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make me edgy. Keep your money, Mr. Ormann. And don t call I
won t answer. She unsealed the office door and departed, leaving
one bewildered and angry executive in her wake.
What now, Ormann? he asked himself. You hire two of the best
to beat Lynx up; they come back all touchy-feely hand in hand with-
out having laid a finger on him. You hire the best investigator in
Sphene and she comes back scared. Clarity continues to see and
sympathize with him. You can t touch him yourself because that
would immediately cause her to move even closer to him not to
mention that you d have to deal with that minidrag.
Wait a minute, he thought. If this kid is crafty or controlling or
powerful enough to do what he s done already, and seemingly with-
out expending an effort, might he have a history of doing such
things? If so, there should be some sort of trail. Maybe, Ormann
mused silently, he was going about this all wrong. Being subtle,
when what was called for was not subtlety but directness. By now
he had acquired excellent visual and auditory records of Lynx. It
should be a fairly straightforward matter to trace the recent history
of his arrival on Nur. Learning how he had arrived and where he had
arrived from, however transient, would at least give Ormann some-
thing solid to proceed from. Vendra was not the only accomplished
investigator on New Riviera. Offering enough money always drew
takers, no matter the perceived danger.
His standing in the business community had enabled him to
build up an inventory of multiple contacts. It was time to call in
some favors.
What he was about to learn would at once surprise and please
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him far more than anything he had discovered about his nemesis
thus far.
But I don t know how to dance. I ve never danced.
Clarity found Philip s embarrassment at his professed lack of
terpsichorean skill almost as amusing as his evident physical dis-
comfort from the suit he was wearing. Going with him to buy it had
been an adventure in itself. She had prevailed only because she in-
sisted that if he didn t wear something different she would refuse to
see him anymore.
Don t you even own a formal outfit? she d challenged him.
I have very few personal possessions, he had replied truth-
fully. Of course, one of those possessions happened to be a starship,
but she already knew that.
Now he twisted and twitched like someone afflicted with an
irritating skin disease. Having long since given up any hope of re-
taining even a semi-stable perch, Pip had retired to the retronouveau
supports of the table, where she and Scrap blended so well with
the sculpted flow of the multiple legs that anyone standing more
than a meter away would have had a difficult time telling the living
minidrags from the inorganic, flowering metal.
He looked good in the suit, she told herself. Light-traced, body-
imaged, patterned, cut, and sealed, it had been composited and tai-
lored on one of Sphene s trendiest shopping promenades in less than
an hour. Next week it would be out of fashion, as was the norm. But
for one night at least, Flinx looked like something other than
a hub-switch repairman. The shimmering maroon material flashed
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FLINX S FOLLY
only a minimum sufficiency of highlights. It stood out nicely in con-
trast to her more subdued forest green, off-the-shoulder casual
gown. Sensitized to specific parts of the visible spectrum, significant
portions of her attire blinked transparent when encountering any-
thing shifted into the ultraviolet.
Now she discovered that not only couldn t he dress properly, but
also he couldn t dance. That did not stop her from rising from her
seat, taking one of his hands, and pulling him toward the crowded
floor.
Anyone can dance, Flinx. I ve seen you move. You re agile and
flexible. I know you can do it.
Feeling like a complete idiot, in which condition he had been
preceded by the great majority of the male members of his species,
he reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged toward the middle of
the softly lit room. The nearer they drew to the dance floor, the more
he felt as if his legs were turning completely nonfunctional. The fact
that he loomed over nearly everyone else made him feel that much
more conspicuous.
Clarity, on the other hand, reveled in the exposure. Just follow
me, she instructed him, her voice rising above the thumping yet
melodious music. Let yourself go.
I ve never been able to let myself go, he confessed frankly.
Then it s about time you learned. Backing slightly away from
him, she began to move, to twirl, and to rise slightly off the reflec-
tive surface as the repellers integrated into her silken shoes reacted
to the push-pulse of the energized floor.
He would have been happy just to watch her, as several other
male patrons of the club were already doing. Without question she
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was the most uninhibited gengineer he had ever met. Struggling
with his ingrained inclination to remain unobtrusive, he began, in
hesitant fits and jerks, to try and imitate her movements.
That s it! Shouting encouragingly above the roar of draums
and the graduated timbalon, she moved closer, put her hands on his
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