Dark Caliban, he thought, pushing his way through the grey-brown fog. Dark Caliban—scene of Dirk Jemson's final shame and disgrace. Poor dad. This was to have been his crowning achievement and all it had been was a blow to his pride.
Impatiently, Dirk swiped at his glass visor plate with his swathed hands. Some substance—gelatinous and moist—seemed to have formed there.
The guard at the flagship was expecting him, and he quickly entered the compression chamber and doffed the uniform. As he put it on a hook to await his return, he noticed with a little shudder of revulsion that the jelly-like things he had noticed on his visor were also clustered here and there in the folds of his space suit. This was probably the life to which Tabor had referred.
The orderly outside his father's office saluted, but Dirk thought he sensed in the click of the heels, the tilt of the chin just a nuance of disrespect—as an executioner might salute the criminal just before the disintegrating switch were thrown.
Commandant Jemson was seated at an enormous table of batek-wood from Thule. He didn't look up when Dirk closed the cabin door behind him and waited at attention.
The Commandant was not a large man, yet he managed somehow through the sheer force of his personality to convey the impression of a giant. Seated now behind the great table, he seemed some remote demi-god, omnipotent and untouchable.
Just as Dirk was about to clear his throat to ease the tension, his father spoke: "Come to the table." That was all. The voice was carefully modulated and controlled. Too carefully.
Dirk was face to face with his father across the glistening batek-wood. Looking down into its polished surface, he could see his own white face, as well as each movement of his father's hands.
"You disgraced me."