The room was cold. The air conditioner was set up to cool ten thousand machines, but there were only empty racks at the moment. Each rack would hold t...n machines, a backup power supply, and an optical switch. There were three special racks. One rack would hold ten machines and serve as a gateway to the satellite downlink that would feed the databases storing the massive quantity of economic data. The database machines would be on a rack of their own. These machines would have monster arrays of. ..” purred Queen Athirmi. “Why?”I hesitated for a second. Then, what did keeping it secret matter? “To see the Serpent Oracle.”Queen Athirmi leaned back, her large breasts jiggling beneath her diaphanous robe. She recrossed her silky legs while something glints in her eyes. Her tongue flicks feline across her lips. “That's bold, Kurtis.”I shrugged.“And dangerous to go there.”I put my hands on the heads of the two rakshasa princesses. I scratched them, both of them purring. “It was dangerous to. When he got to the third, nothing printed. “How convenient…only two locations “he said as he handed the printed pages across to the man to his immediate left. “I don’t even know your name or story. You are charged with rounding up all of Ma and Pa Kettle’s relatives over the age of 18 so we can select suitable surrogates for interrogation and, as seems likely, punishment” Changing tone from the instructive to the curious he went on “tell us your name and story.” “My name is Richard. I know the people who run it. I've been using the money thatwould have gone to her tuition to pay for it. She seemed to be makinggood progress, too. This comes out of the blue, her running off." How long since she ran away from the program?" Two weeks." And you didn't think to tell me?" Why?" Why? Because I'm her parent, that's why." Since when?" Claire snapped. Then, almost immediately, softened hertone. "Anyway, why should I have alarmed you, bothered you inyour...um...new life. I figured I'd.