Date:         Thu, 22 Aug 1996 20:05:03 -0700
From: Clive Warner <cwarner@INTERCABLE.NET>
Subject:      Re: INT: The Hub: Ten Forward

Reserved: Moi Fakel; Vik Sperran; Gell (the android)


        Moi Fakel watched as Vik Sperran pressed the bonefone to his skull,
squirming the handpiece around as if he was trying to meld it with his scalp.
A dreamy look came over Sperran's face. Fakel had seen that look many times
before. It meant only one thing: Sperran was 'talking' to his personal
Android, Gell.
        It would have seemed like telepathy to old earth-dwellers, Fakel
mused. In reality it was simple. The PS/X transducer embedded in Sperran's
visual cortex linked to its mate in the bonefone. The fone linked with another
fone - or in this particular case, directly with the computer in Gell's
'abdomen' - and silent, two way, 3-D, imagery flowed back and forth.
Fakel had read the history of Old Terra. People had lived their lives
deaf, or blind, or dumb, or any combination of all three. He shuddered.
It was inconceivable.
        A large cloud of puce smoke drifted by. Fakel leaned forward
slightly, and sniffed delicately. Someone was smoking Cannibal's Resin.
It was strictly prohibited on ship. If the Ghoons caught you, the penalty
was the same for all species: To be taken to the nearest airlock, there
to undergo trial by endurance, by resisting the vacuum of space for one
ship's minute. The ship's clocks were notoriously innacurate, since they
were sentient. Given the unemployment situation, every job possible must,
by law, be given to a sentient creature, in this case the Bacteriumans of
Doomp. Besides, his sinuses were in a terrible state.
        Sperran's face cleared. He took the fone away from his head and
grinned at Fakel.
        "Gell's on his way," he said.
        A discordant note came from the sting band over on the rostrum. Fakel
and Sperran winced in pain. Moments later one of the players shrieked and
doubled over, clutching at its left side. A small cloud of dark brown smoke
drifted away from that place. The band member uttered a bleating sound and
staggered away from the podium, then collided with a table and bleated again.
        Over the speakers a robotic voice announced: "Second degree punishment
administered. Target: genital area. B flat minus minus, inelegant construct."
        Fakel winced and wrinkled his nose at the smell. It reminded him of
Big Bite hotdogs that had been on the rotating griddle for too many days.
        The bandster fell to the floor, still bleating, but more plaintively.
A strange violet/green fluid leaked from below its closed fingers and
trickled on to the rexeroid floor. The fingers moved faster and a strange
look came on the alien's face. Both its mouths turned downwards at the middle
and its eye dilated. More bleats came from the remaining band members, who
began peering at their ex-partner on the floor. Two of them nodded at
each other, came down off the stage, and began kicking their downed colleague.
With four legs going at once, it wasn't a pretty sight.