To run things here you'd need standing navies, secret police, clumsy transceivers -- it would be almost as awkward as any other Beyonder empire, and of no profit to a Power." He turned and saw her dark expression. "Hey, I'm saying your pretty ass is safe." He reached down to pat her rear. Ravna brushed the hand away and stepped back. She'd been working on some clever argument that might set the guy to thinking; there were cases where Emissary Devices had changed their principal's decision. Now the half-formed ideas were blown away, and all she could think to say was -- "So how safe is your own tail, hmm? You say Old One is about ready to pack it in, go wherever overage Powers wander off to. Is he going to take you along, or maybe just put you away, a pet that's now inconvenient?" It was a silly shot, and Pham Nuwen just laughed. "More analogies? No ... most likely he'll just leave me behind. You know, like a robot probe flying free after its last use." Another analogy, but one to his liking. "In fact, if it happens soon enough,
mbt lami civiar black, I might even be willing to take on this rescue expedition. It looks like Jefri Olsndot is in a medieval civlization. I'll wager there's no one in the Org who understands such a place better than I. And down at the Bottom, your crew could scarcely ask for a better mate than an old Qeng Ho type." He spoke breezily, as though courage and experience were givens for him -- even if other people were cowardly scuts. "Oh, yeah?" Ravna's arms went akimbo, and she cocked her head to one side. It was just a bit too much, when his whole existence was a fraud. "You're the little prince who grew up with intrigue and assassination, and then flew away to the stars with the Qeng Ho.... Do you ever really think about that past,
bomoa black mbt, Pham Nuwen? Or is that something Old One tactfully blocks you from doing? After our charming evening at The Wandering Company, I did think about it. You know what? There's only a few things you can know for sure: You really were a Slow Zone spacer -- probably two or three spacers, since none of the corpses was complete. Somehow you and your buddies got yourselves killed down at the nether end of the Slowness. What else? Well, your ship had no recoverable memory. The only hardcopy we found seemed to be written in some Earth Asian language. That's all, all, that Old One had to go on when he put together the fraud." Pham's smile seemed a little frozen. Ravna went on before he could speak. "But don't blame Old One. He was a little rushed, right? He had to convince Vrinimi and me that you were real. He rummaged around in the archives, slapped together a mishmash reality for you. Maybe it took him an afternoon -- are you grateful for the effort? A snip from here and a snip from there. There really was a Qeng Ho,
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mbt katika sandals, a thousand years before space flight. And there must have been Asia-descended colonies, though that's an obvious extrapolation on his part. Old One really has a nice sense of humor. He made your whole life a fantastic romance,
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mbt footwear sale, right down to the last tragic expedition. That should have tipped me off, by the way. It's a combination of several pre-Nyjoran legends." She caught her breath and rushed on. "I feel sorry for you, Pham Nuwen. As long as you don't think about yourself too hard, you can be the most confident fellow in space. But all the skill, all the achievement -- do you ever look at it up close? I'll bet not. Being a great warrior or an expert pilot -- those involve a million subskills, all the way down to kinesthetic things below the level of conscious thought.