Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought that the shock had deranged his mind.
His voice trembled when he said, "But if I ask you to kill them, and not my people?"
"To do so would be illogical."
He waved his hands helplessly. "Gratitude?" he muttered.
"No, you don't understand that, either."
Then he cried suddenly, "But I am your friend, Robert!"
"I do not understand 'friend,'" I said.
I did understand "gratitude," a little. It was a reciprocal arrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not actively want to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well, then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he could not comprehend it.
I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, with an expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that, somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastened to the end that I knew was inevitable.