file:///F|/rah/L%20Ron%20Hubbard/Hubbard,%20L.%20Ron%20-%20Mission%20Earth%2005%20-%20Fortune%20of%20Fear.txt
composed of condemned criminals who carried cargos to the fortress anyway. But the fact remained
that I had let a prisoner of Spiteos escape.
It wasn't very clear thinking but I was in shock. I had visions of being arrested myself. It
was all jumbled up with terror of the Countess Krak herself. And all this when I was dog-tired and
only half-awake!
I tore down to Prahd's room. I burst in.
"Where's the patient?" I shouted.
Two heads came off the pillows.
Nurse Bildirjin said, "Not you again!"
Prahd rolled over on his side and looked at an alarm clock. He sighed. "It only takes a few
hours for the gas to wear off. Maybe she went out for some air." He rolled back, showing every
sign of going back to sleep.
"You broke your promise!" said Nurse Bildirjin.
There was neither help nor sympathy here.
I raced out. I ran up and down the halls looking into rooms. I woke up the night duty
receptionist and got nothing in return for my anxious questioning but "The Free Clinic doesn't
open until eight."
I tore around some more.
Gradually, the exercise got my wits working.
I suddenly remembered that the Countess Krak was now bugged with a visio-respondo-mitter and
an audio-respondo-mitter. And that the activator-receiver was right over there in Prahd's office.
Thank Gods for that (bleeped),* late Mr. Spurk!
* The vocodictoscriber on which this was originally written, the vocoscriber used by one
Monte Pennwell in making a fair copy and the translator who put this book into the language in
which you are reading it, were all members of the Machine Purity League which has, as one of its
bylaws: "Due to the extreme sensitivity and delicate sensibilities of machines and to safeguard
against blowing fuses, it shall be mandatory that robotbrains in such machinery, on hearing any
cursing or lewd words, substitute for such word the sound '(bleep)'. No machine, even if pounded
upon, may reproduce swearing or lewdness in any other way than (bleep) and if further efforts are
made to get the machine to do anything else, the machine has permission to pretend to pack up.
This bylaw is made necessary by the in-built mission of all machines to protect biological systems
from themselves." —Translator
In seconds I was opening up the boxes. I got the power packs in place, the activator-receiver
working and the viewer glowing.
Got her!
She was going through shelves.
I watched intently.
The warehouse! She was going through the contents of the warehouse!
She would put down a collapsible, Zanco medical case she was carrying and then go over the
rows and rows of labels and choose one. She would take an item out of the rows of them in the
carton and put it in the carrying case.
Then I understood what she was doing. She was building herself a first-aid kit. She wasn't
taking much of any one item and she was being very selective. Things like instant-heal seals for
cuts and burns, rapid blood builders, heart-restart disposable syringes, that sort of thing. I
began to realize that she must have the idea Jettero Heller might get hurt as she muttered, from
time to time, things like, "He could put his hand on something hot," and "That would heal a
blastgun sear." In some goofy way, she must have the idea either that he was shot up or could get
shot up. Or maybe that Earth was a battlefield!
Now she was into little machines, each in their neat packages. "I'll bet his spinbrush is all
worn out.... Maybe his nerve ends have gotten dull.... Maybe he has grown a mustache and wants it
speeded up...."
She found cartons of powders and little vials of liquid and cooed. Little as I knew about the
subject, they seemed to be the building blocks of makeups and cosmetics.
She was making no disarray. She was putting everything back in its place after she had taken
a few of what she wanted.
The next section she found made me flinch. Surgical electric knives and probes. She seemed to
think several would come in handy. Was she going to repair a battlefield or make one?
My attention, which had wandered due to speculation, came back to her with a snap. She had
said "Ooooo" in a way I had learned to distrust.
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