"I surrender! You win! Let me up!" Sandy gasped as I brought my knife within inches of his face. I had him pinned on his back with one arm and leg twisted at terribly painful angles. Breathing heavily, I got off of him, smiling as he sighed with relief when the pressure on his limbs was released.

"Sorry," I apologized as he sat up. "I got a little carried away that time."

Takaura laughed. "Well, you wanted experienced training, Sandy," she pointed out. "I'd say you've got it."

"What I wouldn't give," Sandy muttered, massaging his right forearm, "for you to have your class with Baria in the afternoon!"

Takaura and I both laughed, but there was resentment in my voice as I said, "The observations aren't much better, especially now that I have to watch Arilla teach Laradie, too."

"Another reason for this beating," Sandy teased, then grimaced and blocked in preparation for a blow, which he got.

"What's this?" asked Takaura.

"Really, Shandicar, of all the beautiful young girls here�" I spread my arms wide.

"How come you've got such a grudge against her?" he argued back. "Just because she learns fast?"

"She's too young for you anyway." I evaded the question.

"No she's not! And�" Sandy paused significantly, "she wants to be a missioneer."

"Really?" I didn't miss a beat. From their expressions I could tell that Takaura, but not Sandy, had recognized that I was indeed impressed by this fact and was carefully keeping it out of my face.

Sandy looked disgusted. "Well, if that can't win her credit with you, I guess nothing will. I doubt she'd ever want me anyway. She's much better than I am in this place."

Yes, I silently agreed. She's better than me, too.

Sandy, reading my thoughts, just glowered and recovered his weapon. "We have time for another round."

"No," Takaura hastily broke in, "because neither of you is calm right now. A missioneer must be perfectly calm before a fight."

Sandy snorted. "I bet no missioneer is ever perfectly calm before a fight."

"That's not what she meant," I explained, calming myself. "Everything must be out of your mind except the fight. You have to be completely focused. You can't have another problem on your mind."

Grudgingly, Sandy nodded. Finally he looked up and said, "Sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," I willingly apologized. "I've just had another rough morning. I'm mad at Baria and I'm taking it out on you." As soon as I'd spoken I felt a sense of d�j� vu, as if I'd heard the words before, and tried to probe my memory.

"Yeah, well, that's okay. I need the practice." Sandy grinned, catching the double meaning of my words and responding to the one I hadn't intended. I had to laugh.

So my first and only real fight with Sandy ended up all right, but I was still enchanted by the sensation of d�j� vu I'd experienced, and my mind stayed on the matter for the rest of the evening.

Unfortunately, it was another blackwine night. I rubbed the half-healed cut on my elbow from the last blackwine night, and looked at the scars on my right knee and shin from times before. Apparently I was a total klutz when I was drunk. At least that was one thing it was better not to remember. I found that I usually remembered almost nothing of what went on during these sessions, which frightened me because I didn't know what I could be saying. Arilla never really told me what she asked or how I answered.

I had a great idea that night, though. Since I'd been wondering about the d�j� vu feeling all afternoon and evening, I asked Arilla if she could find out what was causing it. Arilla agreed wholeheartedly (I think not so much because she was curious as because for once I was enthusiastic about the blackwine ritual), so I told her what I'd been doing and saying and hearing when the feeling emerged.

Arilla nodded without looking at me while I went over each point. Then I drank my half-cup of blackwine (Baria had been careful with me so that the necessary amount had barely increased since we'd begun) and the ritual began. As usual, I didn't remember anything when I woke up four hours later.

"So?" I asked Arilla. She was about to climb into her bed. "What did you find out?"

Arilla laughed. "Very perky, aren't you? You're not usually like this when you come out of it."

"I'm curious today," I said, sitting up. "So did you discover what it was all about?"

Arilla shrugged, turning over to pull her blanket up. "Yeah, but it was nothing major. Just a friend of yours that you apologized to after a fight. It was a long time ago, while you were still at Mission Training."

"I don't remember." I frowned, rolling my eyeballs back into my head with the effort to uncover the memory, but I came up blank.

"Don't worry about it, Bryt," Arilla said, a little condescendingly. "Sorry the story wasn't more interesting. I guess you just got your hopes up for something exciting. Just go to bed now, Bryt. It's full night and I'm tired."

I was keenly disappointed. Somehow I'd been sure that excitement was involved. "But�" I began to protest.

"Bryt, put out the light and go to sleep," Arilla said in a tone I'd never heard her use. Then for a second, a look of shocked horror crossed her face.

"What?..." I asked as I reached to extinguish the lamp. Then the look was gone, so quickly I wondered if I'd only imagined it. Realizing how tired I was, I lay down and was asleep before I knew it.

When I woke it was still dark out. I didn't know how long I'd been asleep, but I was wide awake now. My instincts told me not much time had passed, but of course my sense of time is nothing to go by.

I'd been so tired when I'd gone to sleep. I hadn't had any type of dream, not that I remembered, anyway. Why was I so restless, and why was every one of my instincts telling me that something was wrong?

I sat up in the dark. What had happened yesterday before I'd gone to sleep? Oh yeah, the blackwine ritual. Involuntarily I grimaced. What after that? I replayed the conversation I'd had with Arilla afterwards. It was surprisingly clear in my mind. I remembered the shocked look I was sure I'd seen on her face. It had struck me forcibly because Arilla was never shocked by anything. She could read minds. She always knew what was coming next. What had I said to provoke that reaction? No, I realized, remembering. It was her that was speaking. She'd just told me to go to sleep, and it wasn't as if I hadn't listened�

The answer struck me like a Baron knife in my back. I shook my head. That could not be it. "Yeah, right," I whispered, and intended to laugh at my own ridiculous suspicion, but no sound came out. I looked over my right shoulder, where my roommate lay asleep in the dark. Baria was a telepath; I'd realized this early on, but Arilla�Arilla could not be one, too?

I forced myself to think rationally. I went over all the facts, sitting up in my bed in the dark interior of the Pathic Training facility. Arilla had been a student here a long time, despite the fact that she obviously learned very quickly. She'd been allowed to take on her own student, even if Baria did oversee Laradie's instruction. That certainly suggested that Arilla had already attained full empathic status. And the matter of her peculiar behavior tonight�she'd ordered me to put out the lamp and go to sleep and my body had done so immediately, without thought. Telepathy! I remembered how tired I'd felt after she'd spoken, and how the feeling had dissipated quickly. Telepathy! It explained the expression of horror I knew I'd seen � in her desire to shut me up she'd accidentally used telepathy to put me to sleep! My breath caught. Had I made a triumphantly brilliant deduction, or was I being grossly paranoid? I didn't care. I was on a roll so I went on. Why did Arilla want me asleep? So she wouldn't have to tell me about the blackwine ritual? And why didn't she want to talk about what she'd found out? Obviously she hadn't told me everything. Or was she lying outright? I strained my memory trying to recall her exact intonations and expressions as she'd tried to deter me from asking questions. It was difficult � I realized now that she'd avoided looking at me. I couldn't be positive, but there was a definite possibility that she'd been lying. Common sense told me I'd gone too far � why would she lie to me about my own experience? Unless, and my heart dropped into my stomach, she'd discovered something that she didn't want me to know that she knew. And she knew I was keeping a secret. And I only had one really big secret. And now I was starting to get angry.

One reason for that anger was to deny my fear. If Arilla knew my secret then Baria did, too, and that spelled doom. And yet, had I revealed the story of the jailbreak tonight or long ago? Norae or Jopson certainly hadn't hinted at any punitive action. Of course not; I was their pet, their missioneer�their pet missioneer.

Was this what the blackwine ritual was all about? Had the explanation they'd given me been a lie, too? I realized I still didn't fully understand what exactly the purpose of the blackwine ritual was. Baria and Arilla had been pretty vague on that, again skirting the truth.

Without thinking, I jumped out of bed and felt around on the small tabletop for my key. Clutching it, I quietly opened our door and stepped into the hallway. Here there were no windows, and without even moonlight to guide me it was pitch black. I was reminded of the night I'd spent in the cave after the jailbreak. Suddenly I slapped my forehead, the sound echoing in the silent hall. The cave! I recalled Shay's words: "I'm mad at Tuck and I'm taking it out on you," so similar to my apology to Sandy that afternoon. That explained the d�j� vu and sense of excitement. And a chill ran down my body as I realized that I had proof that Arilla had lied to me. There was no escaping the fact that she knew about the jailbreak. And so did Baria.

I half ran through the black hallway, knowing it well enough not to hit any walls but fervently hoping that no one had left anything about. I made it safely to the door I knew was Takaura's, and pounded on it. It took several minutes of loud knocking to generate a response, and I belatedly realized that though the teachers had rooms to themselves, I'd probably woken her nearest neighbors as well.

Takaura answered the door in her sleeping robe, her short, gold-brown hair matted against one side of her head, and her expression by the light of the lamp she held, well, as you'd expect to find on the face of a person awakened by relentless banging on their door in the middle of the night.

"Brytani, what in the world�"

"I'm sorry, but it's really important," I said urgently, stepping into her room without waiting for an invitation. "Are you a telepath?"

Takaura closed her eyes briefly. "You're asking me this now?"

"Well, are you?"

"Yes," she informed me. "All the teachers are. But why�"

"Then you know all about the blackwine ritual." I watched her face as I said this, looking for anything given away.

Takaura sighed, realizing what this was about. She replaced the lamp in its holder, sat down on the bed, and gestured for me to do the same. "What happened?" she asked patiently.

"They know everything!" I complained, not sitting down but pacing restlessly. "I've been keeping a secret from them, that could cause a lot of trouble for my team, and they know it now, thanks to that stupid ritual! And it's of absolutely no importance to them, but Baria will tell Norae just because she hates me and then Norae will have to � "

"Bryt, calm down," Takaura said sharply. "First of all, prying into secret affairs is not at all what the blackwine ritual is for. It's to make you do things, and feel things, and only very occasionally to say things, giving Arilla practice with advanced telepathy that she cannot yet apply to a person with their wits."

"How come they never told me that?" I asked, saving the horror I felt at this new revelation for later.

"Most would rather believe they are simply being questioned. New students will readily volunteer to be practice cases for empathy, but shy away from telepathy. No one likes the idea of having his or her emotions manipulated. They fear telepathy, and this often makes them uncooperative. You apparently don't fit with the norm. And secondly, Brytani, if you've been harboring a secret, Arilla has surely uncovered it before now. And no one's come to punish you, have they? Everything revealed in these sessions is completely confidential, and I doubt this secret is enough to warrant a breaking of that confidentiality. Don't take offense, Bryt, but you'll find that you're not as important as you think you are."

I leaned against the wall and absorbed her words. Somehow I'd been hoping she'd tell me it wasn't true; Baria didn't know; it was all a misunderstanding. But no, I understood very clearly. I recalled my various scrapes and bruises, and wondered exactly what activities Arilla had had me doing all these nights.

Bitterly, I turned back to Takaura. "How come you never told me any of this before? I've complained about the ritual often enough."

"Don't use that tone of voice with me, or with any of your superiors, military or otherwise," Takaura said more sternly than I'd ever heard her speak during the day. "I didn't tell you because you're not my student, and teachers deem what it is right for their students to know."

"You're my friend," I pointed out.

"That's why I'm telling you now. And because Baria obviously could have done better." Her voice was kinder, but no less stern.

I couldn't blame Takaura, I realized. Her first loyalty was to the center, to teaching, and she couldn't breach that for the sake of a rebellious missioneer. I understood about loyalty. Finally, I just sighed, my mysterious trove of energy sapped. "Sorry about waking you up," I muttered, turning to leave.

Takaura grabbed my shoulder and gently spun me around to face her. "Take the lamp back with you," she said, and handed it to me. She smiled a little as she gave it to me and I nodded, knowing that these weren't really the words she meant at all, and understanding that I could talk to Takaura anytime.

The thought gave me comfort as I walked back down the hallway, even though I knew I would never speak to Takaura again. Or to anyone else at Pathic Training. I would not spend one more day in this place where I was one of the oldest students and had less ability than the youngest; where I was disliked by my peers for the attention I received from the Headteacher simply for being a missioneer; where I had absolutely no privacy at all.

I replaced our lamp with the lit one from Takaura's room and quietly changed back into the faded military uniform I'd been forced to abandon half a year ago. Just dressing in it, I grinned. I began packing the few things I'd need in my backpack. Common sense told me I should stay � what other damage could be done now? But common sense had told me not to pull all those stupid tricks at Mission Training, not to jump across the cliff on the glider, and most certainly not to use the flaming puffan plan to initiate a jailbreak. And I didn't regret any of it! I grinned, recalling something else that Shay had said in the cave. Well, maybe I was another Tuck, but that was better than being another Arilla, refining a talent to perfection and then not using it!

Taking the lamp with me, I walked through the dark hallway for the last time and left the building with no one the wiser. I carried my heavy backpack and weapons far out beyond the building and deposited them safely amidst a boulder formation which even I would remember. The lamp was running dim but by now it was almost dawn. Then I turned back to the Pathic Training facility. There was one more person I had to talk to.

I considered it an exercise in stealth as I sneaked around the building and managed to isolate Laradie. "This afternoon during break," I told her, "go out to the front courtyard. There are a teacher and a missioneer who want to meet you."

Bewildered, she agreed. "Bryt, what's going on? Are you leaving?" she asked, but I just shook my head and left. Observant, she was, besides being talented and pretty. I could see where Sandy's crush stemmed from.

Sandy was the one person I'd truly miss from this place, with his young face and attitude, and eagerness to learn. I realized as I retraced my path from my pre-dawn trip that he'd most likely blame himself for my disappearance, what with my leaving right after our argument. Ironic, since he was the one person here who'd been completely honest with me, even to tell me news that I wouldn't want to hear. And more ironic that I found myself hoping that, though Takaura couldn't tell him the whole truth, she'd make up some lie to tell him, for his own good.