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Show sitting in and pushed herself up on her protesting feet. "I am here," she said. "Pray wilt thou come in?" The android whipped around in a swirl of skirts after this mincing and silvery invitation and flowed back into the room. Dr'Anya frowned. There was a great demand among the Managers for doll-like androids such as the one who'd just addressed her, but marry they suited not Dr'Anya's taste! Those round spots of rouge upon each cheek, those wide-open, heavily lashed eyes-Isaac's devils! She paced along in the android's wake the whilst, with the deliberate dignity bred of incredibly sore feet, and came face to face with the android's human counterpart. The woman sitting before her had her black hair coiled and curled on the top of her head, and covered with a silver filigreed cap from which flowed an extensive but gossamer veil. She smiled brightly at Dr'Anya with her cupid-bow lips, and her eyes shone ethereally through thick spider-leg eyelashes. Indeed Dr'Anya needed a double-look to ensure herself that the woman was not another android-the more so after the apparition spoke, for her high, clipped, birdlike accent was identical to that of her android assistant. "Merchant Gundarholt?" the woman chirruped. Ah, marry, thought Dr'Anya, the CrossoverSyndrome, and then she bowed her head perfunctorily. "Indeed I am," she said aloud. "I am ThirdStage Deputy Assistant Vice Manager McCrory?" Was it necessary for these two to end all_ their sentences up in the air? The android stood beside her mistress, hands clasped at her 37 |
