"My predecessor here-my supervisor now. Crooked enough to hide behind a spiral staircase," Blaize explained briefly. "He's the reason-well, one of the reasons-I had to do things in this way. Although even an honest PTA supervisor probably wouldn't have approved. I have bent a few regulations," he admitted. "But just do me the favor of taking a brief tour of the settlement. I think you'll understand a lot better after I show you a few things."

Micaya looked at Forister and shrugged. "I don't see any harm in it."

"I suppose if we don't go along, you'll apply for a mistrial on the grounds that you weren't allowed to show evidence in your defense?" Forister inquired.

Blaize's face turned almost as red as his hair. "Look. You're in contact with your brainship via that b.u.t.ton. If it's inactivated, or if she sees anything she doesn't like, the full recording can go over the Net to Central at once. What will it cost you to listen to me for once in your life, Uncle Forister? G.o.d knows n.o.body else in our family ever bothered," he added, "but I used to think you were different."

Forister sighed. "I'm listening. I'm listening."

"Good! Just come this way, please." Blaize pushed between Forister and Micaya and flung the door of the hut open. Sunlight and gaudy flowers and a thousand shades of green danced before them, all the brighter for the contrast with the shabby interior of the hut. Blaize started down the path, talking a mile a minute over his shoulder as the other two followed him. Nancia activated the failsafe double recording system that would transmit every word and image directly to Vega Base as well as to her own storage centers.

"The Loosies never developed spoken language because they're telepaths," Blaize explained. "I know, I know, that's hard to prove directly, but just wait till you watch them work together! When the CenDip team gets here, they should bring some top Psych staff. Open-minded ones, who'll arrange tests without a.s.suming from the start that I'm lying. Mind you, it took me a while to figure out myself," he babbled cheerfully, turning from the main path to a secondary one that wound through head-high reeds, "especially at the beginning, when they all looked alike to me. I was so d.a.m.n bored, and those croaking noises they make got on my nerves, so I started trying to teach a couple of them ASL."

"What?" Micaya interrupted.

"It's an antique hand-speech, used for the incurably deaf back before we learned how to direct-install auditory synapses on metachip and hook them into the appropriate brain centers," Forister told her. "Blaize always did have strange hobbies. But teaching the Loosies a few signals in sign language doesn't prove they're intelligent, boy. A couple of twentieth-century researchers did that much with chimpanzees."

"Yeah, well, that's all I hoped to achieve in the beginning," Blaize said. "Believe me, after a couple of months on Angalia, a signing chimp would have seemed like real good company! But they picked it up like-like a brainship picks up Singularity math. That was the first surprise. I was teaching three of them who sort of hung around-Humdrum and Bobolin and Gargle." He flushed briefly. "Yeah, I know they're d.a.m.n silly names, but I didn't know they were people people then. I was just copying some of the strangled noises they made when I would talk to them and they'd try to talk back, before I realized they'd never developed the vocal equipment for true speech-that was when I started on the sign language-sorry, I'm getting mixed up. Where was I?" then. I was just copying some of the strangled noises they made when I would talk to them and they'd try to talk back, before I realized they'd never developed the vocal equipment for true speech-that was when I started on the sign language-sorry, I'm getting mixed up. Where was I?"

"Teaching Humdrum to sign 'Where ration bar?'" Forister told him.

Blaize laughed. "Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely. His first sentence was more like, 'Why did Paunch Man throw ration bars in mud and treat us like animals, and why do you make stacks and hand them to us one at a time with proper respect?'"

He stopped and turned to face them, his freckled face dead serious for once. "Can you imagine how it felt to hear a question like that coming from somebody I'd been thinking of as-oh, like a trained spider to while away the hours of my prison sentence? I knew then that the Loosies weren't animals. Figuring out what to do about it," he said, resuming his progress through the reeds, "took a little longer."

"I deduced the telepathy when I noticed that a week after Humdrum caught on to ASL, every every Loosie who showed up for rations was signing to me. Fluently. He couldn't have taught them the rudiments that fast; they had to have been picking the signs and the language structure out of his mind as the lessons progressed. In fact, they told me as much when I asked about it. Which wasn't all that easy. ASL doesn't Loosie who showed up for rations was signing to me. Fluently. He couldn't have taught them the rudiments that fast; they had to have been picking the signs and the language structure out of his mind as the lessons progressed. In fact, they told me as much when I asked about it. Which wasn't all that easy. ASL doesn't have have a sign for 'telepathy,' and since they don't know English, I couldn't spell it out. But eventually we got our signals straight." a sign for 'telepathy,' and since they don't know English, I couldn't spell it out. But eventually we got our signals straight."

"If they were as intelligent as you claim, and had a system of communication, they should have advanced beyond their primitive level without intervention," Micaya objected.

"Easy for you you to say," Blaize told her. "I wonder how well you or any of us would do if we had evolved on a planet where the only surface fit for farming is rearranged by violent floods once a week, where the caves we used for shelter crumbled and were shattered by periodic quakes? They had a hunter-gatherer culture until a few generations ago-a small population, not more than the planet could support, ranging through the semi-stable marshlands on the far side of this continent." to say," Blaize told her. "I wonder how well you or any of us would do if we had evolved on a planet where the only surface fit for farming is rearranged by violent floods once a week, where the caves we used for shelter crumbled and were shattered by periodic quakes? They had a hunter-gatherer culture until a few generations ago-a small population, not more than the planet could support, ranging through the semi-stable marshlands on the far side of this continent."

"Then what?"

"Then," Blaize said, "they were discovered. The first survey thought they might be intelligent and requested Planetary Technical Aid support. By the time the second survey team came along, this PTA station had been handing out unlimited supplies of ration bricks for three generations, and the culture was effectively destroyed. Instead of small bands of hunter-gatherers, you had one large colony with no food-gathering skill. There were far too many for the existing marshlands to support, with nothing to do and no hope of survival except to collect the ration bricks. The second survey, not unnaturally, decided they weren't intelligent. After all, n.o.body on the survey team was stuck here long enough and lonely enough to try signing to them. But they recommended on humanitarian grounds, or kindness to animals, or whatever, that we not discontinue PTA shipments and starve them to death."

"But if they're intelligent-" Forister objected again.

"They are. And they can build for themselves. They just needed a-a place to start." Blaize pushed the last of the feathery reeds aside with both arms and stepped to one side, inviting Forister and Micaya to admire the view of the mine. "This was the first step."

From this vantage point, Nancia observed, they could see far more of the mine's operations than had been visible from the landing field. Teams of blue-uniformed workers were scattered across the hillside and grouped under the roofs of the unwalled processing sheds-twenty, forty, more than fifty of them, divided into groups of four or five individuals who worked at their chosen tasks with perfect unanimity and wordless efficiency.

"Could you train chimps to do that that?" Blaize demanded.

Forister shook his head slowly. "And I suppose the mine is the source of your prodigious wealth?"

"It's certainly the source of the credits in that Net account," Blaize agreed.

"Exploiting intelligent sentients isn't any better than exploiting dumb animals."

Blaize ground his teeth; Nancia could pick up the clicks and grinding sounds through the contact b.u.t.ton. "I. Am. Not. Exploiting. Anybody," he said. "Look, Uncle Forister. When I got here, the Loosies didn't have ISS. They couldn't be owners of record for the mine, they couldn't have Net accounts, they couldn't palmprint official doc.u.ments. Of course my code is on everything! Who else could front for them?"

"And your code is also," Micaya pointed out, "a.s.sociated with the illegal resale of PTA ration shipments that were supposed to be distributed to the natives."

Blaize nodded wearily. "Needed money to get the mine started again. I tried to get a loan, but the banks wanted to know what I was going to do with it. When I told them I was going to revive the Angalia mines they told me I couldn't do that because there was no source of labor on the planet, because the CenDip report said Angalia had no intelligent sentients. Without credits, I couldn't start the mine. And without the credits for the mine, I couldn't-well, we'll get to that in a while. Look, I falsified a few PTA reports. Said the population had tripled. Ration bars aren't exactly a hot item in international trade," he said dryly. "I had to have a large large surplus to bargain with. Fortunately, I had an outlet right at hand. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Harmon was keeping the Loosies at semi-starvation level so he could trade some of their ration bars for liquor. I had to have a little talk with the black market trader to convince him I wanted hard credits instead of hard liquor, but eventually he...um...came around to my way of thinking." surplus to bargain with. Fortunately, I had an outlet right at hand. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Harmon was keeping the Loosies at semi-starvation level so he could trade some of their ration bars for liquor. I had to have a little talk with the black market trader to convince him I wanted hard credits instead of hard liquor, but eventually he...um...came around to my way of thinking."

"Don't tell me how you persuaded him," Forister said quickly. "I don't want to know."

Blaize grinned. "Okay. Anyway, you've seen the mine; now I want to take you on a tour of Project Two. We'll have to go up the mountain for that, I'm afraid; I want you to get the long view."

The path up beside the mine was steep, but switchbacks and steps made it easier than it looked from a distance. As they pa.s.sed the mine door, several Loosies looked up from their work to smile at Blaize. Their loose-skinned, grayish hands moved rapidly back and forth in flickering gestures that Nancia captured as imageflashes for later interpretation. For now, she was willing to accept Blaize's translation.

"They're asking who my mentally handicapped friends are, and whether you'd like a ride down to the processing sheds," he explained.

As he spoke, the team working at the mine's mouth filled a wagon with chunks of ore and poised it at the head of the rails swooping down into the valley. The three workers perched on top of the ore, hands gripping the sides of the wagon, and a member of the next team gave them a shove that started them off on a roller-coaster glide down the hill, swerving around rocks and dipping into hollows.

"Lost a few that way, at the start," Blaize commented, "before I remodeled the rail track so that the dips wouldn't throw anybody off."

The vegetation thinned out above the mine, giving them a view of the terraced gardens that replaced cliffs and rocks wherever a shovelful of soil could find a place. Micaya sniffed appreciatively and commented on the pungent aroma of the herbs growing in the mini-gardens.

At the top of the mountain they enjoyed a panoramic view of what had been the Great Angalia Mud Basin, now a gra.s.sland in which fields of grain shared s.p.a.ce with brightly colored blossoms.

"This'll be our first year's crop," Blaize said. "I'd just finished the necessary preparations for planting last year, when those nitwits I came out with were here for the meeting. None of them them noticed anything different, of course. But if your brainship can call up files of the first survey-" noticed anything different, of course. But if your brainship can call up files of the first survey-"

"She can do better than that," Forister told him. "She's been here herself. Nancia, do you observe any changes here? Apart from the growing things, that is?"

Blaize paled between his freckles. "Nancia?"

"You have some problem with my brainship?" Forister inquired mildly.

"We...didn't part on the best of terms," Blaize confessed in a strangled voice.

Nancia was feeling rather more kindly towards Blaize now, but she wasn't quite ready to admit that to him. "Horizon shows changes between all major peaks," she reported in the neutral, tinny voice forced on her by the contact b.u.t.ton's limitations. "Magnification of one area of variation shows new construction of rammed earth and boulders blocking a system of gullies that appears now to be under 17.35 meters of water...."

"Lake Humdrum," Blaize said. "My first terraforming effort. Trouble was, I had to block all all the outlets, and build up reservoir walls, before I could guarantee the floods wouldn't crash through the mud basin. Then we needed irrigation ditches down into the basin. And silt collection systems, so that the soil the floods used to carry down here would still reach the basin and renew its topsoil. You want to come back down now? I want to show you the grain samples and the test results. It's not quite ripe yet, of course," he chattered as he led the way down the path, "but it's going to be a prime crop. Amaranth-19-hyper-J Rev 2, if that means anything to you. High in protein, loaded with natural nutrients, super yield from that rich topsoil. We should be able to feed ourselves and have a surplus to sell. That's why I waited until now to claim Intelligent Sentient Status for the Loosies; I wanted to be sure we would be self-sufficient in case PTA decided to curtail the ration shipments. And I didn't dare start planting until the whole flood control system had been put in place and tested. The Loosies would never have trusted me again if they'd put in a crop and seen it washed away. We needed a lot of heavy-duty terraforming equipment; sucked up all the mine's profits for the first three years." the outlets, and build up reservoir walls, before I could guarantee the floods wouldn't crash through the mud basin. Then we needed irrigation ditches down into the basin. And silt collection systems, so that the soil the floods used to carry down here would still reach the basin and renew its topsoil. You want to come back down now? I want to show you the grain samples and the test results. It's not quite ripe yet, of course," he chattered as he led the way down the path, "but it's going to be a prime crop. Amaranth-19-hyper-J Rev 2, if that means anything to you. High in protein, loaded with natural nutrients, super yield from that rich topsoil. We should be able to feed ourselves and have a surplus to sell. That's why I waited until now to claim Intelligent Sentient Status for the Loosies; I wanted to be sure we would be self-sufficient in case PTA decided to curtail the ration shipments. And I didn't dare start planting until the whole flood control system had been put in place and tested. The Loosies would never have trusted me again if they'd put in a crop and seen it washed away. We needed a lot of heavy-duty terraforming equipment; sucked up all the mine's profits for the first three years."

They reached the bottom of the mountain and Blaize set off at a brisk walk towards the hut. Forister took his arm and gently urged him away from the hut, towards the edge of the mesa. "I'd like to get a closer look at this grain crop of yours before we go inside," he suggested.

But they didn't wind up standing in the best place to a.s.sess the grain; they came to the edge of the mesa just above the ugly volcanic mud hole that disfigured the basin, with its lazy bubbles roiling and tumbling just before the sticky surface of the mud.

Forister eyed Blaize warily. "You've been forcing the natives to work in a corycium mine owned by you."

"Persuading," Blaize corrected.

"They believed your promises to use the profits for their own good?"

Blaize flushed. "I don't think they fully understood what I had in mind at the beginning. Most of them, anyway. Humdrum and Gargle got the idea, but they never believed it would work."

"Then...?" Forister left the question dangling.

"I think," Blaize said almost inaudibly, "I think they did it because they like me a little."

"Other reasons have been suggested," said Forister.

Blaize looked blank for a moment, then noticed the direction of Forister's gaze. He was staring down at the volcanic mud bubble.

"Oh. Fa.s.sa del Parma again?"

"And Dr. Hezra-Fong," said Micaya, "and Darnell Overton-Glaxely. You've still to clear up their allegations of torture."

"I-I see." With a sudden leap, Blaize jumped away from Forister and Micaya to perch on a boulder sticking halfway out from the side of the mesa. "You want proof that I didn't torture Humdrum?"

"It won't do any good to produce some other native and claim he was the one you tortured publicly, and that he recovered," Micaya told him, "just in case you were thinking of that. You've no way to prove you didn't murder and bury the one witnesses saw you torturing."

"Well, it was Humdrum, all right, and he'll tell you so, but I see your point," Blaize agreed. He fumbled at the front of his tunic; the synthofilm sides parted and he folded the garment neatly. "My best tunic," he explained politely, "you'll understand I don't want to ruin it."

"What are you doing? Come back, boy!" Forister called, just too late; Blaize had skidded down a couple of feet and was clinging to a rock ledge barely out of reach.

"Just a minute," Blaize panted in between some strange contortions. His synthofilm trousers collapsed in a shining heap around his ankles; he kicked them upwards and they snagged on a thorn bush.

"Blaize, don't do this. don't do this." Micaya spoke in tones of quiet authority that seemed for a moment to weaken Blaize's will. He paused on the ledge, his milk-white skin almost glowing against the dull hues of the volcanic pool beneath him.

"I have to," he said calmly. "It's the only way."

Before either of them could argue further, he leapt from the ledge in a spiraling, awkward dive that ended with a resounding smack in the center of the heaving mud. White arms and legs splayed out, red head still, for a moment he seemed to have been stunned or killed outright by the fall. Then he kicked and wriggled vigorously, sinking deeper into the bubbling glop with each movement.

"Hold still," Forister called, "we'll get a rope to you-we'll do something-"

Blaize turned over onto his back. A thick layer of mud coated his body, barely preserving the decencies. He thrashed around in what Nancia belatedly recognized as an attempt at the backstroke.

"Come on in, Uncle Forister," he called up. "The mud's fine today!"

"Are you all right?" Micaya shouted while Forister, for once, struggled to find his voice.

"Couldn't be better. Mud's just at sauna heat today." Blaize stretched and wriggled luxuriously and grinned up at them through mud-spattered cheeks. "I don't usually dive from that high up-knocked the breath out of me for a minute-but I thought you needed the demonstration. Care to join me?"

Micaya looked quizzically at Forister. The brawn kicked off his shoes and rolled his trouser legs up. "Oh, I'm going down, all right," he said between clenched teeth. "It's the quickest way to get my hands on that boy. And then I'm going to-to-" Words failed him.

"Torture him in a boiling mud hole?" Micaya suggested.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Nancia deliberately slowed her speed for the short hop from Angalia to Shemali. She needed time to check her records, time to access the Net and look for evidence of Polyon's scam. Somewhere in all the past five years' records of metachip and hyperchip transactions there must be some clue to his criminal activities-for she could not believe he had totally given up on the plans he'd announced during her maiden voyage. Not Polyon de Gras-Waldheim.

Even Net access was not always instantaneous, particularly when one was gathering and collating all the public records on sale, transfer or use of hyperchips in the known galaxy. Nancia idled and hoped that her pa.s.sengers would not notice how long the voyage was taking.

Fortunately, they all seemed wrapped up in their own concerns. Fa.s.sa, Alpha and Darnell were all being held in separate cabins, dealing with the long spells of solitary imprisonment in their own ways. Alpha requested medical and surgical journals from Net libraries and studied the technical material Nancia downloaded for her with intense concentration, just as if she thought she would be permitted to practice her chosen profession again. Not if I have anything to say about it, Not if I have anything to say about it, Nancia vowed silently. But the truth was, she didn't have much to say. She could record her testimony and the images she'd received via contact b.u.t.tons, and those depositions would go into evidence at Alpha's trial. But after that, all would be up to those softpersons who controlled the high courts on Central. Most of them were High Families; half of them had some connection, kinship or financial, with the Hezra-Fong clan. Alpha might very well be free-not immediately, but in five years or ten or twenty, a mere blip in the life of a High Families girl with fewer than thirty chronological years behind her and access to the best rejuv technology to expand her life span close to two hundred years. Nancia vowed silently. But the truth was, she didn't have much to say. She could record her testimony and the images she'd received via contact b.u.t.tons, and those depositions would go into evidence at Alpha's trial. But after that, all would be up to those softpersons who controlled the high courts on Central. Most of them were High Families; half of them had some connection, kinship or financial, with the Hezra-Fong clan. Alpha might very well be free-not immediately, but in five years or ten or twenty, a mere blip in the life of a High Families girl with fewer than thirty chronological years behind her and access to the best rejuv technology to expand her life span close to two hundred years.

Not for me to decide, Nancia reminded herself, and turned her attention to the other two. As a safety precaution she kept sensors in all their cabins active at all times, but she tried not to pay too much attention unless the sensor receptors flashed to indicate unusual activity. Nancia reminded herself, and turned her attention to the other two. As a safety precaution she kept sensors in all their cabins active at all times, but she tried not to pay too much attention unless the sensor receptors flashed to indicate unusual activity.

Darnell's activities were usual enough, Nancia supposed, for someone enslaved to a softperson's pitifully limited array of sense-receptors. He had requested Stemerald, Rigellian smokefowl and an array of Dorg Jesen's feeliep.o.r.n hedra; Nancia had supplied nonalcoholic nearbeer, synthobird slices, and the hedra which Forister told her were the nearest things to p.o.r.n in her library. Darnell spent most of his time reclining on his bunk, washing down synthobird and candied brancake with the nearbeer and watching a remake of an Old Earth novel over and over again. Nancia couldn't understand what he saw in the datacorded adventures of this Tom Jones, but then, it was none of her business.

Blaize was confined in the cabin opposite Darnell's. After half an hour's furious argument about who would look after "his" Loosies while he was being shipped back to Central, he'd accepted Nancia's promise to see that her sister Jinevra personally oversaw whoever was sent to replace him on Angalia. "One thing about the Perez line, they're hopelessly honest," he said in resignation. "Jinevra may not be creative, but at least she won't let that swine Harmon get his hooks into them again. You do realize that if this year's harvest fails, all my work will be wasted?"

"I realize, I realize," Nancia told him patiently. "Trust Jinevra." And as she sent out a general Net call to Jinevra and explained the situation to her sister, she wondered guiltily just how different she was from the rest of the High Families brats. Daddy had pulled strings to get her sent on this a.s.signment. Now she was calling in favors owed her in Courier Service, and making her sister feel guilty, so that she could interfere in what should have been left to the normal channels of PTA administration.

But "normal channels" left the Loosies without the kind of aid they needed. Nancia sighed.

"Will there never be a bureaucracy that does what it's supposed to without sinking into corruption and inefficiency?" she asked Forister.

"Probably not," he replied.

"You sound like Simeon-advising me to accept corruption because it's everywhere!"

Forister shook his head. "Not in the least I'm advising you not to waste energy being surprised and shocked about the predictable. No system, anywhere, is proof against human failings. If it were-" he forced a tired smile-"we'd be computers. Your hyperchips may be foolproof, Nancia, but the human part of you makes mistakes-and so do all of us. Fortunately," he added, "humans can also recognize and correct mistakes-unlike computers, which just go on until they crash. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like access to your comm system for a while. I want to see what I can do to prevent Blaize from crashing."

While Blaize's explanations had satisfied all of them on an emotional level, he still had some legal problems to face. No matter how excellent his motivation, the fact remained that he had falsified PTA reports, sold PTA shipments on the black market, and transferred the profits into his personal Net account. To leave him on Angalia while the others were shipped back for trial would have seemed like the worst kind of favoritism. All Forister could do was to make sure that all all the facts were on record for the trial-not just how Blaize had obtained the money, but what he had done with it and how he had improved the lives of the people he was sent to aid. the facts were on record for the trial-not just how Blaize had obtained the money, but what he had done with it and how he had improved the lives of the people he was sent to aid.

"They are are people," Forister reported to Blaize with satisfaction. people," Forister reported to Blaize with satisfaction.

"Of course they are! Couldn't you tell that?"

"What I thought, or what you thought, is beside the point," Forister told him. "What counts is CenDip's decision. And there must be at least one intelligent man in CenDip, because your report has already been received and acted on. The Loosies have ISS as of yesterday. And the decision's palmprinted by no less a person than the CenDip Secretary-Universal, Javier Perez y de Gras."

Nancia heard that with great satisfaction and turned her attention to her last prisoner. Fa.s.sa was spending most of this voyage just as she had spent the trip from Bahati to Angalia, crouched on her cabin floor, arms around her knees, staring at nothing and ignoring the food trays Nancia extruded at the dining slot. Untouched bowls of soup, baskets of sliced sweetbread, tempting fruit purees and sliced synthobird in glow-sauce went back into the recycling bins to be synthesized into new combinations of proteins and carbohydrates and fats. To all Nancia's gentle suggestions of food or entertainment Fa.s.sa replied with a dull "No, thank you," or "It doesn't matter."

"You must eat something," Nancia told her.

"Must I?" Fa.s.sa seemed obscurely amused. "No, thank you. I've had enough of men telling me what I must do and what I must be. Who cares if I get too skinny to appeal to anybody?"

"I'm not a man," Nancia pointed out. "I'm not even a softperson. And my only interest in your body is that I don't want you to get sick before..."

"Before my trial," Fa.s.sa finished calmly. "It's all right. You needn't be tactful. I'm going to prison for a long time. Maybe forever. As long as they don't put me on Shemali, I don't care."

"What's the matter with Shemali?" Nancia asked.

Fa.s.sa clamped her lips together and stared at the cabin wall. Her creamy skin was a little paler than usual, tinged with green shadows. "Nothing. I don't know anything about Shemali. I didn't say anything about Shemali."

Nancia gave up on Fa.s.sa for the moment. After all, there were other ways to find out what was up on Shemali. Reports on hyperchip production and sales should soon be coming in over the Net. A few invigorating hours of compiling evidence against Polyon would calm her and leave her better able to cheer up Fa.s.sa.

She felt a sneaking sympathy for the girl after reading her records. Growing up in the shadow of Faul del Parma couldn't have been easy. Losing her mother at thirteen, spending the next five years in a boarding school with not a single visit from her father, then sent out to Bahati to prove herself....Nancia thought she understood how Fa.s.sa might feel. But I didn't turn criminal to impress my family, But I didn't turn criminal to impress my family, she argued with herself. she argued with herself.

Your family, she replied, she replied, wouldn't have been impressed. wouldn't have been impressed. Besides, she'd had it better than Fa.s.sa. Daddy and Jinevra and Flix had dropped in regularly during the eighteen years Nancia spent at Laboratory Schools. It was only after graduation that Daddy had lost interest in her progress- Besides, she'd had it better than Fa.s.sa. Daddy and Jinevra and Flix had dropped in regularly during the eighteen years Nancia spent at Laboratory Schools. It was only after graduation that Daddy had lost interest in her progress- Softpersons could cry, and it was said that tears were a natural release of tension. Nancia looked up the biomed reports on the chemical components of tears, adjusted her nutrient tubes to remove those chemicals from her system, and concentrated on the Net records of hyperchip sales and transfer.