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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] They pick up planet-sliding by the time they can walk and talk co- herently, which is why some Queryan homes with small children have inhibitors. The static patterns are enough to stop smaller children most of them. Kyra was caught by the screen. No great surprise, since a hypnotic field was focused on her to intensify the material. Standard hazard list was the basis the dangers of suns, airless planets, black holes, blizzards, radiation, etc. Simplified, but the Guard's indoctrination series for wayward children laid it on thick. Designed for the extraordinarily headstrong children whose will had outpaced the development of their rational faculties. Two hundred and one units later, Kyra and her mother left the Locator section, presumably for home. I smiled and sat down on my stool in front of the console. I keyed her name into the records as a likely prospect for the Guard. While she might not pan but, anyone that strong at ten was likely to be one Hell of a diver in another five or ten years. My watch tour for that day was about up when Frey marched in and presented himself before my console. He wasn't swinging the black light saber, and he was decked out in formal blacks, with his Senior Guard's four-pointed silver star positively glittering. My insignia was the gold and green of a senior trainee. At the end of the year, when I finished with Locator and Domestic Affairs probation, I was eligible for promotion to full Guard status, and I could wear the solid gold star. The ranks were really quite few. After you became a Guard, centuries could pass before the next promotion. The Senior Guards wore the four- pointed silver star. Counselors wore black stars edged with gold, and the three Tribunes had black stars edged with silver. When I looked at the Guards I came in contact with, I wondered who was selected, by whom, and why. Freyda was a Counselor, and likely to be a Tribune whenever Martel stepped down, or so the gossip ran. Baldur was a Counselor, but Gilmesh, who had more service than either and was in charge of Personnel, was only a Senior Guard. Frey had been promoted to Senior Guard a few years back and had been assigned to run Locator/Domestic Affairs when Wolflen hadn't come back from a scout run to Atlantea. Frey was in a hurry. "Report to Domestic Affairs as soon as you're relieved. Need a second stand-by Guard with hand-to-hand skills." He was gone. No explanation. No questions about my availability. Just report to Domestic Affairs, I wondered if I were getting a reputation as a stand-by muscler as a Page 26 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html result of Baldur's report on the Sinopol dive. I was curious. I'd only had lectures on Domestic Affairs and wasn't scheduled to do my probationary work there until much later in the year. Why had Frey ordered me as a back-up Guard? For what? By the time Ferrin arrived to relieve me at 1050, I was itching to go. Ferrin picked it up. He catches everything. Might not have been much of a diver, but if anything were in the wind, his long thin nose and keen ears were the first to find out. "Know what's going on in Domestic Affairs?" I asked with a straight face. Ferrin smiled, and his smile and too-big teeth lighted his face like a glowbulb. "Heard Frey needs muscle. Didn't want to turn to Heimdall for it. You were selected, shining star." I grinned back at him. Even though he was snoopy, and his lank black hair hanging over his forehead and his long nose gave him a vulture- like look, I had to like Ferrin. "So why does Frey need me?" I had another question, stupid, but Ferrin could answer it, and I didn't need one of Gilmesh's sarcastic answers. "And why does he run both Locator and Domestic Affairs?" "Do honey and soda bread go together?" I thought for a minute, then shook my head. Ferrin, ready to explain anything, plunged in. "Look, Loki, at what Locator does. Locator tracks people. Now what does Domestic Affairs do? Handles the police functions. And how could it handle the police functions without being able to track people?" It made sense. I hadn't had to track someone wanted by Domestic Affairs, but Loragerd had told me the story of her second watch at Locator, when the Guard's special Domestic Force had gone out with stunners after a man who had tried to storm Martel's house with an ax. Using an ax against anyone or his home is bad enough, and it doesn't happen very often, but to lift it against the High Tribune ... the wretch deserved a term in Hell for something like that. Only problem was he didn't get it. The Domestic Force finally cornered him on a cliff edge under the Bardwalls, right below the Garthorn, but before they could stun him, he'd jumped off, and there was no way to match fall velocities, especially on Query. Besides, who'd want to for a nut like that? I'd asked Loragerd if she knew more about the incident, but she didn't, only that the man had yelled something about the "tyranny of time" and screamed he was tired of being a "poor, dumb sheep." No trial. The matter was closed. "What's so hot that Frey needs me?" Ferrin stopped smiling. "I have not the glimmer of an idea, nor even the inkling of a conceptual hypothesis. Unfounded rumor would indicate that he requires someone with outstanding sliding skills and of a physical nature, someone who is not beholden totally to Assignments." Whenever Ferrin used the double-talk, he meant he couldn't verify what he said, that he was guessing. His guesses were better than most Guards' knowledge. And translated Frey needed a junior goon who might be expendable, and he wanted to round the goon up without asking Heimdall's help. I reported to Domestic Affairs at 1103 and was promptly greeted by Frey, Gilmesh, and a Guard I'd never met. "Loki, this is Hightel," noted Frey. Hightel was stocky, broader than me, with rock-sandy hair, brown eyes. He Page 27 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |