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Show She was smoothing back her hair and shaking her head. "What be the matter in hand?" Phrapp, in the meantime, had straightened up and was in the process of sighing heavily. Brandon, brought back to his problem, flung himself down in a chair by the desk. "The Needlesmith woman has escaped!" he said dramatically. "My neck is on the block!" "Thy head," said Chu witheringly. "Thy head is on the block." "Aye, aye, that as well," he said impatiently. "And we must needs find her at all cost. Knows she something of t h i s . . . " He shuddered. "... this Revolution. " "Well then, whither went the woman?" asked Chu. "Did I know that, good colleague," said Brandon in a fury. "I would go get her on the instant!" He put his head in his hands. Meanwhile, the Provincial had got up, and was looking surreptitiously around the office with his bright eyes, discovering his knife at last, lying on the floor behind Phrapp's legs-a fact which seemed to startle him inordinately. Phrapp looked at him wearily. He was massaging his wrists with gentle care. "So...the Needlesmith woman has escaped," said Phrapp slowly. "Aye," said Brandon. "And, forsooth, she's taken with her a Skilled child. Oh!" Brandon said piteously. "I'm undone. This imprudence will go forthwith into all our files. We'll all of us retire as deputy AVMs!" He pulled ineffectually at his clothes which were a mishmash of yellow, off-magenta, and green-blue, and fastened together every which way. His pale 173 |