OCR Text |
Show were plentiful and crops were thriving. ' Nevertheless, the end of SixthMonth found Lusela and Zud at Jothra's gates with fully one thousand warriors at their backs. "Look ye!" cried the Seljuk when Jothra came into view upon his herald's summons. She was brandishing a sheaf of papers in one hand and a sword in the other. "My contact tells us this portends invasion!" Jothra took the fluttering mass and ran his eye over the first page which was headed by the words, Final Notice in bold print. "Remittance demanded for three hundred and fifty metric tons of grain!" he cried, astonished. "Return of hardcopy and BubbleMemory or a fine of three hundred credits?" He flipped over the tops sheet and read again. "By the mass!" he said. "Here is a complaint form filled out on behalf of a trader named...-" He squinted at the paper. "...named Johann Bowersox who had lost an aircar to the Northerners in the Midway Tartars some time in the twenty-second century!" He frowned in anger, for he had indeed lost the priceless talisman of that ancient raid and no amount of praying with the good Anglicans had restored it to him. He read on silently for a few pages and then his eyebrows flew up. "Reparations?" he cried. "Confiscation?" Lusela smiled aside and winked broadly at Zud who was showing his entire complement of teeth in a grim smile. Indeed, she thought triumphantly, the infidels in the BauerNetwork came through for her in full measure! Jothra began reading aloud, his voice trembling in fury, his face alarmingly red. "...therefore if payment and/or property is not remitted in full by the last day of EleventhMonth of 2386, the BauerNetwork will be forced to institute proceedings for the purpose of seizing property equal 313 |