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There was no reply. The old man was lost in his thoughts, his hands
clasped tightly together, knuckles white with tension.
"Father...?"
The senior technician stirred himself. "How old do you think the First
Secretary is?"
The question puzzled Father Framson. "I don't know. 55? 60?"
"Much older."
"Well I suppose he could be approaching 70."
Father Dadley shook his head. "Look up the history of Arama, Fram. Caudo
Inman was First Secretary when I first came here at the age of seven. And that
was seventy years ago. And there were old technician-lecturers then who
remembered Caudo Inman when they were children."
The younger man looked stunned. "It's not possible!" he exclaimed.
"He uses children. Always the very clever ones. They train for a few
years and then disappear. I don't know what he does with them, and I'm almost
too frightened to guess... I'm an old man, Fram... I don't have many years
left, and little strength... But, by the outdoors, this time I'm going to use
what strength and time I have left to stop him."
PART 2.
Training.
1.
Jenine jerked her feet off the floor of the three student communal living
room, and hauled herself onto the couch. "Ewen! Will you please stop that!"
Ewen gave up trying to tickle Jenine's feet. He rolled over onto his back
and stretched his long legs, the result of a growth spurt the previous year.
He liked lying on the floor. Harsh, white daylight streamed onto his face
through the open window of the study apartment that he and Jenine shared with
another 10th year student. It was midday. The batteries of zargon discharge
lamps that were trained on the inside of the Centre's Dome 16 were at maximum
intensity. From outside came the cries, cheers and yelps of the warring teams
climbing the four-storey high glass pyramid. The Communications and Transport
Faculty that Ewen and Jenine belonged to was playing against Energy
Conservation, an inherently lazy team who, for once, were putting up a
spirited defence.
"Okay, Jenny next question." He always called her Jenny when he wanted to
annoy her.
She administered a kick. "It's Jenine! I've given up a practice session
on the pyramid to help with this revision. The least you can do is behave."
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Ewen closed his eyes. "Yes, Jenine. Sorry, Jenine. Next question,
Jenine."
The girl settled her datapad on her lap and called up another set of
examination questions. Apart from her height, she had changed little. Her
blonde curls were a little darker, but she still had the same angelic,
heart-shaped face that had so captivated Father Dadley when she had first
entered the Centre. "A travelator develops an intermittent fault on the low
speed band. It occasionally matches speed with the intermediate speed band,
and sometimes stops altogether. Give the corrective steps you would take, and
in right order."
"Step 1 close the travelator."
Jenine gestured impatiently. "Ten out of ten. Next?"
"Step 2 open the access cover to that section's controller."
"Oh, for goodness sake, be serious, Ewen. If you start giving answers
like that in this year's finals, you'll have to take them all over again."
"So?"
"So that will mean me moving onto the final year without you. I'd hate
that."
"No one to bully and dominate?"
"Exactly." To Jenine, the idea of being without Ewen was unthinkable.
During their ten years at the Centre, their study careers had moved in
quarrelsome parallel.
Ewen regarded the girl through half-closed eyes. She was staring
anxiously down at him with those green eyes, and he immediately regretted
teasing her.
"Okay," he said. "The fault is probably with the controller unit."
"Probably is sloppy!"
"Probability of a controller unit fault 80 per cent! All right?"
"Go on," Jenine prompted.
"Remove the controller board, test IC258 for correct logic activity on
line 10. If IC258 is within spec, repeat test on IC389."
"Very good," said Jenine grudgingly, looking at her datapad. "Word for
word. And if IC258 and IC389 are working?"
"Then it's a 90% probability that fault is an intermittent failure of the
GoD power to the slave motors."
"An interruption of the GoD power," Jenine corrected.
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is between your wording and the wording in this answer. A
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