”“But if I offered you a big, juicy piece of Franklin steak, you’d turn it down?”“No,” she chuckled, “we don’t object to eating meat a... a concept. We only go without to preserve the ecology of our planet.”“I don’t know if Franklin counts,” he added. “I think we ruined the native ecology of that planet decades ago by raising half a billion head of cattle there. The whole colony is just endless grassland as far as the eye can see.”“Humans expand quickly,” she said as she finished off her bar,. There just has to be something more,” I said to Joan. “I’m thinking it was also too easy to get Gray to agree to help. I have a feeling he had already been looking into it.”“He did decide to come running without any persuasion,” Joan agreed. “So what else could it be?”“Just about anything that can be kept on a phone these days. I’ll bet you jaybird was an accomplished pick pocket as well as a child abuser. He stole the commissar’s phone somehow. Then JayBird wanted him to ransom his phone. It’s not at the ISU campus, but out east of town a couple of miles.The course is serpentine, twisting around a two hundred fifty-acre field. There are no trees, so spectators can see the whole race, though there are no bleachers, either. Cross country isn’t one of the great spectator sports but in addition to the four hundred runners and another two hundred support staff, there were probably a thousand spectators that showed up to surround the course.I guess I should mention why there are so. " Maybe I am, too, Susan. Only extreme good fortune preventedthis from turning into a tragedy. One more misadventure likethis one, Susan, and I will administer the treatment, myself." Not if I administer the fixer first, Gloria." Susan's toneswere aggressive and very angry. Sam inferred that theargument had been going on for quite awhile if all three ofthem were that worked up."Do it for that reason, Susan, and I will blow the whistle onus. I will put this whole thing before the press and.