" Good for you," he congratulates me. "I wasn't sure you could readÓ, he adds."What do you mean?" I am curious at his shock at my reading abilities."... sometimes think you don't know English, but then you say things that are right out of a novel or one of our stories. I doubt anyone has really given it any thought but the fact that you can read is different. Do they all speak English in space?" What, no," I cringe at the thought. "Everyone speaks Imperial. I know some other languages too but. S. MCockSgd E.B. DenholtSgd L.A. GortSgd G.A. Kowalski"People of few words, aren't they. Damn that woman. Why can't she keep that temper under control?"No one had the answer to that rhetorical question; or objected to the expletive.Some two hours later, Edward found them sitting, clutching coffee mugs, surrounded by an air of gloom."Her Majesty requests the presence of her Commodore." Edward straightened and looking directly at his Colonel, went on, "I admit to gross cowardice." I just wish I. ”Tim shook his head. “I work in the pub. In return, the landlady gives me lodgings but that’s as far as it goes.”“So you do as you choose? But like our Gimps you stay in your cage?”Tim wasn’t sure why he said what he said next. “How do you get to join the circus?”Sasha looked at him for a moment. There was something about the boy that encouraged her mischievousness. “Let me tell you,” she said, quietly, circling around until she was standing behind him. She grabbed his arms and pulled him back. Recitations of obscure literature? Too random, did you just happen on something he knows? Secret files? There's your putative hacker again. You tell me." Jesus Christ," he murmured."I know, it took me a while, too," I said in sympathy. "Computers just, well, they compute, don't they? They don't think. But you keep building them bigger and bigger, and more and more powerful, sooner or later can't computing become actual thinking? Independent thinking, not just programming? With Spook it did,.