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Show Anting Alone Page 159 He approached the Big Fucking Mystery Tentflap, enchanted, unconsciously limbering up his volleyball-spiking/pea-picking muscles, but not being detained or deflected in any way from his course. Two individuals emerged as if on cue. Axelrad could only assume from their very presence here that they had once been Companions, but, by some magic, felicitous aural transfiguration, were no longer Companions: they were dressed and coif fed and muscled perfectly for the part; but they moved in rounded, organic motions as though they had bodies of carbon, as though they were actual participants in the process of natural selection, as though they were people; and, above all, they spoke in human beings' voices. One of them was enunciating beautifully the following lush sounds: "- and, see, the Elder says you gotta be literally right on top of them to be able to scramble their satellite sensor transmissions adequat -" They saw Axelrad and shut off the music. After living so long with only the android faces of the Companions and the occasional visitations from the deadpan mug of the bullyboy, Axelrad felt like a starving bum at a seven-course meal of meat. He fairly ate up the several abrupt changes of expression on these two individuals' faces. They must have been assuming that Axelrad was elsewhere hard at work in the alert, for he'd obviously taken them by surprise. They swallowed their shock at having been overheard, and zapped their faces back into android-faces only with great difficulty under Axelrad's ravenous gaze. Their faces showed each stage in the effort -to cover shock with a regulation lucite-coated gaze. The two individuals thought fast, traded off a few quiet clicks and |