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Hell is the place for hts, killed in the tourney or in soentleracious ladies who have lovers two or three beside their lord There go the gold and the silver, sables and ers of the earth

- Aucassin

NINE FOR A PARTY

I exchangedaround The gray of the Void was beginning to look real pleasant, like war in it Doc was sitting grandly at the bar with a steauess, since he was Just putting down a shot glass Sid was talking to Erich and laughing at the sains to feel like a party, but so to do with the Major Maintainer; its telltale was glowing a steady red like a nice little hoht cluster of dials that included all the controls except the lonely and frightening Introversion switch that was never touched When Maud&039;s couch curtains winked out and there were she and the Ro quietly side by side

He looked down at his shiny boots and the rest of his black duds like he was just waking up and couldn&039;t believe it all, and he said, "Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis," and I raisedthe tray back, and he did proud by old Vicksburg by translating: "All things change and we change with them"

Then Mark slowly looked around at us, and I can testify that a Roman smile is just as warm as any other nationality, and he finally said, "We are nine, the proper nuood"

Maud chuckled proudly and Erich shouted, "Welcome back from the Void, Kamerad," and then, because he&039;s German and thinks all parties have to be noisy and satirically pompous, he jumped on a couch and announced, "Heren und Damen, permit me to introduce the noblest Roate to Nero Claudlius (called Germanicus in a former time stream) and who In 763 AUC (Correct, Mark? Itthe Parthians and the Snakes in the Battle of Alexandria Hoch, hoch, hoch!"

We all swung our glasses and cheered with him and Sud yelled at Erich, "Keep your feet off the furniture, you unschooled rogue," and grinned and boomed at all three hussars, "Take your ease, Recuperees," and Maud and Mark got their drinks, the Ro Falernian wine in favor of scotch and soda, and right away everyone was talking a mile a minute

We had a lot to catch up on There was the usual yak about the war - "The Snakes are laying mine fields in the Void," I don&039;t believe it, how can you es - bourbon, bobby pins, and the stabiitin that would have brought Mark out of it faster - and what had become of people - "Marcia? Oh, she&039;s not around any reen and stinking in five seconds, but I wasn&039;t going to say that) - and Mark had to be told about Bruce&039;s glove, which convulsed us all over again, and the Roripe all the way to Octavius because he&039;d accidentally been issued the unbelievable luxury itear instead of the usual salt, and Erich asked Sid if he had any new Ghost-girls in stock and Sid sucked his beard like the old goat he is "Dost thou ask reat beauties, ast them an Austrian countess fro hereMnnnn" -

I poked a finger in Erich&039;s chest between two of the bright buttons with their tiny death&039;s heads "You, irls You have too host kind"

He called ed ested we show Bruce the Art Gallery I thought this was a real brilliant idea, but when 1 tried to argue hi to pay any attention while doing it The saber cut was just a thin red line on his cheek; she&039;d washed away all the dried blood

The Gallery gets you, though It&039;s a bunch of paintings and sculptures and especially odd knickknacks, allabout the Change War from the stuff they&039;re es, flaked flint, bits of ancient pottery glued into futuristic shapes, old rebeaten by a Martian, whorls of beady Lunan wire, a picture in tempera on a crinkle-cracked thick round of quartz that had filled a starship porthole, a Sumerian inscription chiseled into a brick fros in the Gallery and I can always find soets you, as I say, thinking about the guys that hts, and the far times and places they ca low, I&039;ll coet inspired to kick ood temper It&039;s the only history of the Place there is and it doesn&039;t change a great deal, because the things in it and the feelings that went into theht now, Erich&039;s witty lecture was bouncing off the big ears I hide underhoful it is that for us that there&039;s not only change but Change You don&039;t know froot is really new or just welling up into you because the past has been altered by the Spiders or Snakes

Change Winds can blow not only death but anything short of it, down to the featheriest fancy They blow thousands of times faster than time moves, but no one can say how e it&039;ll do or how soon it&039;ll da Time isn&039;t the little time

And then, for the Demons, there&039;s the fear that our personality will just fade and someone else climb into the driver&039;s seat and us not even know Of course, we Dee and in spite of it; that&039;s e are Deers, orreatus - and blamed few of the masses, either - we&039;re a rare sort of people and that&039;s why the Spiders have to Recruit us where they find us without caring about our previous knowledge and background, a Foreign Legion of tiround, with built-in nostalgia and cynicisers but with e People, you ht say, the cream of the daood as we think they are and if the whole past wasn&039;t once entirely different froot

As I say, the Gallery gets you feeling real low, and so now I said to ave reen boith gold dolphins or spaceships on it and saying, "And, to yptian Don&039;t you agree, Bruce?"

Bruce looked up, all smiles from Lili, and said, "What was that, dear chap?"

Erich&039;s forehead got dark as the Door and I was glad the hussars had parked their sabers along with their shakos, but before he could even get out a Jerry cuss-word, Doc breezed up in that plateaustate of drunkenness so like hypnotized sobriety, hosted the bowl out of Erich&039;s hand, said, "A beautiful specihtaitch finished it, he told me you couldn&039;t look at it and not feel the waves of the Northern Venusian Shallows rippling around your roofs But itofficer? Nichevo," and he carefully put the bowl back on its shelf and rolled on