"Witch!" the driver said with relish. "All right, I repent, I repent…"

"Don't repent!" I interrupted. "It's quite normal. It's freedom! Stealing… and coveting."

"Thou shalt not kill!" the driver declared. "Eh? What do you say to that? A universal commandment!"

"You might as well say 'don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk." Do you watch TV and read the newspapers?" I asked.

"Sometimes. But I don't enjoy it."

"Then why do you call 'Thou shalt not kill' a commandment? Thou shalt not kill… It was in the news this morning-down South they've taken another three people hostage and they're demanding a ransom. They've already cut a finger off each one of them to show their demands are serious. And one of the hostages, by the way, is a three-year-old girl. They cut her finger off too."

The driver's fingers tightened their grip on the wheel and turned pale.

"Bastards…" he hissed. "Monsters. I heard that all right. But they're scum, they're inhuman-they have to be to do something like that. I'd strangle them all with my bare hands…"

I kept quiet. The driver's aura was blazing bright scarlet. I didn't want him to crash; he was almost out of control. My thrust had been too accurate-he had a little daughter of his own…

"String them up on the telegraph poles!" he continued, still raging. "Burn them with napalm!"

I kept quiet and waited until the driver had gradually calmed down. Then I asked:

"Then what about those universal moral commandments? If they gave you a machine gun now, you'd press the trigger without even hesitating."

"There aren't any commandments that apply to monsters!" the driver snarled. His calm, cultured manner had disappeared without a trace now! There were streams of energy pouring out of him in all directions… and I soaked it up, quickly replenishing the Power that I'd spent earlier that morning.