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.""Thank you." A spark of rebellion showed in her eyes."We were planning toretire, anyway, if this last trip hadn't such an utterdisaster been.This gives us one more opportunity our wares to--deliver, afterall."Aspundh frowned briefly.Cress unfolded his legs with leaden effort as the others began to stir.Looking at him, Moon found him looking at her; his glance hurried on, caughtat Elsevier like an orphan's hand.He grinned, badly."I guess this isgood-bye, then, Elsie?"Moon stood up, helped him to his feet while the realization registered aroundthe table."Cress--""Consider this my payment on the debt we owe you, young mistress."He shrugged.Elsevier turned to Aspundh, but Moon saw his face tighten with refusal evenbefore the question formed."It won't be hard for him another ship to find;astrogators are highly in demand in your-trade, I'm sure."" "There are smugglers and smugglers," KR," Elsevier said."You mean they might not all a ship with a man blacklisted for murder want toshare?" Aspundh's expression turned to iron.Moon let go of Cress's sleeve.Cress flushed."Self-defense! It's in the record, self-defense.""A drugged-up passenger challenged him to a duel, KR.The man would him havekilled.But the rules don't any exceptions make.Really, do you imagine that I'd a ship with a murderer share?"Page 113ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"I can't even why you married my brother imagine." Aspundh sighed in defeat."All right, Elsevier; though you press my promise to you near the breakingpoint.I suppose I a shipping line somewhere own that can an astrogator takeon.""You mean that? Oh, gods--" Cress laughed, swaying like a reed."Thank you, old mas--citizen! You won't sorry be." He glanced atElsevier, a long, shining glance full of gratitude."I hope not," Aspundh said; he moved past Cress to Moon's side."And you won't me sorry make either, will you?"In his eyes she saw the grim reflection of what her failure would mean, not toherself alone, but to the others."No," firmly.He nodded."Then stay with me for the next few days, while the ship isreadied, and let me you all a sibyl should know teach.""All right." She touched her throat."KR, must she--""It's for her own good, Elsevier--and for yours--that I her here keep." Helifted his head slightly."Yes.of course." Elsevier smiled."You're quite right, of course.Moon,I--" She patted Moon's hand, looked away again."Well, never mind.It doesn'tmatter.Never mind." She went on toward the door, not looking back to seeMoon's outstretched hand.Silky followed her wordlessly."Well," Cress grinned, half at her, half at his feet."Good luck to you, youngmistress."You could be Queen." I'll tell them I knew you when." He kept hergaze at last."I hope you find him.Goodbye."He backed away, turned and went out after the others.Moon watched the emptydoorway silently, but it remained empty.Moon sat alone in the garden swing, giving it momentum with the motion of herfoot.Overhead the night sky sang, a hundred separate choirs of colortransfiguring into one.Moon rested her head on the pillows, listening withher eyes.If she closed them she could hear another music: the sweetcomplexities of a Kharemoughi art song drifting out through the open doorsonto the patio, the counterpoint of insects chirping in the shrubs, the shrilland guttural cries of the strange menagerie of creatures that wandered thegarden paths.She had spent this day like the ones before it, practicing the exercises thatdisciplined her mind and body, watching the information tapes that KR Aspundhgave to her, learning all that was known to the Hegemony about what sibylswere, and did, and meant to the people of their worlds.The sibyls of thisworld attended a formal school, where they were sheltered and protected whilethey learned to control their trances--as she had learned, more uncertainly,from Clavally and Danaquil Lu on a lonely island under the sky.But besides the rigorous basic discipline, Aspundh and the other sibyls of theHegemony learned about the complex network of which they were a part, the vastreach of the Old Empire's technological counter spell against the fallingdarkness.They understood that theNothing Place lay in the heart of a machine somewhere on a world not even asibyl could name; and the knowledge gave them the strength to endure itsterrifying absence, which had nearly destroyed her with her own fear.They learned the real nature of their power: the capacity not only to ease theday-to-day burdens of life, but to actually better it; to contribute to thesocial and technological growth of their world more profoundly than even thegreatest genius--because they had access to the accumulated genius of allhuman history.if only their people had the wisdom, and the willingness, tomake use of that knowledge.And they were taught the nature of their unnatural "infection,"how to use its potential to protect themselves from harm, how to protect theirloved ones from its risk.A sibyl could even bear a child.The artificialvirus did not pass through the placenta's protective filters--ensuring thePage 114ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbirth of children who might not share their mother's temperament, but whowould have more chance than most of becoming sibyls to a new generation.Tohave a child.to lie in the arms of the only one she would ever love, andknow that they could be all to each other that they had ever been.Moon sat up, startled out of her reverie by the sound of someonecoming toward her across the patio.But he loves another now.The memory ofthe thing that separated them now, more than just a gap of distance and time,hurt her abruptly as she saw KR Aspundh approaching."Moon." He smiled a greeting."Shall we our evening stroll take?"Every evening he walked down through his gardens to the small building ofpillared marble in the heart of a shrubbery maze, where the ashes of hisancestors rested in urns.The Kharemoughis worshiped a hierarchy of deities,neatly extending their view of a stratified society into the realm of heaven,and incorporating the pantheon that watched over the Hegemony's other worlds.On its first tier were a person's revered ancestors, whose success or failuredetermined their child's place in society.Aspundh paid homage devoutly to hisown ancestors; Moon wondered if a father's success made it easier to believein his divinity.She got up from the swing.Each evening she joined him on his walk, and in theprivacy of the gardens they discussed the questions her day's studies had leftunanswered."Are you warm enough? These spring evenings are chilly.Take my cloak.""No, I'm fine." She shook her head, secretly defiant.She wore the sleevelessrobe she had picked out on the threedy shopper's-guide show.She had thefeeling that even the sight of a bare arm embarrassed these people; sheresented being forced to wear more than she wanted to, and so she wore less."Ah, to have a hardy upbringing!" He laughed; she felt a small frown form."You're not your lovely smile tonight wearing.Is it because tomorrow you backto the spaceport must go?" They began to walk together, Moon controlling herstrides to match his slower steps."Partly." She looked down at her soft slippers, the pattern of the smoothstones underfoot.Silky would spend hours crouching over them in fascination.She would even be glad to see him again, more glad to see Elsevier; toescape from the stifling perfection of this world's artificial beauty
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