Part 28 (1/2)
XIX
When Sylvie returned froreeted him embarrassedly; Sylvie led both of thee of the excavation
”Go ahead, Flora,” she urged ”Make up with Conn It won't be any harder thanup with Wade was”
”How did that happen, by the way?” Conn asked
”Your girlfriend,” Flora said ”She came to the house and practically forced me into a car and flew me into Storisende, and then made me keep quiet and listen while Wade told me the truth”
”I wasn't completely sure what the truth was myself till Wade opened up,” Sylvie adh”
”I always hated that Merlin thing,” Flora burst out ”All those old s Merlin was going to do, with everything cru poorer every year, and doing nothing, nothing! And when you were co you to tell the for themselves But you didn't, and I couldn't see what you were trying to do And then when Wade joined you and Father, I thought he was either helping you put over so in Merlin hi to do fro At least, fro the escalators and getting the fountains going again”
So the fountains weren't dusty any s now?”
Flora looked distressed ”She goes around wringing her hands
Honestly I never saw anybody doing that outside a soap opera Half the time she thinks you and Father are a pair of unprincipled scoundrels, and the other half she thinks you're going to let Merlin destroy the world”
”I' like thatfake, isn't it? You're using it tothey wouldn't do for themselves, aren't you?”
”It started that way What do you think all this is about?” he asked, gesturing toward the excavation and the two giantaway at the rock
”Well, to keep Kurt Fawzi and that crowd happy, I suppose It seeh”
”I' just as bad, is down there That's why I'm here, instead of on Koshchei I want to keep people like Fawzi fro foolish with it when they find it”
”But there _can't_ be a Merlin!”
”I'm afraid there is Not the sort of a Merlin Fawzi expects to find; that thing's too s down there”
The question of size bothered him That drum-shaped superstructure couldn't even hold the personnel-record machine they had found here, or the coe It could have been an intelligence-evaluator, or an enemy-intentions predictor, but it see _like_ a coo And it could be soination
At the back of his rew that Carl Leibert knew exactly what it was And he became more and more convinced that he had seen the self-styled preacher before
Finally, the whole top of the hundred-foot collapsium-covered structure was uncovered, and the excavation had been leveled out wide enough to accommodate all the massive paraphernalia of the collapsiuain, and brought her down in place; the work of lifting off the reactor and the converter and the rest of it, piece by piece, began Finally, everything was set up
A dozen and a half of the-place, after dinner They were all too tired to start the cutting that night, and at the same time excited and anxious They talked in disconnected snatches, and then sora; there was a brief silence, and then a co his news-service He spoke rapidly and breathlessly, his professional gravity cracking all over
”The hypershi+p _City of Asgard_, froan ”We have received an exclusive Interworld News Service story, recently brought to Aton on the Pan-Federation spacelines shi+p _Magellanic_, from Terra
”News of revived interest in the Third Force co reached Terra by way of Odin, representatives of Interworld News, to which this service subscribes, interviewed retired Force-General Foxx Travis, now living, at the advanced age of a hundred and fourteen, on Luna General Travis, who coorically denied that there had ever existed any super-co you, now, a recorded intervieith General Travis, made on Luna”
For an instant, Conn felt the rooht hold of hi in sudden consternation, and then everybody was hushi+ng everybody else andtwice as much noise The screen flickered; the commentator vanished, and instead, seated in the deep-cushi+oned chair, was the thin and frail old h an open segment of the dome-roof behind him the full Earth shone, the continents of the Western He woman in starchy nurse's white bent forward solicitously fro him a small beaker from which he sipped some stimulant He looked much as he had when Conn had talked to hi
Oh, yes The coster of seventy-some--”Mike Shanlee