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Show said dully. "In all verity, I had not thought of that at all. But we must have a rudimentary government in order to determine what goes into the* Governor. To parley around a table for such a thing, and with two potential dictators b e s i d e s . . . ! " He sighed. "'Twas not thinking clearly, to have proposed that parley!" Indeed, when Janni walked into the large room in the Round Valley building that had by then held the weary Phrapp hard at work in front of a terminal, the man had not a thought in his head about any of the reprogramming. He knew only that he must needs get power back to the poor wights in the Commendiums who must, by that time, have been in sore need of it, and had made the painful and weary journey there by JackPony, holding on to its back for dear life with his one good arm and praying the whilst to Saint Geraldine-of-the-Beasts and all her panoply for a safe delivery of his person. And he prayed as well to Saint Ida to help him remember the right spot to press in order to move aside the concealing stone-for that engineering was old Smith-Sheblem's effort and he described it in full to his young student many TwelveMonths before for just such an eventuality as this. Frowning into the middle distance after a half hour at one of the terminals, he had been only mildly surprised to see the girl walk in the big double doors, left standing open by Phrapp. "Thou art the good Dr'Anya's child, Janni," he said slowly. "I must needs do much work " He gestured to his useless and still-bandaged right arm. "I can help," Janni'd said. "Thou canst program?" 339 |