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Show images trembling slightly on the ground in the very center-they had been what caused the break betwixt them. The Colonists had taken one look and swore they were holographs projected by a well known jester in their own midst, Michael Rogerson, trying to scare them all with fairy stories. The fact was that they'd asked the Zetts about the wildlife in the Tartars and the obliging Zetts decided at once to show them. When Saint Isaac had begun laughing at his first sight of a JackPony,- the others could hardly forbear to join him. "Oh, go to, my dears," Isaac had said to the Zetts, the good saint's face getting very red, his stooped body shaking with pent-up laughter. Were they expected to laugh, God help us? he'd thought wildly. Were they wondering when we would burst into mirth, pardee? For the Zetts themselves dearly loved a joke. Or was it the holograph specialist, Michael, staging this inutterable stunt? That face...oh, holy Abraham and all his children, the face on that animal! Then Isaac's own face had cracked, and he'd ducked his head. "My dears!" he'd spluttered, "if that be not old Mallory back in the Lab, I be no true oceanographer! If that be not Mallory to a T. . . . !" "Mick!" another had cried. "How did ye that, good friend? By the very devil, how did ye that?" From that unruly beginning, things went from bad to worse and soon the Zetts were throwing rocks whenever the Colonists appeared near the caves. Then MidWinter came. The temperature on the Earthski thermometers registed seventy-five below zero and the wind howled down the windsocks on ChristmasTide FeastDay. To place life against principle were false reasoning when buffeted by such a storm and on a mission of such importance 91 |