Palace by Katharine Kerr & Mark Kreighbaum

Author:Katharine Kerr & Mark Kreighbaum [Kerr, Katharine & Kreighbaum, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9780553573732
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 1996-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

The saccule looked up, looked back and forth between the two women while Samante sighed as loudly as a saccule herself.

‘Vida, you can’t let pity get in the way of choosing good servants. You’ve got a position to maintain and appearances to keep up. This neuter’s obviously the runt of its litter. We’ll have to send it back and buy another one ourselves.’

Greenie began to moan and move its head from side to side. Vida turned to the vidscreen. Just in time she stopped herself from summoning Calios and called up the clumsy search utilities instead.

‘Find: saccules and purchasing. Find: rules and regulations. Now: answer query. What happens to a saccule who is first bought, then returned?’

The utility answered briskly in a light mechanical voice. ‘A saccule that is returned is considered untrainable. Untrainable saccule neuters are killed.’

Greenie shrieked in a skirl of compressed air. Samante whirled round and glared at the screen.

‘That can’t be right,’ Samante snarled.

‘Cross-checking secondary databanks,’ the utility said. ‘Information is correct. Untrainable neuters are terminated by lethal injection. This procedure is fast and virtually painless. The drug used is -’

‘Stop!’ Vida snapped.

Samante turned from the screen and stared at Greenie with one hand over her mouth.

‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me,’ Vida said. ‘That’s why I called that data up.’

Very slowly Samante lowered her hand.

‘It understood the word killed,’ Samante said. ‘I know they don’t train them to that particular word as a conditioned response. It picked it up somehow, on its own.’

‘Yeah, so?’ Vida was briefly puzzled. ‘Oh! I see what you’re driving at.’

‘Yes, I imagine you do. It can learn words - symbols.’ Samante turned back to Greenie. ‘It’s all right, Greenie. You’re going to stay with me and Se Vida. You must do everything Se Vida says, but first we’ll get you some more food.’

Greenie smelled like ripe fruit. For a long time Samante stood staring in its general direction.

‘What’s wrong?’ Vida said at last.

‘I’m just surprised, is all.’ Samante turned away and looked vaguely out of the windows. ‘At how blind we can be when we want to. When there’s a good reason to stay blind.’

‘Yeah,’ Vida said. ‘I kind of know that, growing up in Pleasure like I did.’

‘I suppose so. Oh my lord, this past couple of days! I feel like I hardly know who I am any more.’

‘Huh? Why not?’

‘Well, I -I don’t even know why I said that.’ Samante shuddered with a little toss of her head. ‘Let me just call Service and get some proper food sent up for Greenie. Then we’ve got to start hiring the rest of the staff so I can get some furniture into our suite.’

* * *

The first thing Hi had installed in his new suite in East Tower was a transmit link. It allowed him to splice the Map terminal that came with the rooms into the photonics of guild headquarters. Since no furniture had arrived yet, he stood in the room that was going to be his office and called up onscreen Dian Wynn’s report on the damage to Pansect Media.

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