(Part 7 of 8 in "Three Worlds Collide")

Standing behind his target, unnoticed, the Ship's Confessor had produced from his sleeve the tiny stunner - the weapon which he alone on the ship was authorized to use, if he made a determination of outright mental breakdown. With a sudden motion, his arm swept outward -

- and anesthetized the Lord Akon.

Akon crumpled almost instantly, as though most of his strings had already been cut, and only a few last strands had been holding his limbs in place.

Fear, shock, dismay, sheer outright surprise: that was the Command Conference staring aghast at the Confessor.

From the hood came words absolutely forbidden to originate from that shadow: the voice of command. "Lord Pilot, take us through the starline back to the Huygens system. Get us moving now, you are on the critical path. Lady Sensory, I need you to enforce an absolute lockdown on all of this ship's communication systems except for a single channel under your direct control. Master of Fandom, get me proxies on the assets of every being on this ship. We are going to need capital."

For a moment, the Command Conference was frozen, voiceless and motionless, as everyone waited for someone else do to something.

And then -

"Moving the Impossible now, my lord," said the Lord Pilot. His face was sane once again. "What's your plan?"

"He is not your lord!" cried the Master of Fandom. Then his voice dropped. "Excuse me. Confessor - it did not appear to me that our Lord Administrator was insane. And you, of all people, cannot just seize power -"

"True," said the one, "Akon was sane. But he was also an honest man who would keep his word once he gave it, and that I could not allow. As for me - I have betrayed my calling three times over, and am no longer a Confessor." With that same response, the once-Confessor swept back the hood -

At any other time, the words and the move and the revealed face would have provoked shock to the point of fainting. On this day, with the whole human species at stake, it seemed merely interesting. Chaos had already run loose, madness was already unleashed into the world, and a little more seemed of little consequence.

"Ancestor," said the Master, "you are twice prohibited from exercising any power here."

The former Confessor smiled dryl...

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