Sky Coyote Read Online Free PDF Page B

sir, if I may speak plainly,” said Latif, “is that you don’t have enough real work to do.”
    “Child, child, how can you understand?” My god, tears were actually standing in Houbert’s eyes. “There is
endless
work to do. But if you don’t find a way to make it delightful, what do you face but ages upon ages of drudgery? We must retain the freshness and capacity for enjoyment of childhood—qualities that, I regret to say, you do not seem to possess in any great quantity.”
    Maybe watching his mother die in chains had something to do with it. Latif snorted and tossed a bit of javelina sausage to the piranhas, who made it vanish.
    “And you really must learn to appreciate these things, child, or life will be the dullest eternity of bread and water you canimagine. If you
can
imagine,” Houbert pleaded. “Nobody can face eternity without dreams.”
    Actually dreams can be a problem, but I didn’t feel I should butt in at this point, because, except for the raving excess, I agreed with Houbert. It’s just that not everybody has to prance around in a perpetual Disneyland to have a good time, and when you enforce whimsy with an iron hand, nobody enjoys it.
    “Well, sir, I’m doing my best to understand you,” Latif told him. “I’m wearing the costume. I play the games. What you don’t seem to get is that I’ve got a
purpose
here. Purpose can be fun, too. I’ve had plenty of style, but I’d like some substance now, thank you. I want to learn about managing people. I want to learn about command decisions. Okay? I now know how to arrange a diplomatic banquet and brunch for a real live field agent who’s actually been out in reality and done things with it. I know all about providing my subordinates with magic and mystery and fun. It’s the problems I want to learn about.”
    “My child, my child, won’t you find out about the problems soon enough?” Houbert raised his hands to heaven. The Mayans misunderstood his gesture and stepped in with hot towels, one for either hand. “But I know what it is. You’re young. And who is so impatient to be perfect as a youthful operative, still in the process of sloughing off his imperfect mortal flesh? Look at you, your augmentations have barely begun, and yet you can’t wait to leave your flawed humanity behind. So eager to be the perfect machine! If you’d only listen,
this
old machine could warn you that the day will come when you’ll learn to savor that humanity. Playfulness, irrationality, sheer nonsense for nonsense’s sake lend a dimension to life we immortals need, need desperately. How else can we endure the centuries rolling over our heads and the horrors they bring?”
    “Baloney,” muttered Latif.
    “Well, he can’t really appreciate your point, sir, because there aren’t any horrors here, are there? There aren’t even any problems.” I took on the voice of reason. “This is a five-star vacation resort compared with some other places I’ve been, kid. You’ll get your chance to wade in trouble up to your neck, believe me. Enjoy the hot showers and the flush toilets while you’ve got ‘em, because for the next two hundred years or so they’ll be few and far between. Take your time. God knows you’ve got time.”
    “When we stop playing, we die emotionally,” sniffled Houbert, waving away Mayans.
    “Oh, I don’t know if I’d agree with that.” I looked at Latif. “But take your fun while you can get it, that’s what I always say. Your friend Suleyman, for example. Boy, the laughs we had in the souk at Fes! He had complete control of the political situation the whole time, dispatching reports and coordinating intelligence, but did he neglect to hang out by the pool in the evening with a couple of cold ones and a good book? Nope. You learn what you like, and you make sure you always have enough of it, so you can work as hard as the Company needs you to.”
    “He reads?” Latif asked in an offhand way. “I wonder what he likes to