When she was all awake, there wasn't much problem; she still felt herself a "she", still remembered her life in the Republic more clearly than the Flenser memories. It was different when she slept. There were nightmares. The memories of torment inflicted suddenly seemed sweet. Sleep-time ###### should soothe; with her it was a battle. She awoke sore and cut, as if she had been fighting a rapist. If the two ever broke free, if she ever awoke a "he".... It would take only a few seconds for the two to denounce the masquerade, only a little longer to kill the three and put the Flenser members aboard a more manageable pack. Yet she stayed. Steel meant to use the aliens and their ship to spread Flenser's nightmare worldwide. But his plan was fragile, with risks on every side. If there was anything she could do to destroy it and the Flenser Movement, she would. Across the castle, only the western tower still hung in sunlight. No faces showed at the window slits, but eyes looked out: Steel watched the Flenser Fragment -- the Flenser-in-Waiting as it styled itself -- on the ramparts below. The fragment was accepted by all the commanders. In fact, they accorded it almost the awe they had given to the full Flenser. In a sense, Flenser had made them all,
mbt for sale, so it wasn't surprising they felt a chill in the Master's presence. Even Steel felt it. In his shaping,
复件 (93) air max2, Flenser had forced the aborning Steel to try to kill him; each time Steel had been caught and his weakest members tortured. Steel knew the conditioning that was there, and that helped him fight it. If anything,
BEATS PRO, he told himself, the Flenser Frag was in greater danger because of it: in trying to counter the fear, Steel might just miscalculate, and act more violently than was appropriate. Sooner or later Steel had to decide. If he didn't kill it before the other fragments reached Hidden Island, then all of Flenser would be here again. If two members could dominate Steel's regime, then six would totally erase it. Did he want the Master dead? And if he did,
BEATS TRIBUTE, was there any surely safe way...? Steel's mind flickered lightly all around the issue as he watched the black-frocked pack. Steel was used to playing for high stakes. He had been born playing for them. Fear and death and winning were his whole life. But never had the stakes been as high as now. Flenser had come close to subverting the largest nation on the continent, and had had dreams of ruling the world.... Lord Steel looked to the hillside across the straits,
复件 (20) air max, at the new castle he was building. In his present game, world conquest would follow easily on victory,
sandals clearance sale, and the destruction of the world was a conceivable consequence of failure. Steel had visited the flying ship shortly after the ambush. The ground was still steaming. Every hour it seemed to grow hotter. The mainland peasants talked of demons wakened in the earth; Steel's advisors could not do much better. The whitejackets needed padded boots to get close. Steel had ignored the steam, donned the boots, and walked beneath the curving hull. The bottom was vaguely like a boat's hull, if you ignored the stilts. Near the center was a teat-like projection; the ground directly underneath burbled with molten rock. The burned-out coffins were on the uphill side of the ship. Several of the corpses had been removed for dissection. In the first hours his advisors had been full of fanciful theories: the mantis folk were warriors fleeing a battle, come to bury their dead.... So far no one had been able to take a careful look inside the craft. The gray stairs were made of something as strong as steel yet feather light.