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r r
Completion, peace-"
"That's it. On."
"This crosses him." A woman, bound in front of a line of tall swords. "Eight of Gas. Interference,
accidental yet-"
"I know who's been trying to interfere, maybe well intentioned. A Polarian female, young, pretty-"
"Has she borne issue?"
"Had children, you mean? I don't think so. She's really very sweet, in a down-to-ground sort of way,
but not-"
"Page of Solid, then, for her Significator." The image formed. Tsopi.
"Yes-that's her! Check her out-I want to know if she's my enemy."
"This defines her." The image was of two overflowing cups. "Two of Liquid, signifying love,
harmony. There is no enmity here."
"So she's innocent!"
"So you believe. I would be inclined to trust that judgment."
"What crosses her?"
"This crosses her. Two of Solid, signifying change. Not really a negative indication-"
Flint had had enough. "Thanks, but I have to be on my way. Can you direct me to the location of the
Big Wheel?"
"I don't really advise-"
"I know you don't. But you have helped me-you really have!-and it's my decision."
The Hierophant glowed, resigning himself. "We do not impose advice beyond the Querent's desire. I
shall show you a map."
The map was a pattern of tastes on a sphere, unlike anything Flint had used before but quite adequate
to the present need.
He soon found himself at the entrance to the palace of the Big Wheel. "I have important information
for His Rondure."
The guard was unimpressed. "Your identity?"
"Emissary from Sphere Sol, transferred."
The guard checked as though this were routine. "The Wheel regrets he cannot interview you at this
time."
"He can't speak with a Spherical Emissary?" Flint demanded incredulously. "This is important!"
"There is an unexpiated debt."
"Well, I'll see him anyway." And Flint shoved by.
"Please desist," the guard replied. "I do not wish to incapacitate you."
But Flint continued on into the palace, certain that no attack would be made against an identified
agent of a friendly Sphere.
The guard shot him on the wheel with a jet of frictive powder.
The effect was immediate and alarming. A patch of the surface of his ambulation ball became
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r r
painfully rough, preventing him from controlling it properly. Uniformity of friction was vital to the
control of the spherical wheel; the body was always making small adjustments of balance. When the
compensation for a slippery surface was applied to a rough surface, that section grabbed and threw the
body to the side. But adjustment for extra friction fouled up the minimum-friction surfaces too. The
result was an increasingly erratic motion, ending in an ignominious crash.
Then Tsopi was there. No doubt the guard had notified her as soon as Flint identified himself. "Plint!"
she cried on his prostrate hulk. "How did this happen?"
"The watch-cog bit me, Topsy," he explained wryly.
"He tried to see the Big Wheel," the guard explained. He did not react to Flint's pun, as there was no
similarity in Polarian to the words for "dog" and "cog." Concepts could be translated; puns were lost.
There were, however, dogs in this Sphere; they were twi-wheeled, fast-rolling carnivores, readily
amenable to domestication.
Tsopi glowed with distress. "You cannot see him yet! I thought you understood that"
"I thought you understood that I have to see him. My mission-"
"It means that much to you?" she asked. "You risk injury-?"
"Cutespin, it means that much."
She glowed with vexation. "Then I shall not clog your roller. Come." She wrapped her supple tail
about his torso and drew him upright. Her touch was delightful.
"Page of Solid," he murmured against her skin as he tested his wheel. The friction was wearing off,
being diluted and cleaned away by his body, and he was able to function-carefully. "I'm glad I can
trust you."
"You have been to the Tarot Temple!" she murmured back. "I never thought to look there, Knight of
Gas."
"No, I'm the Hermit," he said. But he remembered how often the Gas cards, indicated by the flashing
swords (the symbolism being the way they sliced through air?), had shown up in his reading. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]