Part 29 (1/2)
Do you think I'd toast the best brains.h.i.+p on Central in that cheap stuff? It's only fit for, for...”
”Starving musicians?” Nancia suggested. Some day she would have to have a serious talk with Daddy about Flix; suggest that he stop finding Flix promising career openings and just let the boy be a synthocommer. But this latest visit of Daddy's hadn't seemed the right time to bring the subject up. And she couldn't beam him now; Forister had other things on his mind. What there was left ofhis mind, she corrected with a shade of envy.
”I'll have you know,” Forister announced with a flourish, ”this is genuine Old Earth wine! Badacsonyi Keknyelu, no less!”
Nancia's new language module included not only Latin and Greek but a sprinkling of less well-known Old Earth tongues. She skimmed the Hungarian dictionary.
”Blue-Tongue Lake Badacsony? Are you sure?”
”Believe him,” Micaya Questar-Benn chimed in. Like Forister, she was taking great care with her consonants.
”If it's as good as the red stuff, it's worth every credit he paid for it What was the red stuff called, Forister?”
”Egri Bikaver.”
”Bull's Blood from Eger,” Nancia translated. ”Oh, well. You know, sometimes I don't really mind not being able to share softsh.e.l.l pleasures. Er - what are we celebrating?”
”End of the trial! Don't you follow the newsbytes?”
”Not lately. They never have much to say,” Nancia equivocated. And if there were any questions about my deposition, I don't want to hear them.
”Well, they do now.” Forister pulled himself erect and stood in the center of the lounge swaying slightly.
”Sentencing was this morning. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong and Darnell Overton-Glaxely got twenty-five years each. They'll do community service on a newly colonized planet-under strict guard.”
”Alpha may be some use to the colonists,” Nancia 320.
fc?
commented, ”but I don't know what a bunch of poor innocent colonists have done that they should be sad- dled with Darnell.”
”Farming world,” Forister said cheerfully. ”They need a lot of stoop labor. As for the rest-” He sobered briefly. ”Polyon's back to Shemali.”
”What?”
”Working the hyperchip burnofflines,” Forister said. ”The new manager's worked out a failsafe way to disable the virus Polyon built into his hyperchip design. So the factories are to continue production...
under somewhat more responsible management I'm afraid the supply of hyperchips is going to dip for a while; you probably won't be able to replace the ones you burned out for some time, Nanda.”
”I can deal with that,” Nancia said dryly. It would be a long time indeed before she let any chip designed by Polyon de Gras-Waldheim within connecting distance of her motherboards!
Forister still hadn't mentioned the two people whose fete concerned her most ”And Blaize?” It couldn't be too bad, or Forister wouldn't be celebrating like that ”Five years' community service,” Forister told her.
”Could be worse. They've dug up a planet in Deneb sub- s.p.a.ce - son of like Angalia, only worse, and the only sentient life form resembles giant spiders, and n.o.body's ever been able to communicate with them. Blaize was moaning and groaning, but I suspect he can't wait to start teaching the spiders ASL. We'll have to drop by after the next a.s.signment and see how he's doing.”
”Next a.s.signment?”
”Here's the datacording.” Forister dropped a hedron into Nancia's reader slot. She scanned the in- structions while he and Micaya broke open the bottle of Badacsonyi Keknyelu. The three of them had been a.s.signed as a team to Theta Szentmari... a very, very long way from Central, through three separate Sin-321.
gularity points. One Singularity transition brought them briefly into Deneb subs.p.a.ce.
”And what,” she inquired, ”do we do when we get there?” a.s.suming they still uxxnt me as a bmms.h.i.+p... I suppose they do. But tufty hasn't anybody said a word about fiissa ?
”Sealed orders.” Forister tossed a second hedron into the reader; Nancia found to her chagrin that she ; could not decrypt the information on this one. ”Sup- posed to be self-decrypting when we pa.s.s through the third Singularity,” Forister explained. ”Apparently ^whatever's going on there is too hot to explain on central... they're that worried about leaks. They've een discussing the possibility of making the three of is a permanent investigative team for hot little scan- ' Is like whatever is wrong on Theta Szentmari.”
”And what,” Nancia asked carefully, ”do the two of you think about that? Now that the trial's over?
id... you never did tell me about Fa.s.sa.”