Still angry, Zufa Cenva returned to Rossak, where she intended to focus on the escalating war. After climbing down from the polymerized landing pad atop silvery purple leaves, she went immediately to the large chamber she shared with Aurelius Venport.

Zufa had earned her prestigious residence through political skills and mental powers. She could not help but frown every time she saw Venport’s commercial ambitions, his comfortable profit goals, his hedonistic pursuits. Foolish priorities. Such things would mean nothing if the thinking machines won this war. Could he not understand that he had blinded himself to the terrible threat?

Exhausted from the long journey and still upset over the argument she’d had with her daughter, Zufa entered her whitewalled chambers, wanting only to rest before planning the next round of strikes against the thinking machines.

There, she found Venport alone, but not waiting for her. He sat at a table made of green-veined stone quarried from the cliffs. Glistening with perspiration, his face remained handsome, with the perfect patrician features she had selected as a good joining with her bloodline.

Venport didn’t even notice her. His eyes were distant, drowning in the aftereffects of some bizarre new jungle drug with which he was experimenting.

On the table before him sat a wire-mesh cage containing scarlet wasps with long stingers and onyx wings. His naked forearm was thrust inside the enclosure, with the mesh wall sealed around his elbow. The angry wasps had stung him repeatedly, injecting venom into his bloodstream.

More in anger than horror, Zufa stared at his stupor. “This is how you occupy yourself while I am trying to save the human race?” With her hands on the jeweled belt that cinched her dark robe, her mouth formed a terse, straight line. “A Sorceress has died in battle, someone I’ve trained, even loved. Heoma gave her life to keep us free, yet here you are, dabbling in euphoric chemicals!”

He did not flinch. His vacant expression shifted not at all.

The aggressive wasps battered themselves against the wire-mesh while emitting a high-pitched humming music. The insects stung his swollen flesh repeatedly. She wondered what psychotropic substance the venom provided, and how Venport had discovered it. Unable to find adequate words for her fury, she finally said, “You disgust me.”

One time after lovemaking, Aurelius had claimed that he experimented with drugs for more than his own amusement, or even commercial earnings. As scented candles burned in a rock alcove above their bed, Venport had confided, “Somewhere out in the jungles, I hope to find a pharmaceutical substance that can boost male telepathic potential.” With it, he hoped to bring certain men up to a psychic par with the Sorceresses.

Zufa had laughed at his ridiculous fantasy. Hurt, Aurelius had never mentioned the possibility again.

Long ago, the first colonists on rugged Rossak had been tainted, saturated with background jungle chemicals that had augmented their mental potential. How else could the women have achieved such extrasensory powers on this particular world and nowhere else? But, through some hormonal or chromosomal difference, men seemed to be immune to such effects of the environment.

Now Zufa shouted, ordering him to withdraw his hand from the wasp cage, but Venport did not utter a word. “You dabble in drugs, and my daughter conducts worthless experiments with suspensor fields and floating lamps. Are my Sorceresses the only ones on Rossak with a sense of mission?”

Though his eyes turned in her direction, he did not seem to see her.

Finally Zufa said in revulsion, “Some patriot you are. I hope history remembers you for this.” She marched off to find a place where she could think of ways to continue the fight against thinking machines . . . while others amused themselves obliviously.

AFTER HIS MATE’S departure, Venport’s glazed eyes took on a flicker of fire, then increased to a burning intensity of concentration. He focused on the open door to their private chambers, and the silence seemed to grow, as if he was draining sound and energy from the air. His jaw clenched, and he concentrated harder . . . and harder.

The door swung slowly shut by itself.

Satisfied but drained, Venport slid his arm out of the wasp cage and slumped to the floor.