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.It landed at one side of the clearedcircle, and a large form swung down, followed by a smaller.Once again Aslanclosed her teeth on her abused lower lip, fighting back a surge of very mixedemotion.The second figure was a shadowy blob, undetailed, but she knew thatway of moving, the high-headed arrogant strut. Allo, Mama, she whispered.Voices.A man s, deep and pleasant; it didn t carry well and she couldn tunderstand what he was saying.Her mother wasn t saying anything yet.ElmasOfka listened. Do it, she said.The next minutes were busy ones.Half a dozen small squat remotes hummed fromthe skip.Three carried a bundle larger than all three of them, a bale ofheavy cloth from which Gorruya teased occasional gleams like flows of liquidsilver.The other three scurried about exploding pitons into the stone floorof the circle.Before Aslan sniffed three times, the bun-dle expanded into alarge domed shelter anchored by the pitons.She watched with envy as ElmasOfka waved her guarding isyas inside and shouted Harli Tanggàr down from herpost.That solved that prob-lem, she thought; she watched Harli disappearbehind the dome.Let them get settled, she thought.She pulled the hood closerabout her face, pinched it shut over her mouth and nose, started to straightenup.6She looked up into her mother s face. Allo, Mama. So what s all this about? Sneaking around. Adelaar touched her cheekbriefly. For a stodgy professor-type, you get yourself into more trouble. I-told-you-so, Mama? If you stopped falling on your face, I could stop having to pick you up. Ooh-yeha.Like it was all my fault this happened. Aslan sat up, clutched ather head.Stunned, she thought, understanding finally what had happened toher.Her mind wasn t working all that well right now.Behind her mother shecould see a tall dark man with a lazy twinkle in eyes so pale they might havebeen borrowed from another face, and beside him, Elmas Ofka looking grim.Aslan managed a tight smile. Sorry, Dalliss, someone spoiled your surprise.Elmas Ofka blinked, but took the cue smoothly. Waiting upwind was not thebrightest thing we ve done.One of our visitors has what one might call a nosefor news.Adelaar s mouth twisted into a half-smile; she wound a curl of Aslan s hairabout her finger and tugged it, hard, but she said nothing.She gave herdaughter s head a last pat, then forgot about her and marched over to thememplas table growing like a mushroom in the center of the chamber.The shelter was large enough to hold them all with plenty of room left forPage 121ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlmoving about.Whoever d brought Aslan in had laid her on a memplas bench closeto the valve.The isyas were standing or sitting, their backs to the shallowcurve of the wall; Lirrit and Harli glanced once at her then ignored her, theother isyas weren t interested, they lived in gul Inci or at the Indiz Farmand there was a lot they didn t know about events at the Mines.As the tallman and Elmas Ofka moved to join Adelaar at the table, Aslan saw for the firsttime the other member of the group, the Aurranger Rau.Elmas Ofka hadmentioned the Rau in her re-port to the Council, so Aslan knew he was aboutand she knew who he had to be, there were NO other Aurrangers offplanet; shehadn t actually met him while he was at University, but she d heard stories.She was startled at the strength of her reaction to him, she wanted to pickhim up, cuddle him, smooth her hands over and over that velvety fur; more thanthat, she felt intensely protective, if one of the isyas attacked him sherealized with a great deal of surprise that she d go after the woman tooth andclaw.Amazing, she thought.With Pels kurk-Orso to prod her memory, sherealized who the light-eyed man was.Swardheld Quale.Mama must have hiredhim, she thought, Ooo-yeha, she has to  ve spent a fortune and a half.If everLuck shat upon me, she did now.I m going to hear about this for the nextfifty years, if we don t strangle each other before then.At the table Adelaar toed up a chair, got herself settled, then she took abundle of fac sheets from a case, squared them and set them in front of her. The suspect files, she said,  and the report on the internal security at thePalace that Quale saw fit to donate. There was an astringent acerbity in thelast statement.Quale chuckled, but didn t bother to answer the chal-lenge.She lifted out a flake-reader, then a case of filled flakes. We discussedthis and found it simpler to let you and your technicians do whatever marryingis necessary to make further copies of this material.The reader is includedas another little gift from our generous friend here.The first twenty flakescontain the stats on the Warmaster and her.well, you can t really callthem a crew, the people living on board her.The twenty-first they re allnumbered, using your sys-tem, of course, so you won t have any troubleidentify-ing what s which the twenty-first has the data on the free corridors.You ll wish to inspect the flakes; don t worry about inadvertently erasingthem, they ve been impressed.Loading s simple, just slide the flakeskin--and-all into the slot there, then watch the screen.You can manuallyjump about, there s a pencil attached, write the number you want on thatsensor there.Again, use your own system, the player has been adjusted torespond to it.If you want automatic random access, touch the pencil here.That ll jump you about so you can get a fair idea what s on the flake.If youhave any questions, I ll be happy to answer them.You have something for us?Elmas Ofka nodded. Har cousin, she said.Harli Tanggàr marched to the tableand set a large pouch in the middle.Without comment she went back to her postbeside the valve.Elmas tugged open the mouth, took out a swatch of blackvelvet and a small metallic object which she unfolded into a balance scale anda pair of calipers.Then she withdrew several smaller pouches, opened one andlet the pearls spill onto the velvet [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]