…
lying
? He had observed favours lying to clients and sometimes to each other when they were throwing around false compliments, but they didn’t lie about substantive issues.
He knew she’d turned on the light. He’d seen the effects on the client. He’d also seen her accidentally use it on the male favour who’d come to her dressing room, though in that instance she might not have realized what she’d done.
“Have you looked at the light?”
The two favours exchanged a glance. Though he was supremely confident in his interpretive abilities, he found it difficult to decipher the favours’ reactions under all the makeup and surgical alterations.
Bright nodded. Her face was somewhat less regular than Fon’s. He could see why she was forty-second in the credit standings rather than first. But there was something compelling about her small anomalies, such as the way her hair wasn’t quite perfect and her right eyebrow was slightly and permanently higher than the left. It made her look as though she was listening intently to a good joke.
“What happened when you turned the light on?”
“Nothing,” said Bright, quickly.
“Well, not nothing,” said Fon.
“Mostly nothing.” Bright stared at Fon. If favours weren’t so obviously limited in the areas of empathy andcommunity, he would have thought all this glancing and staring was a means of communicating telepathically. Instead, it was plain to Grassly that Bright was simply trying to tell her dressing-mate to be quiet. And Fon wasn’t getting the message.
Ancestors. So sad.
“We pretty much passed out. After it flickered,” Fon said. Flickered. As he’d suspected, the flicker was the significant variable.
Grassly remembered that, when the previous version had been in the flickering phase, nothing had happened when he passed his hand through the uncertain beam. When the beam became steady, it had burned him.
“Have you looked at the beam since?”
“Only like ten times, practically,” said Fon. “It’s so pretty!”
To demonstrate, she turned the light on. She pulled the helmet off and stared into the light. She shone it into Bright’s face. Then she pointed it abruptly at Grassly.
The beam slid over his black uniform, and he jerked away as it moved up his body.
“Enough!” he shouted before she could burn the exposed part of his face.
She turned it off.
Grassly exhaled. Collected himself. Told himself to remember what Sally Lancaster had said about enlightenment in her book: “Light is the key to bringing all beings into harmony with nature.” She better be right about that. He reminded himself, in a supportive way, of what he was doing here and why. All creatures were worth saving, andany species that could dance like the ancestors deserved a second chance in a new, more hospitable environment. Once Earth had had time to recover, perhaps in five hundred or a thousand years, it too would be rehabbed and some new, deserving species would find a home here.
But in the meantime, the light required more testing before anything else went wrong.
There was another long pause as he considered what to say.
“Have you shone it on anyone else? Besides yourselves?” At this, Bright cleared her throat.
“No,” she lied. Again.
She was definitely afraid. She knew the light was doing something to people. That’s why she was trying to give the helmet to her dressing-mate. That was most decidedly not enlightened behaviour.
“Please give me the helmet,” he said, reaching out a hand to take it.
Fon gasped and clutched the pink hard hat to her chest.
“No!” she said. “It’s Bright’s. No one can touch her stuff, which she bought with her own credits, unless she says it’s okay!”
Bright looked down at her feet.
Grassly had violated yet another prime directive inside the Store. No one was allowed to confiscate anyone else’s goods for any reason—or even handle them without permission. It simply wasn’t done.
Still, he had
lying
? He had observed favours lying to clients and sometimes to each other when they were throwing around false compliments, but they didn’t lie about substantive issues.
He knew she’d turned on the light. He’d seen the effects on the client. He’d also seen her accidentally use it on the male favour who’d come to her dressing room, though in that instance she might not have realized what she’d done.
“Have you looked at the light?”
The two favours exchanged a glance. Though he was supremely confident in his interpretive abilities, he found it difficult to decipher the favours’ reactions under all the makeup and surgical alterations.
Bright nodded. Her face was somewhat less regular than Fon’s. He could see why she was forty-second in the credit standings rather than first. But there was something compelling about her small anomalies, such as the way her hair wasn’t quite perfect and her right eyebrow was slightly and permanently higher than the left. It made her look as though she was listening intently to a good joke.
“What happened when you turned the light on?”
“Nothing,” said Bright, quickly.
“Well, not nothing,” said Fon.
“Mostly nothing.” Bright stared at Fon. If favours weren’t so obviously limited in the areas of empathy andcommunity, he would have thought all this glancing and staring was a means of communicating telepathically. Instead, it was plain to Grassly that Bright was simply trying to tell her dressing-mate to be quiet. And Fon wasn’t getting the message.
Ancestors. So sad.
“We pretty much passed out. After it flickered,” Fon said. Flickered. As he’d suspected, the flicker was the significant variable.
Grassly remembered that, when the previous version had been in the flickering phase, nothing had happened when he passed his hand through the uncertain beam. When the beam became steady, it had burned him.
“Have you looked at the beam since?”
“Only like ten times, practically,” said Fon. “It’s so pretty!”
To demonstrate, she turned the light on. She pulled the helmet off and stared into the light. She shone it into Bright’s face. Then she pointed it abruptly at Grassly.
The beam slid over his black uniform, and he jerked away as it moved up his body.
“Enough!” he shouted before she could burn the exposed part of his face.
She turned it off.
Grassly exhaled. Collected himself. Told himself to remember what Sally Lancaster had said about enlightenment in her book: “Light is the key to bringing all beings into harmony with nature.” She better be right about that. He reminded himself, in a supportive way, of what he was doing here and why. All creatures were worth saving, andany species that could dance like the ancestors deserved a second chance in a new, more hospitable environment. Once Earth had had time to recover, perhaps in five hundred or a thousand years, it too would be rehabbed and some new, deserving species would find a home here.
But in the meantime, the light required more testing before anything else went wrong.
There was another long pause as he considered what to say.
“Have you shone it on anyone else? Besides yourselves?” At this, Bright cleared her throat.
“No,” she lied. Again.
She was definitely afraid. She knew the light was doing something to people. That’s why she was trying to give the helmet to her dressing-mate. That was most decidedly not enlightened behaviour.
“Please give me the helmet,” he said, reaching out a hand to take it.
Fon gasped and clutched the pink hard hat to her chest.
“No!” she said. “It’s Bright’s. No one can touch her stuff, which she bought with her own credits, unless she says it’s okay!”
Bright looked down at her feet.
Grassly had violated yet another prime directive inside the Store. No one was allowed to confiscate anyone else’s goods for any reason—or even handle them without permission. It simply wasn’t done.
Still, he had
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