"Frank Herbert - Whipping Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"You haven't investigated?" McKie's mental tone said Furuneo had been
entrusted with a most crucial operation and had failed because of inherent
stupidity.

Now fully alert to some unspoken danger, Furuneo said, "I acted as my orders
instructed."

"Orders!" McKee sneered.

"I'm supposed to be angry, eh?" Furuneo asked.

"I'll be there as fast as I can get service -- within eight standard hours at
the most," McKie said. "Your orders, meanwhile, are to keep that Beachball
under constant observation. The observers must be hopped up on angeret. It's
their only protection."

"Constant observation," Furuneo said.

"If a Caleban emerges, you're to detain it by any means possible."

"A Caleban . . . detain it?"

"Engage it in conversation, request its cooperation, anything," McKie said.
His mental emphasis added that it was odd a Bureau agent should have to ask
about throwing a monkey wrench into someone's activities.

"Eight hours," Furuneo said.

"And don't forget the angeret."
A Bureau is a life form and the Bureaucrat one of its cells. This analogy
teaches us which are the more important cells, which in greatest peril, which
most easily replaced, and how easy it is to be mediocre.

-Later Writings of Bildoon IV


McKie, on the honeymoon planet of Tutalsee, took an hour to complete his
divorce, then returned to the float-home they had moored beside an island of
love flowers. Even the nepenthe of Tutalsee had failed him, McKie thought.
This marriage had been wasted effort. His ex hadn't known enough about Mliss
Abnethe despite their reported former association. But that had been on
another world.

This wife had been his fifty-fourth, somewhat lighter of skin than any of the
others and more than a bit of a shrew. It had not been her first marriage,
and she had shown early suspicions of McKie's secondary motives.

Reflection made McKie feel guilty. He put such feelings aside savagely.
There was no time for nicety. Too much was at stake. Stupid female!