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Show distractedly. "The Doctors!" Chu said contemptuously. "Never have they done anything except Gather Data, and the folk hold them all in such reverence!" Contempt sat comfortably on Chu's oval face, supported by her small, sharp chin and high cheekbones. The need to run sixteen memos out before luncheon each day-which virtue had been bred into her Bauercrat family over ten generations-had served to thoroughly cement an already stoney disposition incidentally inherited. "Well and truly, the Doctors were the first to b r a v e . . . " began Brandon. Phrapp interrupted. "In the early days they did plenty, indeed," he said. "Surveyed they this worlde entire." He sucked at his peppermint and looked off into the middle distance. "And such a worlde, withal!" He smiled with his large, loose mouth, a mouth that was a bit too much for the space alotted to it, rather like the stretched neck of an old sweater. "And the Earthskis proposed," Phrapp continued, "that BauerWorlde be Earthlike! " He threw back his head and laughed. "Well," said Brandon affably, "the seasons are a bit extreme, and that verily." "And a touch capricious, forsooth," said the young AD, smiling brightly. Indeed, the uncertainty of the weather was at the bottom of BauerWorlde's layered outfits of light undershifts, jerkins and briefs, tunics and leggings, longdoublets over shortdoublets, cassocks, plissons, capes, cloaks, and furs, one on top of the other, depending on the season, so that they could be flung off or huddled into, according to what chanced to happen during the day. Of course, the curious style of these outfits was 51 |