Harmon chortled. "No, didn't much sound like it, way you come out yelling and screaming over your shoulder, with it dumping your luggage after you. You musta p.i.s.sed it off real handsome. No matter. Next PTA shipment oughta be along any day now. And when it comes, my new a.s.signment should be ready." He stretched luxuriously, took a deep drink from the bottle beside him, and sighed with antic.i.p.ated contentment. "Reckon I've earned myself a nice long tour of duty on Central, in a nice office tower with air conditioning and servos and no need to pay any b.l.o.o.d.y attention to b.l.o.o.d.y nature unless you happen to feel like looking out the window. Sit down, Madeira y Perez, and don't look so miserable. Do your five years and maybe they'll post you back in civilization. You're in luck, coming when you did."

"I am?" The sun was over the mountain by now, and it was hot hot on the mesa. Blaize pulled his largest grip under the shade of the awning and sat down on it. on the mesa. Blaize pulled his largest grip under the shade of the awning and sat down on it.

"Sure. Today's feeding time at the zoo. Put on a real show for you, the Loosies will." Harmon waved again, this time as if beckoning the cliff that towered above them to come on down. Blaize stared in shock as craggy bits of mountain broke loose and trickled down to the mesa top, shambling like crazy puppets made of rocks and wire. Strange costumes-no, they were naked; that was their skin skin he was looking at. he was looking at.

"Yaohoo! Feeding time! Whoee!" Harmon yodeled, simultaneously jerking the cord that ran along the side of the PTA prefab. One of the sacks overhanging the muddy basin opened and brownish-gray ration bricks spilled out in a torrent, piling up in the mud below the mesa.

The Loosies scurried to the edge of the mesa and let themselves down into the muddy sea, fingers and toes clinging to crevices in the rocks. The first ones down threw themselves on the ration bricks as if they were greeting a long-lost lover; the later arrivals piled on top of them, swinging uncoordinated limbs and wriggling to burrow into the muddy heap of rations.

Blaize felt a rumbling vibration coming up through the soles of his feet.

"Look out!" Harmon roared.

Blaize jumped and Harmon chuckled. "Sorry to startle you, kid. You wouldn't want to miss the other big show of Angalia." He pointed to the western horizon.

It seemed to be moving.

It was a wall of water. No, mud. No-Blaize struggled for the right word and could only find the one that had first occurred to him: glop. glop.

The "Loosies" had ignored Harmon's shout as if they were deaf, but something-perhaps the rumbling vibration that Blaize felt-alerted those still at the bottom of the quagmire. They swarmed up the sides of the mesa, clutching their ration bricks in teeth and fingers. The last one got out of the way just before the advancing tide of glop struck the mesa.

The whole desperate, squirming consumption of ration bricks had taken place in total silence. Now, less than three minutes later, it was over and the mesa was surrounded by a sucking, slimy tide of glop. As Blaize watched, the tide receded, sliding back down the sides of the mesa until the new mud melted into the same soggy configuration of puddles and bubbles that had greeted him on arrival.

"That was a small one," Harmon said with regret. "Oh, well, there'll likely be some better ones before you go. Bound to be, in fact."

In response to Blaize's questions he explained, without much interest, that the erratic climatic pattern of Angalia produced a constantly moving band of thundershowers in the mountains which surrounded this central basin. Whenever the storms stayed in the same place for a while, the rainfall built up into a flash flood which raced across the plain, picking up mud as it went, and sweeping away anything that might be foolish enough to remain in its path.

"Terraforming," Blaize mused. "Dams to catch the rainfall and release it slowly..."

"Expensive, and who'd bother? Nothing here to repay the investment. Besides," Harmon explained, "it's fun. d.a.m.n sure ain't much else to watch out here!" d.a.m.n sure ain't much else to watch out here!"

Blaize gathered that one of Harmon's amus.e.m.e.nts was trying to predict the times of the mud-floods so that he could feed the natives just before one, forcing them to scramble first for ration bricks and then to save themselves from the tide of mud.

"Ain't it the d.a.m.nedest thing?" he demanded as the rock-like natives climbed back to their mountain heights, some clutching a few ration bricks for later consumption, some still chewing the last mouthfuls of their haul. "You ever see anything like it?"

"Never," Blaize admitted. Are the-the Loosies starving? Is that why their skin hangs loose like that? Or is that their normal appearance? And how does this fat creep get away with putting them through such a degrading performance?

"I know what you're thinking, Port-Wine y Medoc," the fat man said, "but wait'll you've done six months out here, you'll forget all the PTA regs about respecting the natives' dignity and all that c.r.a.pola. d.a.m.ned Loosies don't have any dignity to respect, anyway. They're a bunch of animals. Never developed agriculture-or clothing-or even language."

"Or lies," commented Blaize.

"What?" For a moment Harmon looked startled, then he chuckled and wheezed with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Righto. No language, no lies-gotta say that for them, anyway! But they're not people people, young Claret-Medoc. Waste of resources, this whole operation-some paperpusher's mistake. Only encourages the veg-heads to breed more little veggies. We oughta pull outa here and let 'em starve on their own, y'ask me."

"Maybe they could be trained to work the mine," Blaize suggested.

Harmon snorted. "Yeah, sure. I did hear about some prisoners in olden times who amused themselves trying to train their pet rats to run errands. You could do that sooner'n you could teach a Loosie anything, kid. I tell you, there's just three amus.e.m.e.nts on Angalia: feedin' time for the Loosies, drinkin' time for me, and playing computer games. And I've mapped every d.a.m.n level of the Maze of the Minotaur so many times I can't stand to look at it no more."

Blaize felt in his pocket. The datahedron recording the wager wasn't the only item he'd copied from Nancia's computer. "Does your computer-"

"Yours now, Sake-Armontillado," Harmon interrupted with a cheerful belch. "PTA issue."

"Does it have enough memory and display graphics to run s.p.a.cED OUT? Because," Blaize said, "I just happen to have a copy of the latest version here. Pre-release-it's not even on sale at Central yet." He winked at Harmon.

"Is that so!" Harmon oozed to his feet. "C'mon inside, Burgundy-Champagne. Pa.s.s the time in a li'l friendly game until my transport gets here." He scratched his bare chest, squinting at Blaize with the rudiments of a thoughtful expression on his face. "Have to name some stakes, of course. No fun playing for nothing."

"My sentiments exactly," Blaize agreed. "Lead the way."

Five days later, exactly as scheduled, the PTA transport touched down to deliver new supplies and to pick up Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon for the months-long FTL journey to his new a.s.signment. Blaize remained behind with the Loosies and his winnings: two partially depleted cases of Sapphire Ruin, Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon's hand-woven palm-frond sun hat, and the t.i.tle to an abandoned corycium mine.

Deneb Subs.p.a.ce, Central Date 2750: Nancia and Caleb

"That," said Caleb as he and Nancia left Deneb s.p.a.cebase, "was one of our more satisfying a.s.signments."

"Out of a grand total of two?" Nancia teased him. But she agreed. Their first scheduled run out of Central, delivering medical supplies to a newly settled planet, had been worthwhile but hardly challenging. And they had both been apprehensive about this a.s.signment: transporting some semi-retired general, another High Families representative, into the middle of a particularly nasty conflict between Central Worlds settlers and Capellan traders. But General Micaya Questar-Benn had proved completely different from the spoilt High Families children Nancia had taken out to Vega subs.p.a.ce on her first a.s.signment. Short, competent, una.s.suming, the general had won Caleb's heart at once with her in-depth knowledge of Vega's complex history. She'd proceeded to spend much of the short run to Deneb subs.p.a.ce talking shop with Nancia; half the general's body parts and several major organs were cyborg replacements, and she was interested in the possibility of improving her liver functions with one of the newer metachip implants such as kept Nancia's physical body healthy within its sh.e.l.l. Nancia had never envisioned herself discussing something so personal with anybody, let alone a high-ranking army officer, but something about General Questar-Benn's una.s.suming manner made intimate talk unthreatening and easy.

Nancia wasn't too surprised to learn that before she and Caleb had even prepared for the return journey, General Questar-Benn had drawn human and Capellan antagonists into negotiations and worked out a settlement that would allow each side to feel they had "won."

"And here I thought we were warmongering, delivering somebody with authority to send in the heavy armored divisions!" Caleb went on.

Nancia chuckled. "The galaxy could do with a few more 'warmongers' like Micaya Questar-Benn. Ready for Singularity, partner? Central should have a new a.s.signment for us by now."

Bahati, Central Date 2751: Alpha

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong stared down in distaste at the writhing body of her experimental subject. What had gone wrong? The molecular variations of Blissto which she'd been preparing should have rendered the patient calm and tractable. Instead he was contorting his limbs and moaning uncontrollably, trying to break the restraint straps on his stretcher.

Alpha tightened the straps until the patient stopped thrashing and pa.s.sed a medscanner over his forehead. She frowned at the results. Instead of generating soothing hormones, Blissto.Rev.2 was invading and replicating itself within the man's nervous system like a cancer gone wild.

"d.a.m.n! I haven't got time time for this," she muttered. Quickly she considered her options. If she could keep the patient alive and in isolation for a few days, perhaps she would be able to find out what was causing this invasive replication and find a way to stop it. But if anybody questioned her work- for this," she muttered. Quickly she considered her options. If she could keep the patient alive and in isolation for a few days, perhaps she would be able to find out what was causing this invasive replication and find a way to stop it. But if anybody questioned her work- The man's convulsions increased. One leg broke the reinforced restraint strap and kicked out wildly.

"Too dangerous," Alpha decided. She pressed a hypospray to the man's neck and watched his body sag back against the stretcher. His eyes rolled upwards and the thrashing stopped.

So did all other movement.

Alpha had papers prepared for just such an emergency. The clinic director was an old fool, too lazy to check her reports; n.o.body else would dare to question her. Charity Patient B.342.iv would be listed as having died of heart failure brought on by a preexisting medical condition which the clinic had not had time to reverse.

The only trouble was, that made the third such death in the year since Alpha had begun testing her improved version of Blissto. Sooner or later, if she didn't get the drug dosage right, somebody was going to notice the string of identical sudden-death reports and ask questions.

Alpha seriously considered returning to experimenting on rabbits. But rabbit cages stank, and taking care of the beasts was a lot of work, and there was even more probability that somebody would question her sudden interest in raising pets.

She'd just have to think up a few more excuses for sudden deaths on the charity wing. A little variation in the paperwork would help disguise these unfortunate accidents.

Procyon Subs.p.a.ce, Central Date 2751: Caleb and Nancia

"This is boring," Nancia complained as she watched workers on Szatmar II unload the cases of vaccine she and Caleb had transported there.

"It is important to see that children's vaccinations are kept up regularly," Caleb told her.

"Yes, but it's hardly an emergency. At least, it wouldn't have been one if PTA would keep its records up to date." A horrified bureaucrat had discovered that some incompetent named Harmon, working out of PTA on Central Worlds, had forgotten to ship last year's supplies of vaccine to any PTA client planets in the Procyon subsystem. In consequence, Nancia and Caleb were getting an extended tour of that subsystem, delivering measles and whooping-cough vaccine to several dozen settlements on widely scattered planets. "I've got a good mind to speak to my sister about this idiot Harmon," Nancia grumbled. "Jinevra would never tolerate such inefficiency in her own branch of PTA; maybe she can get Central to transfer Harmon to a spot where he can't do any harm."

"Nancia, you wouldn't seriously consider using your family connections for personal interest!"

Caleb sounded shocked. Nancia apologized immediately. She hadn't realized that trying to get an incompetent bureaucrat ousted came under the heading of "personal interests." But Caleb was doubtless right; he always was. And she felt quite guilty as he lectured her about the consequences of being flighty and expecting glamorous a.s.signments. He was right about that, too. Service loyalty demanded not only that she go where she was needed, but that she do so willingly and cheerfully.

Nancia closed her loading dock and tried to lift off for their next vaccine delivery with a willing and cheerful heart.

Bahati, Central Date 2752: Darnell

Darnell leaned back in his upholstered stimuchair and activated the interoffice transmitter. "You may send Hopkirk in now, Julitta m'lovely."

"Oh, Mr. Overton-Glaxely!" Julitta's delighted giggles came clearly through the transmitter. Darnell activated the double display screens as well and enjoyed two views of his secretary. The top screen showed her tossing her pretty yellow curls and preening with delight at his compliment; the lower screen displayed her shapely legs, crossing and recrossing restlessly beneath the desk. Darnell noted with pleasure that Julitta's petiskirt had ridden up almost to her waist. Such a delightful, twitchy little girl. Such a delightful, twitchy little girl.

Darnell considered Julitta, like the second display screen and the vibrostim units in his executive chair and the view of Bahati from his gla.s.s-walled executive office, to be one of the perks appropriate to a Man Who Had Made It. He let Hopkirk wait awkwardly in front of his desk while he contemplated with equal delight his own rapid success, his immediate plans for Julitta, the view of her legs in the lower display screen, and the fact that Julitta didn't know about the second screen.

"Hopkirk, I've got a job for you," Darnell ordered. "Productivity in the glimware plant dropped by three thousandths of a percent last month. I want you to get out there and send me a full report of any contributing factors."

"Yes, Mr. Overton-Glaxely," the man called Hopkirk murmured.

"It's probably c.u.mulative worker fatigue due to the poor design of the a.s.sembly line," Darnell continued. Ah, that was better; a flash of pain crossed Hopkirk's features. Six months ago the man had owned, designed, and managed Hopkirk Glimware, producers of fine novelty prismagla.s.ses for the luxury trade. And managed it d.a.m.n poorly, too, Darnell thought; the place would have gone bankrupt soon enough anyway, even without his interference. Now it was a profitable, if small, addition to Darnell's revitalized OG Shipping (and other) Enterprises.

"Questions, Hopkirk?" Darnell snapped as the man remained standing instead of speeding to his task.

"I was just wondering why you did it this way," Hopkirk said.

"Did it what way?"

Hopkirk shrugged. "You know and I know that Hopkirk Glimware would have done all right if you hadn't manipulated the Net to bring my stock prices down and cut off my credit."

"That's a matter of opinion," Darnell told him. "Admit it, Hopkirk. You're an engineer, not a manager, and you didn't know how to run the company. It would have crashed eventually in any case. All I did was help it along."

"But why do it this way? Why ruin me when you could have bought the company for a fair price and still made your profit?"

Darnell was pleased that the man didn't argue the basic point. He'd been an incompetent manager and he knew it.

"You're a brilliant businessman," Hopkirk went on. "Look at how you turned OG Shipping around in just a year!"

With a little help from my friends...Darnell quashed that thought. Sure, Polyon's ability to hack into the Net and get advance information had been useful. But it was also true that Darnell had discovered within himself a true talent for efficiency. Cut out the deadwood! Fire the incompetent, the lazy, and those who've merely failed to get results! And know everything! Those were Darnell's new mottoes. Those who'd been fired talked about the Reign of Terror. Those who hadn't been fired yet didn't dare to talk. And OG Shipping prospered...leaving Darnell free to amuse himself again.

There was Julitta, of course. There were an infinite number of Julittas. But Darnell had discovered that no number of willing girls could give him quite the thrill of victory that his business manipulations brought.

He regarded Hopkirk thoughtfully. The man seemed to intend no offense; perhaps he honestly wanted to understand the workings of Darnell Overton-Glaxely's brilliant mind. A laudable impulse; he deserved an honest answer.

"Sure, I could have done it straight," he said at last. "Would have taken a little longer. No prob. But," he winked at Hopkirk, "it wouldn't have been as much fun...and that way I wouldn't have had you working for me, would I? Get on with the job, Hopkirk. I've got another a.s.signment for you when you get back."

Now that he'd as good as admitted his illegal use of the Net to Hopkirk, Darnell thought, the man had to go. It had been fun to keep him around for a little while, using him as a clerk and gofer, but one couldn't risk disgruntled victims getting together to compare notes. Once OG Glimware was taken care of, Darnell would "reward" Hopkirk with a free vacation at Summerlands Clinic. The Net revealed, among other things, that Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's patients on the charity side of Summerlands had an unusually high death rate. He'd "suggest" to Alpha that it would be convenient for both of them if Hopkirk never came back from Summerlands. That way n.o.body would talk about Darnell's use of the Net; and in return, he'd get Polyon to fix the Net records so that n.o.body would raise inconvenient questions about the number of charity patients Alpha had lost.

Achernar Subs.p.a.ce, Central Date 2752: Caleb and Nancia

"I wonder if he'll really be able to resolve anything," Nancia said thoughtfully as she and Caleb watched their latest delivery being greeted at Achernar Base on Charon. The short, spare man whom they'd brought halfway across the galaxy wasn't doing much to take control of his first meeting with the Charonese officials. He was just standing there on the landing field, listening to the speeches of welcome and accepting bouquets of flowers.

"None of our business," Caleb reminded her. "Central said, take Unattached Diplomatic Agent Forister to Charon, and do it fast. They didn't say to evaluate his job performance. And we've got another a.s.signment waiting."

"Don't we always?" But the little group of pompous Charonese officials that surrounded Forister was moving off now, leaving the s.p.a.cefield clear for Nancia's liftoff.

"It's just that I like to feel we've accomplished something," she lamented as Caleb strapped down for liftoff, "and I do feel this Charonese situation calls for somebody a bit more...more forceful." Somebody like Daddy, for instance. With his brisk, no-nonsense manner and willingness to enforce his decisions, Javier Perez y de Gras would have made short work of Charon's seven feuding factions, the continual war between the Tran Phon guerrillas and all seven provisional governments, and the consequent destruction of Charon's vital quin.o.bark forests. He'd have been using Nancia's comm facilities and working the Net every minute they weren't in Singularity, preparing for his descent on the Charonese, arming himself with every last detail of the conflict, softening up the princ.i.p.al offenders with stern warning messages.

This Forister had spent the three days of the voyage reading ancient books-not even disks, but some account of an Old Earth war too minor to have been transcribed to computer-readable format. And when he wasn't reading about this place called Viet Nam, he wasted his time in relaxed, casual conversation with her and Caleb, chatting about their families and upbringing, their hopes and dreams. Too soft to stop a war, Nancia thought contemptuously. Oh, well, Caleb was right-the results were none of their business. They were Courier Service; they went where they were sent, quickly and efficiently. Sticking around to report on the failure of the resulting mission was not in the CS job description.