O Pioneer! Read Online Free PDF Page B

liked. The weather satellites had detected no approaching storms large enough to require special precautions for at least the next few weeks. All this information, she pointed out, was in their datastores already, so if they would simply move to accept the reports as rendered? They did. Then she paused, while Mr. Brownbenttalon whispered urgently in her ear, and twisted around to look at Giyt. "Great misery I have," she declared, "for necessity disimproving your nuptial night participation here with irritating complaints, but Delta Pavonis guys raise problem of conflicting interests. You speak now, Delta Pavonis guy." The Delt took his fingers out of his mouth again and began to bark at Giyt. Giyt was willing to do his best to get along with these alien freaks, even the Slugs. But he couldn't honestly say that he cared much for the Delts. For one thing, he thought they were unnecessarily ugly, with pop eyes that stared out in all directions from the top corners of their inverted-triangle heads. (Did the first humans call them Delts because of the name of their star, or for the Greek-letter shape of their faces? Giyt didn't know.) The Delts also smelled, well, distinctly rancid, even in the thoroughly air-conditioned confines of the Hexagon. And they had the reputation of being a nuisance.
    Which last trait the General Manager demonstrated for him now. The Delt translation program was little better than the Centaurian, but Giyt was able to figure out what the Delt was complaining about. It seemed that those steelhead trout Ex-Earth had stocked into Crystal Lake were eating the copepods the Delts had planted there, and no proper Delt could enjoy his dinner without a copepod garnish to give it taste. Something had to be done, the General Manager declared. Instantly. If not absolutely at that very instant, then certainly pretty damn soon, because all the Delts were suffering greatly from their deprivation.
    The Delt was doing his best to make Giyt suffer, too, because he went on and on about it. Giyt took some comfort in the fact that the other commissioners were paying very little attention to the Delt's complaints. Mrs. Brownbenttalon was whispering cozily to her principal husband as he perched just above her nose, the Kalkaboo was scratching its shiny pelt absorbedly, the Petty-Prime was studying its readout of reports, and the Slug was simply being a slug. And then, when at last the Delt was finished—or came to a breathing space in his oration—Giyt quickly promised to look into the matter, Mrs. Brownbenttalon immediately declared the session adjourned, and the audience applauded again as they all got up to go.
    "You were wonderful," Rina told him at the door. "See? I told you it would be a breeze."
    "Yes, sure," he said, abstracted, "but you go on home and I'll get there when I can. Right now I need to talk to the Hagbarths about this copepod business."
    Hoak Hagbarth wasn't in his office, which was also the Hagbarth home, but Olse was there. "You did fine," she told him at once. "Want some lemonade? I make it myself, bring in real lemons from Earth, Oh, the meeting? Sure, we both watched you on the screen, but Hoak's gone fishing. The copepods? My advice is, forget it. The damn Delts try that on every time there's a new mayor, but really, it's all Delt crap. There's no problem. We've got sonic barriers to keep the trout out of the copepod breeding places—you know, the wetland shallows in the lake's bays—and if they do eat a few of the cruddy little things every now and then, who cares? There's always plenty left over for the Delts. You sure you won't have some lemonade?"
    But that last question came from the kitchen, where Olse Hagbarth was already pouring him some. "Yes, thank you," Giyt called to her, accepting fate as he looked around their place. It wasn't any fancier than his own house. They did have a grand piano in the living room, but the rest of their furniture was, if anything, cheaper and less attractive