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"I don't have your approval," he said He sounded annoyed and aood at understanding the inflections of one such as this Certainly it was hard to read the grimaces of such a round-eyed es that she could not understand

"You must understand," he said "I'm not myself"

Wang-h at least to understand the idiom "You are unwell today?" But she knew even as she said it that he had not meant the expression idiomatically at all

"I'in"

"I hope not," said Wang-mu "I read about his funeral in school"

"I do look like hirara- her

"There is a resemblance," she said

"Of course, I'ain after he left Earth when he hat, five years old? A little runt, anyway I was still a boy That's what he remembered, when he conjured me out of thin air"

"Not air at all," she said "Out of nothing"

"Not nothing, either," he said "Conjured me, all the same" He smiled wickedly "I can call spirits from the vasty deep"

These wordsto him, but not to her In the world of Path she had been expected to be a servant and so was educated very little Later, in the house of Han Fei-tzu, her abilities had been recognized, first by her for-jao, and later by the master himself From both she had acquired so there had been was mostly technical, and the literature she learned was of the Middle Kingdom, or of Path itself She could have quoted endlessly fro-jao, for whom her one ti, she knew nothing

"I can call spirits fro his voice and manner a little, he answered himself "Why so can I, or so can any man But will they come when you do call for them?"

"Shakespeare?" she guessed

He grinned at her She thought of the way a cat s with "That's always the best guess when a European is doing the quoting," he said

"The quotation is funny," she said "A s that he can summon the dead But the otherthem to come"

He laughed "What a way you have with humor"