Page 12 (1/2)
No, he cracked the door open with hisexpedition I petted Beast "Have you ever heard of Arthur C Clarke’s third law of prediction? It states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable froic Take a smart phone and hand it to an ancient Roicinto the world of the gods and that the Beyoncé video playing on it is showing hiic I can feel it, I can manipulate it, but I can’t explain it You’ve transformed hundreds of tiic Why does it ers on the armrest of his chair "So this place is supposed to be a sanctuary?"
"Yes and no It’s an inn, a neutral ground An abnormality in the ordinary reality of this planet or whatever passes for it I’m an innkeeper Here I’uest, you fall underas you stay here, you will enjoy the right of sanctuary For various reasons, Earth is a way station for alaxy: s stop here for a layover Some are alien and some are not The innkeepers maintain the order, provide them with a safe place to stay, and minimize the population exposure and the bloodbath that could result Nobody wants a ide panic It has been so for hundreds of years"
"So the old lady is a guest?"
"Yes"
"How long will she be staying?"
"She paid for a lifetime stay"
"Clever" Sean leaned forward "So she stays in your inn and nobody can get her out What did she do?"
"You don’t want to know"
"You’re not going to tell uests and that included safeguarding their privacy
Sean ponderedin his head He was disturbingly quick on the uptake
"My father told me that, as an innkeeper, you’re supposed to remain neutral"
"It’s customary that I do There is no compulsion or law that forces me to maintain my neutrality"
"And you can’t ask for help"
"Your father is wrong It’s up to each innkeeper’s discretion whether or not to ask a guest or a third party for assistance Most innkeepers never resort to such requests because we don’t want to put others in danger The safety of our guests is our first priority"
Sean sht have enjoyed seeing it --he was really handso now made me want to turn my broom into a shield, preferably with spikes, and brace er because of it"
What? "I did no such thing At no point did the words ’Help me, Sean Evans’ come out of my mouth"
Beast barked to underscore ers --"you admonished me for my inaction, you tried to elicit an assurance that I would do so about the situation, and then, after I assured you I would, you still involved yourself in a violent action, escalating the level of danger for both of us All of this can be construed as a plea for assistance and cooperation, and now because of you, my life is in jeopardy"
"No" This was crazy There were so et out of each other’s way
"Fine" He grinned again, flashing white teeth "Is there someone we can contact and settle this dispute? Soht, perhaps?"
The Innkeeper Assembly Oh, you bastard His fatherme?"
"I don’t make threats I solve problems"
"And that didn’t sound conceited Not at all"
He spread his ar facts"
The Asseanization of innkeepers If Sean went to thein and end with one question: "Was the inn directly threatened?" I would have to answer no Technically I hadn’t broken any written laws because we didn’t have any, but I’d broken the unspoken canon of neutrality They would view it as unwise, adviseof the inn down to oneat Gertrude Hunt equaled ga with your safety The inn was at already at twoan unknown co branded with oneGertrude Hunt We would not recover
Argh He had me and he knew it "Just what exactly did your parents do in the military?"
"My dad was arrested once because he didn’t know the laws, so he decided he would learn all of theold, which means he became an officer and worked as a JAG Corps attorney Mypeople’s heads explode from far away, so she served as a countersniper"
Great "What do you want?"
"I want us to work together"