"Nothing mattered but that world we were in, a fantastic place. Now I remember everything, all the things I couldn't remember then."
"But your—ah, dream—what happened?"
Sophia rubbed her bruised knees a third time, ruefully. "I knocked him unconscious with these. I forced his head under water and drowned him. But—before I could be sure I finished the job—I came back.... Funny that I should want to kill him without compunction, without reason." Sophia frowned, sat up. "I don't think I want anymore of this."
The doctor surveyed her coldly. "This is your task on the Stalintrek. This you will do."
"I killed him without a thought."
"Enough. You will rest and get ready for the second contest."
"But if he's dead—"
"Apparently he's not, or we would have been informed, Comrade Petrovitch."
"That is true," agreed the second man, who had remained silent until now. "Prepare for another test, Comrade."
Sophia was on the point of arguing again. After all it wasn't fair. If in the dream-worlds which were not dream worlds she was motivated by but one factor and that to destroy the American and if she faced him with the strength of her Jupiter training it would hardly be a contest. And now that she could think of the American without the all-consuming hatred the dream world had fostered in her, she realized he had been a pleasant-looking young man, quite personable, in fact. I could like him, Sophia thought and hoped fervently she had not drowned him. Still, if she had volunteered for the Stalintrek and this was the job they assigned her....