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Show himself on his side on the floor; took out his knife, and began wiping the blade on the knee of his leggings. "Cut it?" persisted Phrapp. "Wast thou e'en going to cut it roundly through?" "Assuredly not, thou cask of excrementi!" Chu hissed in impatience. "Marry, any ComputerTech could have repaired it on the instant had it been cut through, merely," she said. "But, aye, 'twill take Se'enDays upon Se'enDays for the dolts to fix the Governor after I_ get done with it." The Provincial looked at Phrapp slyly and slipped a sharpening stone out of his tunic. Phrapp arranged a look of skepticism on the loose folds of his face and waited whilst the Provincial spat on the stone and then began to rub his knife in circles on top of it. At length the smaller man looked up. His face in the flarelight was swarthy and thin, his small eyes bright with malevolent mischief. An amulet with a single eye painted on it in gold leaf glittered against the scoundrel's ragged tunic, and a BauerBeaver's foot hung on a gold pin from his belt, together with a quantity of other charms. "There exists no wight to beat me at my trade," he said. Phrapp continued to look skeptical and the small man began to glower. "I'll tell ye what I'm going to do excrementi," the man hissed, throwing down his knife and stone. "Start I will at the terminal- seest thou?-and make a trifling glitch in the wiring, a glitch that has about it something of an accident. The dolts here know nothing of sabotage. Techs would be wasting their time for days searching about for a thing worn out or burned out. Then-then!-they find that trifling glitch, and on the instant be merry and right it and say: 'Look ye, all is well 170 |
