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Show again, all is right!' Aye, but still 'twould work not at all, because after that trifling glitch, went I on to make another, then another, and then another, roundly back to the bedamned keyboard! Aye and 'twill take the unmentionable BisonHeads whole Se'enDays to find them all!" He rocked onto his back and laughed silently for a full minute. Then he rolled back to face Phrapp again. "Ye see now, excrementi?" he said, and went back to sharpening his knife on the stone. Phrapp regarded him passively and kept his silence, sitting in his corner for nearly a half hour and watching the hypnotic movement of the blade on the stone until his eyes grew heavy with sleep. He lifted them to look at Chu who was sound asleep by then herself and then looked back at the Provincial. In that instant, the Provincial himself had drifted off, his head on his outstretched arm, his knife in one hand, the stone lying on the open palm of the other. I must needs think of my escape, thought Phrapp to himself, and he stayed very still for a long while going over in his mind all the possibilities for getting out of there. But then he fell asleep himself. Much later, Phrapp became conscious of light against his eyelids, bright light. He opened his eyes. The ion globes were all on in Chu's sanctum, and looking up, he could see grey dawn beyond the high, narrow window. He looked then at his two captors: they were both alseep, Chu snoring softly, the Provincial breathing deeply with his head turned away from Phrapp. The knife had fallen out of the Provincial's hand and was lying, mayhap, fifteen inches away from Phrapp's foot. 171 |