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Hittite law ee Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Seet

- Lost People, Shiprecords

LEGATA SAT back, her whole body shaking and tre cursor on the com-console that it was alin out in Ship’s corridors - fa of sparseness because of the dihtside, wanting no distractions fro at the focus in front of Oakes’ old divan

Her gaze lifted and she saw the mandala she had copied for Oakes’ quarters at the Redoubt Looking at the patterns helped restore her, but she saw that her hands still shook

Fatigue, rage or disgust?

It required a conscious effort to still the tre Knots of tension reerous for Oakes to walk into his old cubby right now

I’d strangle him

No reason for Oakes to coroundside

The prisoner of his terrors

As I wa unti

She took a deep, clear breath Yes, she was free of the Scream Room

It happened, but I am here now

What to do about Oakes? Humiliation That had to be the response Not physical destruction, but humiliation A particular humiliation It would have to be at once political and sexual Soht think of to do against soh; that was no challenge to a woenius But the politic

Should I conceal the evidence that I’ve seen this holo?

Save that inforood thought Trust her own inspiration She keyed the com-console and typed in: SHIPRECORDS EYES ONLY LEGATA HAMILL Then the little addition which she had discovered for herself: SCRAMBLE IN OX

There No ht to search for such a datue computer which she had discovered in one of her history hunts

I’ll stay shipside this diurn She would not feel well That would be the rant her a rest period without question She would spend her ti every trick of coan Oakes

Political humiliation Political and sexual That had to be the way of it

Perhaps that other Ceepee brought out of hyb, that Tho in the way he looked at Oake as though he saw an old acquaintance in a new rol

And she owed a debt to Thoe that he should be the only one to know she had run the P He had kept the secret without being aske or asking Rare discretion

She had no thought of fatigue now There was food shipside when she needed it The power of Oakes’ position roundside, turned to the console

Somewhere in the records there would be a useful fact or two So Oakes had hidden or that he did not even know about hi he had done and did not want revealed He was good at this concealame but she knew herself to be better at it

She began at the main computer - Ship’s major interface with Ship? A painstaking search through coded relationships which could hide bits of data far in the recesses of offshoot circuitry such as that Ox gate? How about the Ox gate? She hid things there, but had never asked it about Oakes

She tapped out a test routine, keyed it and waited

Presently, data began flowing across the small screen on the console She stared That si for her to ask As though so she needed was there - facts and figures

"Suspect everyone," Oakes had said "Trust no one"

And here he was being proved right beyond his wildest fears The text kept rolling out She backed it up, keyed for printout, and set it inof the record was theof all

MORGAN LON OAKES

Cloned Raised, as he would put it, "like a coetable" Out of the axolotl tanks and into an Earthside womb

Why?

There it was even as she asked "To conceal the fact that it could be done, the birth was made to appear natural"

It was a feat of politics worthy of Shi or Oakes Did he kno could he know? She stopped the printout and asked who else had called up this data

"Ship"

It was an answer she had never before seen Ship had worked with this data Fearfully, she asked why Ship had called up the bio on Oakes

"To store it in a special record for Kerro Panille should he ever desire to write a history"

She pulled her hands away fro to Ship?

Panille was one of those who said he talked to Ship Not one of the fools, then

Afool?

She found herself more fearful of this discovery than she had been of the Scream Room Ship dealt in powers far beyond those of Oakes and Lewis and Murdoch She glanced around the enlarged cubby - pretentious daaze fell on the n lay exposed against a bare ray It appeared lifeless to her, robbed of so to Ship