Sam gazed down into his eyes, while her fingers continued to caress his neck. Jack gazed back, mutely trying to communicate with her while revealing nothing to the others. His heart was beating so hard, he felt his watching jailers would surely hear it.
Sam's eyes flickered in acknowledgment. It was a very subtle signal, but he knew she understood that he had recognized her. She took a breath, and dropped her hand from his face. He saw her shoulders straighten. He could feel her pulling away emotionally from their moment of reunion, preparing herself for the struggle ahead.
"Yes," she said, "he's just as I imagined. I want him." Her voice was disguised, too. It sounded huskier. And she spoke in an imperious tone that seemed to say, What I want, I get. Clearly, she was playing a role – the role of Insenstil, a reclusive Ashoran billionaire from the South Continent. Jack didn't know how Sam had managed to disguise herself, but the disguise was evidently a good one. It had fooled the Syndicate. And to do that, it would have to include faked electronic IDs as well as sophisticated alterations to her physical appearance.
"Oh," cried Elal, full of girlish enthusiasm, "how wonderful! I know you won't be disappointed. I can testify that he's extremely virile. A really fabulous ride!"
Jack flinched at Elal's words, acutely aware that Sam had heard. Sam knows, he thought.
Something deep inside himself threatened to break open. He could almost hear the awful clatter as the big, heavy door in his mind started bouncing on its hinges, allowing bad memories to crowd in on him with terrible intensity. All the feelings he'd been keeping buried and compartmentalized were threatening to flood out and drown his inner-most self. He couldn't look at Sam anymore. He shifted his gaze to the carpet, staring downward as blood rushed into his face and then drained again, leaving him feeling light-headed. God, the things they'd done to him! He felt so wounded, so exposed …
Dammit, no! Jack clenched his fists, reaching for his rage and holding on tightly. He concentrated on the sensation of his closed fists, of his nails digging in to his palms. He was not going to lose it! Especially not during Sam's rescue attempt!
After a moment, he dared to look up at Sam again, and saw that now she was staring at the floor. There was something in the set of her jaw that told him she, too, was struggling to contain her emotions. What is she feeling? he thought. How does she see me now? He felt he'd let her down, somehow. He wasn't supposed to be so vulnerable – not this kind of vulnerable. That's just a macho cliché, he told himself. But he knew it wasn't so simple. It wasn't just about macho stereotypes; it was a lot more personal than that. It was about the person he'd always been….
For crying out loud, Jack, this is a fine time to start picking lint out of your navel. Giving himself a mental shake, he focused on Sam.
And at that moment, Sam seemed to conquer her own internal conflict. She looked toward Mimoisa, her eyebrows raised. "How much?" she asked, her voice full of arrogance.
Mimoisa smiled. Jack could practically see the dollar signs dancing in her eyes – or whatever passed for dollar signs on Ashora. "Well," she began, "we offer several deluxe 'personal service' packages for special customers such as yourself. Or, of course, we could customize a package just for you! All our packages include use of the Rainbow Room facilities," she gestured around her, "which, as you can see, are designed to enhance…"
"No," cut in Sam, her voice dripping scorn. "Do you really imagine I'd take my pleasures in this tawdry place? With Goddess knows how many of you watching on hidden camera, and probably recording everything as well?"
There was a stunned silence from the Syndicate women. As well there should be, since, in fact, they did observe everything that went on in the Rainbow Room. Jack wondered what Sam was planning. Was she trying to get them some unmonitored time together?
"I assure you, Esteemed Sister," said Elal, voice full of ingratiating sincerity, "we guarantee privacy and discretion! We would never…"
Sam snorted and waved her hand dismissively. "Save it!" She gave Mimoisa a haughty stare. "How much for the male?" she demanded.
There was another stunned silence, and Jack had to look down at the carpet again. Sam was trying to buy him! Which made sense. She undoubtedly realized that trying to break him out of here by force would be extremely risky as long as the Syndicate controlled his Collar. After all, they could kill him with a thought.
Jack wondered where Sam had gotten the money to pay for him. He knew the Syndicate charged a small fortune for an Arena slave. Or was she planning to fake payment? After all, the money would probably be transferred electronically, and Sam was good with that stuff. It was pleasant to imagine Sam scamming that greedy, calculating bitch Mimoisa. It was pleasant, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough…
Stop it, Jack, he told himself firmly. You aren't even out of here yet. And when you do get out, you're going to have more important things to worry about than revenge. What are you, a Jaffa?
But it wasn't just about revenge. What about Buddy, and the other men he'd gotten to know in here? If he got out of this hellhole, could he just leave them behind? Jack felt torn. Sam and Daniel had to come first. Didn't they? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, he told himself.
"But," said Elal to Sam, sounding off-balance, "wouldn't you like to try him out first?"
Sam gave Elal a withering look. "Do you think I don't know my own desires?" she asked, her voice growing colder. "I already told you, I want him. Are you willing to sell or not?"
Mimoisa jumped in quickly. "Of course we are! Please forgive my young associate. She doesn't understand how clear these matters are to a mature woman. We would be honored to sell you this male! Ishpia," she said, addressing the third Syndicate woman, "go and prepare the Meeting Room for us."
"Yes, Honored One," said Ishpia, and began to hurry out.
But Sam frowned. "Meeting Room?" she asked, her voice sharp. "That won't be necessary. I find haggling tedious, and this has already taken longer than I'd planned. First I had to wait for you to arrive," she said, gesturing toward Mimoisa, "and then I had to wait an inordinately long time for your people to round up the male. This is ridiculous! I don't like being away from my estate!" Sam's voice held an edge of irrational annoyance. She was doing a good job coming across as a prickly eccentric. Jack was impressed. He wouldn't have counted acting as among Sam's many talents.
Sam crossed her arms, raised her chin, and gave Mimoisa an aggressive stare. "It's time to wrap this up. Just name your price! But," she added warningly, "don't imagine I'm unfamiliar with the going rate for an Black Market chattel-male. If you try to gouge me too outrageously, I may conclude you aren't the sort of people I want to do business with after all."
Mimoisa's professional smile wavered a bit at this. "Esteemed Sister," she said soothingly, "I appreciate your point of view, and I have no doubt we'll be able to agree on a reasonable price with a minimum of fuss. But the nature of the transaction requires some careful planning. Surely you understand that? We'll have to make arrangements for transporting the male from this facility to your estate in a discrete manner. For your protection as well as ours, we must ensure the Government doesn't learn this male is still alive."
Although Mimoisa's voice remained pleasant, there was a certain wary glitter in her eyes that made Jack curse inwardly. He knew the Syndicate had sold Arena slaves to private buyers on a few occasions, but only after carefully vetting the buyers. And although Insenstil was apparently famous for her Scrupulist views, a hard-headed, mafia-don type like Mimoisa would be inclined to be cautious. No matter how famous the buyer, she'd probably want to do some double-checking before concluding a deal like this. In fact, the Syndicate was probably checking into Insenstil's personal, political, and financial affairs even as they spoke! And that wasn't good, because the real Insenstil wasn't here, she was out there somewhere, and if the Syndicate realized that… Crap.
Sam once again waved her hand dismissively. "I was afraid you wouldn't be properly prepared," she said, her voice disdainful. "So naturally I am. I flew here in a large air car, which is parked in the Pleasant Boulevard Underground Garage, conveniently close to one of your facility's cleverly hidden entrances. My air car contains a small recreational boat on a hover-sled, of the sort no one would think it odd to see a woman hauling around near Great Park. I also have a personal cloaking device in my car. So," Sam continued briskly, "after I pay for the male and take control of his Collar, I'll Paralyze him, then make him invisible and electronically undetectable with the personal cloak. We load him into the boat on my hover-sled; I load the sled back in my air car; and away I go, all set to enjoy my new male in my own dear home. What could be simpler?"
There was a another stunned pause – and Jack saw what Sam was trying to do. It didn't take a genius to realize that the longer this took, the greater the risk that Sam would be exposed as an imposter. For this whole charade to work, Sam had to "buy" him and get them both out of here as quickly as possible.
Sam frowned impatiently at the Syndicate women's silence. "Well?" she demanded, playing the 'prickly eccentric' card to the hilt. "Do you people want to do business or not?"
Elal looked agitated, but Mimoisa's eyes just seemed to get colder. Jack could practically see the wheels turning in her calculating mind. He could only pray that Mimoisa's greed would outweigh her caution.
###
Daniel contemplated the mysterious Stargate address. It hovered in the air before him, along with some encrypted Ashoran text that he hadn't been able to make heads or tails of. The holographic display was being projected by the computer terminal in Nara's quarters, which she'd had fitted with a manual interface so that Daniel could use it. Nara had been teaching him to read Ashoran – with Ashasti's blessing. But unknown to Ashasti, Nara had also been showing him her hidden files about the Founders' Secret.
And that was only a small part of what had been happening on Ashasti's estate without Ashasti's knowledge. During the day, while Ashasti worked at the Bureau of Liberation, their little counter-conspiracy worked on hatching plots using Ashasti's considerable computer resources. Daniel had found these days exciting in some respects, but frustrating in many others. To his dismay, he hadn't been able to contribute much to Sam's plans. But, on the other hand, he'd been able to spend a lot of time studying with Nara, learning to read Ashoran and happily getting sucked in to her obsession with the Founders' Secret.
Daniel smiled a little as he thought about Nara. They had an awful lot in common. Nara had trained as a historian, so their fields were closely related. And Nara had the same passion for history as Daniel did.
That was what had gotten her in trouble.
The Ashoran archives were notoriously bare of detailed information about anything prior to the Founders' Landing on Ashora. The entries on Keftu, the Founders' original world, were remarkably sketchy. That was due to a deliberate decision by the Founders. They had stated that Ashora's new society should look forward to a bright future, not back to a dark past. They had said they wanted their descendants to be free of the burdens that haunted them – the knowledge of how corrupt Keftu had become, and the memories of Keftu's awful destruction at the hands of the Goa'uld.
But Nara had been young and idealistic, and passionate about the pursuit of historical truth. Through persistent, meticulous digging in the deepest layers of Ashora's data archives, Nara had been able to piece together certain facts about the Founders' journey to Ashora. And she had realized that the evidence she was digging up didn't jive with the official story of the Fall of Keftu.
Supposedly, the Founders' escape had been a near thing. By the grace of the Goddess – so the story went – they had managed to scramble aboard a spaceship and race away from Keftu even as Keftu's cities were being incinerated by the Goa'uld's massive surprise attack on their planet. But Nara had found evidence that the Founders' spaceship had been curiously well stocked. It seemed to have contained everything the Founders' would need to start a colony on a new world – as if they had been planning for the venture and gathering supplies long in advance, rather than departing in desperate haste as their world was unexpectedly destroyed.
Daniel remembered how sad Nara had become as she related her discoveries. Nara and her brother Neralo had been raised in a devout Charitist household, and Nara had once been quite devout herself. Nara's original motivation for researching the Founding was to try to prove that the Founders' beliefs had been closer to that of the Charitists than to that of the Foundationists who claimed to represent them. What she had discovered, instead, was that there was a fault line running through everything she had always believed about the nature of her world. Her research had led her to conclude that the Founders had known in advance that the Goa'uld were going to attack Keftu.
And if the Founders had known, why hadn't they given warning? According to the story, the Founders had "warned the Faithless that unless they returned to the bosom of the Goddess, the Goddess would withdraw her protection, and a terrible calamity would befall Keftu." But if the Founders had possessed concrete information about an impending Goa'uld attack, why hadn't they given a more useful and specific sort of warning? Could it be they had felt Keftu was so corrupt it deserved to be destroyed?
That went against everything Nara had been taught about the Ashoran faith. The Goddess's worshippers were supposed to hate violence, cruelty, death, and destruction. As Nara had contemplated this, a terrible suspicion had begun to form in her mind. What if the reason the Founders had known about the attack was because it was they themselves who had betrayed Keftu's existence to the Goa'uld? What if the Founders had been the ones ultimately responsible for the Fall of Keftu?
Nara had been terribly shaken by her findings and suspicions, but she had concluded she had to publish them. If the Founders had truly done such things, then surely they were false prophets. And if Ashora had been built on such a horrific foundation – on the destruction of an entire world – then all Ashorans had some deep soul-searching to do.
Nara had been about to publish her theory when she discovered that someone had hacked into her computer and altered her files. The evidence she had gathered about the Founders' foreknowledge of the Fall of Keftu was missing. Moreover, when she checked the original documents in the Ashoran archives, she found that those had been altered as well. That was when Nara had realized there was a conspiracy at the heart of the Ashoran Government. There were powerful people who knew the Founders' Secret, and were determined to keep it secret.
Nara had been left without any evidence to back up her claims, so she wasn't able to actually publish her paper. But news of what she had planned to write had gotten out into the academic community, and most of her colleagues had found her allegations about the Founders both absurd and offensive. When Nara tried to tell her colleagues that a mysterious "someone" had altered data to undermine her theory, her reputation sank even lower. She was regarded as a lunatic – at best. Some considered her a malicious fraud. She lost her post at the University, and had been unable to work in her field ever since. In fact, Nara had found it difficult to get a job of any kind. When people found out about her ideas, many refused to hire her – or, indeed, associate with her in any way.
She had been reduced to depending on her wealthy Charitist sister-in-law, who found her theories just as offensive as did most Ashorans, but was willing to overlook them. Ashasti regarded Nara as a basically good person with a crazy obsession. She had given Nara a job as a night clerk in her genetic consultancy business, which was located on her estate. And when some of Nara's former neighbors turned especially nasty, Ashasti had also given Nara rooms within her mansion. That was how Nara had ended up living and working on Ashasti's estate.
But Nara hadn't been beaten down by her experiences. When Daniel had expressed sympathy for her ordeals, Nara's green eyes had blazed. "I don't regret anything," she'd said. "It's been difficult, but it's also been liberating. Genuinely liberating. What I discovered when I tried to research the Founders' lives made me start questioning everything. It led me to realize not just that there's something rotten at the core of our Government, but that there's a great deal wrong with our whole society."
Nara had become a radical. She believed that Sons of Ashora should be given the vote, and that the practice of enslaving males from other worlds should cease. But Nara's beliefs about the Founders were offensive even to other religious/political radicals. When she joined an underground dissident group that worked to expose Government corruption by conducting its own "spy operations," Nara made it her policy to work for the group's less esoteric political goals while keeping her obsession with the Founders' Secret to herself. However, she used the illicit hacking skills she had learned in the group to continue probing for evidence of the Founders' Secret on her own.
And she had had some success. Several months previously, Nara had managed to hack into a highly restricted area of High Councilor Merena's private files, and she had found the mysterious Stargate address, along with some encrypted text that she hadn't been able to crack. Nara had a hunch that the Stargate address had something to do with the Founders' Secret, and Daniel had become infected by her conviction. After all, Merena was one of the most powerful women in the Foundationist Party. And they had learned through Sam that she was Lagash's mother, and the creator of the New Start Program. She was involved in the Foundationist conspiracy up to her neck.
Nara thought the Stargate address might belong to the world where the Founders had established contact with the Goa'uld. She thought the Founders must have had some neutral meeting ground were they'd felt secure, since they would have known perfectly well that the Goa'uld would turn on them at the first opportunity. But, Daniel had to admit, that was sheer speculation. The Stargate address could mean almost anything. It could be totally unrelated to the Founders' Secret.
Daniel sighed as he thought about Nara. He had become fascinated by the mystery of the Founders' Secret not only for its own sake, but also for Nara's sake. He knew how it felt to be convinced of a truth that everyone else considered crazy. And Nara had pursued her truth tenaciously, even when it forced her to abandon everything she had believed. He admired that terribly. He admired Nara's passion and intelligence and principle. He also admired her beautiful green eyes and perky white breasts…
Daniel sighed and automatically reached up to adjust his glasses – only to find they weren't there. He grimaced. Every time he reached for his nonexistent glasses, he was reminded of how constricted his life had become since his capture by the Ashorans. Ashasti's decision to correct his eyesight without his consent was just one example of what it meant to be a "chattel-male."
He felt so damn helpless and useless! His intellectual expertise had so far been of little or no value to Sam's efforts, and he hadn't been able to help in other ways – not even just by running errands – because of his Black Collar. Sam said her location-shunt device wouldn't work for him, because the security protocols on a Black Collar were far more stringent than those on a woman's neural implants or a Son of Ashora's Golden Collar. If he tried to leave Ashasti's estate, his Black Collar would notify Ashasti, and Ashasti still wasn't in on the plot. In any case, Sam worried that if he left Ashasti's estate, the New Start Program would try to kill him. He was effectively trapped here.
The reality of his situation had been wearing on him more and more. He was fortunate enough to be a well-treated slave, but he was a slave nonetheless. He had lost his freedom of action. He had become a vulnerable, dependent person who had to be protected by his female friends.
Of course, his inability to help Sam hadn't been his only source of frustration lately. He'd been experiencing a much more personal sort of frustration regarding his relationship with Nara. The truth was, he had come to feel extremely attracted to Nara. He hadn't felt so strongly about anyone since his doomed romance with Ke'ra/Linea. But though Nara seemed to enjoy their time together, his few bumbling attempts to woo her had ended in awkward silences, or in a sudden recollection on Nara's part that she needed to be elsewhere. It seemed Nara was only interested in his mind, not his body.
But while the woman he wanted had rejected him, the woman he didn't want was still occasionally trying to seduce him – when she remembered. Nara had explained why Ashasti had taken him as a concubine. As he'd suspected, she was motivated more by a strange sense of duty than by any great desire to have sex with him. Still, he was officially her concubine, and it was clear Ashasti still expected to consummate the relationship at some point. He was grateful Ashasti had been so distracted by issues at work lately, because the better he got to know Neralo, the more painful the whole situation became.
Neralo had proven to be a decent man. After the conversation that had established their little counter-conspiracy, Neralo had approached Daniel. He had apologized for using the Collar to hurt him, on that first, disturbing night in Ashasti's house. And it had been clear to Daniel that Neralo was sincerely repentant and, indeed, guilt-ridden over his behavior. "What's happened between Ashasti and me is no one's fault but my own," he'd said. "And yet, I took it out on you. That was very wrong of me."
Since that time, he and Neralo had established an uneasy friendship. Daniel kept trying to challenge Neralo's preconceptions about the proper roles of men and women, but Neralo clung to his Ashoran convictions quite stubbornly. Which had surprised Daniel, because it was clear Neralo had a mind of his own. Daniel would have thought that a strong personality such as his would be chaffing under the restrictions placed on males by Ashoran society. But, as Nara had said, "Just because Neralo has a strong personality doesn't mean he's a rebel. Neralo believes in the Charitist values we were raised with. He loves the Goddess, his wife, and his mother. He wants to be a good Son of Ashora, and that means being peaceful, gentle, and yielding. Neralo has always been very uncomfortable with the aggressive qualities in this own character."
It was clear that Neralo was trying very hard to live up the Ashoran ideal of the "Redeemed" male who was immune to jealousy. But it was equally clear that he was failing miserably. Daniel could see that the thought of Ashasti having sex with another man was agony to him. And he, Daniel, had been unwillingly cast as the "other man."
Daniel stood up abruptly. "God!" he hissed, his voice low but explosive. "When are we going to get off this damn planet?"
With exasperated movements, Daniel shut off Nara's computer and began pacing. Even the mystery of the Founders' Secret couldn't keep his mind off the fact that, at this very moment, Sam was trying to rescue Jack from the hands of Ashoran criminals. And there was nothing Daniel could do to help! Since he didn't have neural implants or a Golden Collar, he couldn't interface with the Ashoran Net well enough to help Nara and Neralo with the remote electronic support they were providing to Sam. And his Black Collar made it impossible for him to play any sort of role that involved leaving Ashasti's estate.
Daniel stopped pacing and stood frozen, his face scrunched up in frustration. He thought about going back to Ashasti's office, where Nara and Neralo were using Ashasti's computer power to help Sam sustain her impersonation of Insenstil. But Nara had already shooed Daniel out of Ashasti's office once, which was why he'd come here. She'd claimed he was distracting them. Okay, so maybe he had been hovering just a little, but he hadn't asked that many questions.
Nara and Neralo's support would become especially critical when Sam had to pay the Syndicate for Jack. Nara's dissident friends had put together Sam's physical disguise and fake electronic IDs, but they'd felt that when Sam paid for Jack, the money had to be real. They didn't feel confident they'd be able to fool the Syndicate with a fake transfer. And the only way their little group could get hold of that sort of money was by tapping Ashasti's fortune.
Nara had pointed out that since Neralo managed Ashasti's finances for her, he would be able to transfer money out of Ashasti's accounts and keep her from finding out about it for some time. Neralo had balked at funneling that kind of money out of his wife's accounts without her knowledge, but Nara had insisted that telling Ashasti about their plot would be a disaster. Ashasti was a mainstream Charitist, not a dissident or radical. She would probably consult her friends in the Charitist Party regarding the New Start Program, and Nara was convinced that wasn't safe. The Foundationist conspiracy would have ears everywhere – even among their greatest religious/political rivals. Furthermore, she thought Ashasti might object to their group's goal of getting people off Ashora, on the grounds that it would jeopardize Ashoran security.
Nara's arguments had convinced Sam and Daniel. That left Neralo. Nara and Neralo had retired to Nara's quarters and shouted at each other for a while. When they emerged, Neralo had agreed to do things Nara's way. But Daniel could see that he felt extremely guilty about it. His wife had taken a concubine, and now he was plotting behind her back. Daniel had gotten to know Neralo well enough to realize he would be asking himself if he was acting out of anger toward his wife, caused by forbidden feelings of sexual betrayal. Everything that had happened was putting conflicting demands on Neralo's loyalties, and straining his sense of right and wrong. He had begun to look tired and depressed all the time.
Daniel glanced at the chronometer in Nara's quarters, and saw that over an hour had passed since Sam had entered the Arena facility. What the hell was going on? The longer she had to stay in there, the worse the risks became. And not only was he unable to help, he didn't even know how things were going. That was driving him insane! Surely it would be okay if he popped in to Ashasti's office just long enough to check on Sam's progress. Surely that wouldn't be too distracting for Nara and Neralo.
Exiting Nara's quarters, Daniel began moving swiftly down the hallway. He rounded a corner – and almost plowed into Ashasti.
"Ashasti!" he yelped, staring at her stupidly. "Umm… aren't you suppose to be at work?"
Ashasti sighed. "Not anymore. I lost my job. The Scrupulists finally managed to force me out."
"That's terrible," said Daniel. And Daniel actually did spare a thought for the injustice being done to Ashasti, who had clung to her job stubbornly, despite the hostility of most of her co-workers, for purely altruistic reasons. Ashasti certainly didn't need the job, but she had considered it her duty to be a Charitist voice inside the Scrupulist-dominated Bureau of Liberation, since the Bureau was responsible for deciding the fate of new chattel-males.
But, of course, the truly terrible part was that Ashasti had lost her job today – when they were trying to rescue Jack! He absolutely had to keep Ashasti away from her office, where Nara and Neralo were using Ashasti's computer power and money to pull off the rescue. He also had to keep her from looking for Nara or Neralo. If Ashasti discovered that they were using her resources without her knowledge, she was bound to be extremely upset. She would use her neural implants to override Nara and Neralo's efforts, which would expose Sam as an imposter. And what would the criminals do then?
Ashasti shook her head. "I don't feel up to telling Neralo about losing my job yet. I know he'll be angry on my account, and it's not good for him to get angry."
"Yes!" Daniel quickly agreed. "That's very true. It would be a very bad idea to talk to Neralo right now. And, you know," he floundered, "you look tired. Very tired. You've been under a lot of stress. Why don't you rest for a while? Maybe you should go up to your bedroom and… umm… take a nap."
Ashasti gave him a bemused smile and shook her head. "I appreciate your concern, Blue Star. But there's some important paperwork that has to be completed. I was just going to grab a mug of tea from the kitchen before heading to my office. But now that I've run into you, would you be a peach and bring the tea to me there?" And with that, Ashasti turned and began heading in the direction of her office.
"Ashasti, wait!" cried Daniel.
She turned, regarding him patiently with her big, brown eyes. Ashora had an extremely diverse population – owing to the Ashoran habit of kidnapping people from many different worlds – but Daniel had always thought Ashasti got her looks from the Founders. From the original, Minoan-descended refugees from Keftu. Ashasti was a voluptuous, doe-eyed brunette of apparently Mediterranean stock. She was exactly the same physical type as Sha're. Odd he had never really thought about that before. Perhaps he had never allowed himself to think about it.
Daniel felt strangely detached from these observations. A curious sort of white noise seemed to have filled his head – a shield of mental static by which he was trying to keep himself from acknowledging where this was headed. Apparently, he had a vital role to play in Jack's rescue after all. He was the only one who could prevent Ashasti from disrupting the rescue attempt, and he absolutely had to ensure that she did not. Sam and Jack's freedom – and probably their lives, too – depended on his success.
And there seemed to be only one card he could play that would keep Ashasti distracted for long enough.