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Show xxxx "Never attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity." from Thoughts After Fifty TwelveMonths in the BauerWorlde Legislature, by Belinda Farquar Back in NewOxbridge, Managers Ivan, Jensen, and Andrus sat at a table in the NewOxbridge Refectory. In front of them were six empty bottles of D'bolo wine which Ivan had arranged in a circle. He had called for candles which a newly-activated android bought to him and now Ivan was attempting to put a candle in the neck of each bottle. "Thou dost not know when the Governor may crash again," he said owlishly to his two companions. "And well prepared we must be." Indeed it was a great mystery to him how everything had worked out. Some demon bug in the bedamned machine, in all verity. How came it that the memory disappeared, clean, and then came back again with these strange directives? Ivan had a theory about it which he'd tried to discuss with his colleagues there at the table, but he'd had such trouble forming the words correctly that he gave it up. Now that he bethought himself about it, he'd forgot the theory. Something about the long-buried guidelines of the Good Saints Issac and Ida, mayhap. He began laughing and couldn't stop. Manager Andrus looked at him sourly- "And what," she said levelly, "art thou laughing at?" Indeed, the Exalted Board of Managers had little to laugh at since they were all out 349 |