We should not be too proud of our triumphs. A perceived victory may only be the feint of your enemy.

—MANFORD TORONDO, The Only Path

He had nothing left. And nothing to lose.

The open wound in his memories forced Ptolemy to leave his home and never look again at the smoldering ruins that stood as a monument to the ignorance, intolerance, and violence of the Butlerians. After much contemplation, he decided to let his family believe that he, too, had been murdered by the savages.

He really was dead, in a way. His belief in the rational nature of human society had been ripped out and stomped into bloody remnants. He could surrender and return quietly to simple research, or he could do something. The problem had been defined for him with a painful clarity.

In the past, he had watched the antitechnology antics with a detached but sad disappointment, even a bit of amusement. How could anyone believe such nonsense? Ptolemy had been dismissive, making the mistake of not taking them seriously. They were uneducated mobs easily swayed by a fiery speaker, good at creating scapegoats and not skilled at understanding. He had been convinced that knowledge was stronger than superstition, and rationality stronger than paranoia. It had been a naïve assumption.

Now he knew that simple logic could not win an argument against savages. The mob had burned his lab facility, destroyed his records and equipment, and murdered his close friend and partner.

He didn’t have animalistic fervor, superstitious terror, or a penchant for mindless destruction. He had something stronger—his mind. And Ptolemy would no longer use it in such a cool, analytical way. In response to their zealous violence, he was fueled with a passion and drive unlike anything he had ever felt before. This was not just a thought exercise or a problem in a workbook; this was a battle for civilization itself, rather than barbarism. Instead of applying his knowledge to theoretical pursuits, to well-mannered research and the dissemination of ideas, Ptolemy vowed vengeance; he vowed to destroy the Butlerians.

Using the last of the money he had scraped together from his lab accounts, and then borrowing—some might say stealing—the balance of his allocated research funds from the Zenith Council, Ptolemy booked passage to a place where he was sure his skills would be well received. There he would be protected, and he could offer his services to a like-minded man.

Kolhar. The headquarters of Venport Holdings.

*   *   *

AFTER WHAT HAD happened on Zenith, he was reluctant—and terrified—to reveal his identity, but if anywhere in the Imperium would be free of antitechnology influence, it was this planet. He remembered how Directeur Venport had challenged Manford at the Landsraad meeting. The business tycoon would understand.

After arriving, however, it took Ptolemy five days to get a personal meeting with the VenHold administrator. The spacing fleet was a whirlwind of activity. Ships were being gathered and supplied, held back from their regular routes for departure on some undocumented mission. Ptolemy knew better than to ask questions, but he was persistent, with steel in his spine. He would not give up.

In the lobby of the administrative building, he showed his credentials to a succession of underlings and finally spoke directly with Cioba Venport, the most important barrier to an audience with the Directeur himself. His past experience, and perhaps the fiery, haunted look in his eyes, convinced her. She ushered him directly into her husband’s office.

Though he wanted to be brave, Ptolemy’s voice quavered and tears burned his eyes as he recounted his hopeful meeting with Manford Torondo on Lampadas, how he had offered him prosthetic legs, a miracle to restore his ability to walk. Emotions were raw as he described what had happened to his lab and his partner. He wanted to speak as a dedicated, rational man, overcoming his terror and grief, but found himself unable to do so. Even so, Directeur Venport did not appear to think less of him.

“I tried to present an olive branch to the Butlerians, and their reply was to murder my partner and destroy my life.” Ptolemy drew a deep breath as he fought back the flames in his memory, the terrible, haunting screams.

Ptolemy looked at the gleam of interest in Venport’s eyes, and insisted, “I am not defeated, sir. I will not remain quiet while those animals continue their rampage. I am here to offer my services in any capacity that will defend human civilization. One day Manford Torondo will understand that when he attacked me, he planted the seeds of his own downfall.”

Venport glanced at his wife in a silent consultation, and she gave the faintest nod. The Directeur’s smile was so broad that his bushy mustache curled upward. “VenHold is delighted to have you, Dr. Ptolemy. It just so happens that we have access to a secret research facility on an uncharted planet, where other scientists like yourself are free to work on innovative projects, without fear of Butlerian influence.”

Ptolemy caught his breath. “That sounds wonderful, impossibly wonderful.”

The other man tapped his fingers on his desktop. “It’s a place where you can let your energy and imagination run free, with virtually unlimited resources and funds, to develop technological advances that will strengthen us against the darkness of ignorance. I intend to crush those mindless fanatics under my heel.”

Ptolemy’s relief was so great he had to sit down. His eyes sparkled, and finally tears spilled down his cheeks. “Then that is where I belong, sir.”