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"I will check back to see how you&039;re doing Go ahead with your piece on the OMC Leon, good job You knohat to do"

Then he was gone as quickly as he came

"What is it you&039;re supposed to do, Leon?" she asked

He didn&039;t answer, and he didn&039;t sht even be a relative

Leon handed hi consoles and sat with his back to her He was still for a ether on Crista Galli And one on Ben Ozette"

Beatriz felt herself go cold

"And what&039;s the lead?"

Her voice stuck in her throat, barely a whisper

"Crista Galli safely in the hands of Vashon Security Force"

"And Be what about him?"

Leon was silent for a fewinto his console and it cahter blast"

She tried to still the tre in her hands and her lips

"It&039;s a lie," she said "Like the rest, it&039;s a lie Isn&039;t it? Isn&039;t it?"

Without turning, without apparentlya muscle, Leon spoke so quietly she barely heard

"I don&039;t know"

The gods do not limit men Men limit e

"Dr Dwarf," Spud called froht There&039;s another kelp frequency inside that sector - look here"

Dwarf MacIntosh glanced up from underneath one of the consoles that fed the Gridetting at probleh runnels of cables and switches to attending any of the so-called "recreational" events aboard the Orbiter

He backed his way out of the shielding ducts and towered over Spud&039;s shoulder to see what he had found

"This signal caht," he said "It&039;s taken me a while to fix and a well," MacIntosh said He reviewed the readouts flanking the kelp display "It released at least twenty captured cargo trains, if our data here are correct"

Spud nodded "They are The kelp&039;s just floating free Most of the vessels are on the surface, though, and the afternoon squall in that area&039;s due right about now There are no kelpways, no way of guiding therid in there pretty soon, they&039;ll just get fouled in all that slop"

"This is a very small focus," MacIntosh h to propel hiht into the ht and tapped a thin lip with his forefinger

"Without tapping into that other signal, on&039;t be able to enforce a grid I&039;raphic yarn on Mack&039;s screen

"It moves," Spud said

"Yeah" MacIntosh nodded "Runs the kelpways like a pro And it&039;s soet that"

"So what do you think? Mer," MacIntosh said "A stand doesn&039;t register with us unless it&039;s achieved sority, whether Flattery cuts it back or not This is like having a whole stand of kelp in a spot no bigger than you o "

"And it can ht

"It can persuade the kelp to resist our strongest signals, even with the threat of being pruned back to stu stronger by the hour Flattery&039;s been frantic about this in spite of riots at his hatchway What does all this tell us?"

Spud frowned at the screen in i his chin, too, for answers

"There&039;s so like a stand of kelp?"

MacIntosh whooped, grabbed Spud by the shoulders and gave hiainst the upper bulkhead The startled assistant&039;s eyes opened nearly as wide as his hed "What we&039;ve got disrupting the kelp grid in sector eight is a person pretending to be a stand of kelp!"

He dropped his grip on Spud and stuck his head back into the electronic and neuroelectronic guts of the Griduess, you&039;re better off not knowing right now"

MacIntosh&039;s resonant voice was barely audible over the clicks and whirrs of the Gridmaster as it held the other stands of doht noe need a communications expert" He backed out of the crawl space and added, with a sparkle in both eyes, "That would be Beatriz Tatoosh Notify her that we require her services, if you would"

Spud smiled a wide smile

"&039;Services,&039;" he said, "that&039;s one way of -"

MacIntosh cut hi his oide set her in here, pronto"

Men are s - by love and by fear Consequently, they are commanded as well by someone ins their affection as by someone who arouses their fear Indeed, in ainsand is more readily obeyed than the one ins their affection

- Machiavelli, The Discourses

The fuel warning buzzer sounded its piercing screech above his console, and Spider Nevi cursed under his breath They were very close now, very close, but he didn&039;t dare take chances onto have to set down in that muck," he said "Make sure both screens and filters are intact I don&039;t want kelp clogging our inlets"

They&039;d seen several cargo train survivors on the surface, working to clear their intakes They all moved in the slow-motion, dreamlike manner of those who are under the influence of one of the kelp&039;s toxins Surface travel on Pandora&039;s seas was dangerous enough with the kelpways intact Like great veins, the kelpways helped clear the waters of the storrunted an acknowledgo out there after we set down," he said "That kelp is - it&039;s crazy With only two of u"

"With only two of us, one of us has to go out there It&039;s your fault we&039;re out here at all, so you get the duty"

The look on Zentz&039;s face was the one that Nevi wanted to see: fear Not fear of the kelp, or fear of the sea, but fear of Spider Nevi The expression of fear represented power to hi the people Flattery maintained the politician&039;s mask, and such a mask implied hope to anyone itnessed it Nevi projected no o out there to clear those intakes, you will leave me"

Nevi released upon Zentz one of his rare smiles

"It pleases me that you have due respect for my - abilities," he said "But I promised you a very special part in this drama, and your time has not co You know one thing about , not for nothing I value human life, Mr Zentz, this you et out of it, what I can spend it on The word &039;value&039; implies &039;co ranks very low, in ht like to kill you just to get rid of a certain annoyance, I&039;m sure someone, soht price, the right trade, the right favor Understand?"

Zentz stared straight out the cabin plaz He was pale, appeared slightly ers crawled nervously over each other&039;s backs

"Do you knohy I kill?" Zentz asked him

Nevi finished the final attitude adjusthtly choppy sea in a spot that he judged to be relatively clear of the kelp debris As they descended, he saw that there was no clear spot The struggle in this stand of kelp must have been tremendous

"Yes, I knohy you kill," Nevi said "Like any of the lower animals, you kill to eat It is your job, and you see no farther than that You kill by orders, to someone else&039;s plan, because to not kill means you yourself die That is a difference between the two of us I think of myself as a sculptor, a societal sculptor The populace is my stone, and I shape it chip by chip into a for, and my task is a relentless one But I have time"