest of subdued excitement, and Kesley felt his nerves quivering with expectation. The music, strange, atonal now, shifting keys with impossible rapidity of modulation, held suddenly. Daveen stopped. There was complete silence. In that silence, Daveen said, "_One!_" And Kesley felt light flash numbingly through him. He huddled in his chair while the frozen brain-cells at last discharged the information they had stored for nearly five years. The words went rumbling over his synapses, repeating themselves endlessly. Finally it stopped. Hesitantly, he looked up at the calmly smiling Daveen. Then he looked down at his hands--his own hands, the hands he had farmed with and killed with. The hands of an Immortal. "Me?" It was almost impossible. But he knew it was true. "You will never die," Daveen said. "I will never die." "_Two!_" said Daveen suddenly. Kesley was thrown back in his seat by the unexpected, second data-release. When it was over, he looked up again, smiling. "An Immortal and the son of an Immortal. Small wonder Miguel and Winslow wanted to kill me!" The words of Winslow's sentence came drifting back now: "_... you represent as great a threat to the Twelve Empires as has ever been born, my young friend._"