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sickness.>
if we don't succeed?>
to lose. It makes you vulnerable. >
farm work and operated dangerous farm machinery up until the day I was born.
And you
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kid if she's going to grow up under the
Quintara, so they'll know it, too.>
having arguments with women. And losing the arguments!>
They got up, finally, and walked back into the tiled bathroom. Jimmy had a
marker and began to draw the pentagram around them.
minute or two!> she noted.
wasn't it?>
The pentagram completed, they stood together and visualized another place,
another view, that they both had studied well. There was brief vertigo, and
they were suddenly standing outside, at street level, in the darkness under a
decorative side arch. There was some trash about; it wasn't the way to
anywhere and was unlikely to be invaded or cleaned between the time she'd
drawn the pentagram while pretending to fix her clothes in its shadow until
now. It didn't look like it had been cleaned in years.
"Well, all's quiet," he noted, still nervous. The packet they'd sent via the
cymol back on the frontier world of the station had included a detailed
account of what had happened along with an urgent appeal from Tobrush that the
Guardians at least talk to them. They had been urged to send a signal of
agreement to confer to the Mycohl, but according to Tobrush no such signal had
been received.
As an alternative, they were told to arrange a meet here, near the great
central
Exchange building, at midnight of the day they received, via cymol police, a
code. Today, Jimmy had picked out someone essentially at random while visiting
his old guild hall, and had done something theoretically impossible according
to known biology: he'd selected his mark, a Timir, and the little green
rodent-faced creature had then received a hypnotic compulsion via telepathy to
wait two hours, then call cymol control and phone in the code.
They scanned the area, but because they were not in total dimensional phase
they were severely limited in their range and accuracy.
she asked him.
here!>
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they II be givin' us the twice-over before revealin' themselves. I would. >
There was the sound of someone walking by, but they caught just a glimpse of
someone and the footsteps kept going.
Jimmy commented.
before they can break the barrier and sync us.>
The footsteps came back. They stopped for a moment, quite near, then started
again. Suddenly a young Terran woman came into view, stopped, turned, saw
them, and stared hard. She was casually dressed, but the sidearm and small
utility box on a belt around her waist marked her as a cymol cop.
"What are you two doing there?" she asked in a casual but official tone.
"We hoped we were here to meet someone from your office," McCray replied.
"Were you by any chance expecting us?"
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"I was not expecting you, no," the cymol replied. She drew her pistol. "Step
out here now! Come on, or I will be forced to stun you."
"I'm afraid that's not fully possible," Jimmy responded.
She wasn't programmed for nonsense. She fired almost immediately. The beam
covered the whole interior of the arch and lit up the dark place, but when it
faded they were still standing there looking at her.
The cymol was clearly not programmed for that sort of reaction. She made an
adjustment with her thumb and said, "Out! Now! Or I shoot full power at your
legs!"
"Go ahead," he invited, and she did. The blips of energy sufficient to have
broken and mangled their legs hit their marks, went through, and began to
cause the exterior of the building wall to flake and chip off.
Suddenly the whole area erupted with black-clad security troopers of a half a
dozen races, all carrying enough firepower to blow the building to bits.
"We were expected!" Modra exclaimed. "They got the message after all!"
"Projections!" the cymol shouted to the troops. "They're some kind of
projections!"
"It's the pair from the hotel," a translator-clipped voice said, coming from
one of the troopers. "Our people are going in now. Hold on . . . Empty! What
do you mean, 'empty'? You had all the exits covered!" Pause. "You did have all
the exits covered, didn't you? Well? Then where are they?"
"We're right here," Modra said sweetly.
The cymol bolstered her weapon and started to walk straight for them.
"Hold it!" Jimmy warned. "Any closer and we'll have to disappear on you! And
then we'll have to go through all this again someplace else!"
She stopped. "What is this?" she asked.
"Your masters got our report and our message," Jimmy replied. "Otherwise you
and all this firepower wouldn't be here. Hopefully they gave you the
information on us as well. We need to speak directly to the Guardians. The
matter concerns their own survival, and that of the Exchange. "
"That is impossible. Only cymols may speak to the Guardians."
"Then plug into them! Or get something that can plug you in. However you do
it.
We'll wait, even if we are catching our death out here."
"That is forbidden," she told them. "You are agents of the Quintara. You have
demonstrated an ability to seize control of cymols and reprogram them. To
connect would be to allow you access to the net and to the Guardians. That
cannot be permitted."
Modra's heart skipped a beat in excitement. This was the first time they'd
heard the name Quintara used by anyone other than themselves. She realized now
what the Guardians were thinking, had thought since they'd pulled their trick
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back at the station. That they had been returned as a time bomb, a way to
contact and disrupt the Guardians or their communications via a convincing
cover story. The fact that a Mycohl master had been with them meant nothing.
If you could change sides once; you could again, to save your own hide.
The high and mighty all-powerful Guardians of the Exchange were scared to
death of them!
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"We are nor agents of the Guardians," Modra said firmly. "We are their
enemies.
Our orders come not from the Engineer but from the Executive Officer."
"The Guardians are the highest uncontaminated life form in this galaxy," the
cymol stated. "If what you say were true, they would not require
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