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His own problem in a different dress, thought Jo
“Intergalactic Mining,” said Mr. Tsung, looking at the Voraz letter, “was sitting on hundreds of thousands of inventions that were on file in the Hall of Legality to prevent other nations from using them. I know this isn't diplomatic, but it could make a big diplomatic mess if the bank lends money to make the wrong products. Also, all the invention formulas are in Psychlo math.”
Jo
And I’m working on Psychlo math right now.”
Ti
“Dries left you this,” said Mr. Tsung. He handed Jo
Jo
“Oh, you know Dries,” said Mr. Tsung. “He said there was an excess supply of butter up in the Highlands now and he brought Chrissie a whole bucket of it. Some old woman has fifteen Holstein cows and he says he's financing a butter business.”
Jo
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Tsung. “We always feed him a tub of fried rice. He loves it! And my son-in-law found a book of colored plates offish and he made up some fish medallions and we give him one of those each time. He says they're valuable.”
“And you pay Lin Li,” said Jo
“Of course. From your social petty cash.”
The term “petty cash” could be pretty general. The Earth Planetary Bank was paying for Earth's defense system out of petty cash.
But Mr. Tsung was going on. “That button is a pre-run of prizes they are giving out in their new neighborhood bank program all through the universes– you know, to people who open up accounts. It will in each case be in the local language. You put it on your color tab or a place like that and then you hum a note and as long as you move your mouth, the button will sing. They are gathering up all the folk songs of each local region.”
Jo
But that wasn't what Jo
He microa
“That isn't a standard one, he said to tell you,” piped Mr. Tsung through his own monotone vocoder. “He collected some old records of American ballads and put them in it. There aren't very many Americans, so it won't be manufactured for them.”
Jo
Galactic Bank!
Galactic Bank!
My friend so tried and true.
Oh what fun it is to have
A neighbor such as you!
And then in a proud voice it said, “lam a customer of the Galactic Bank!”
Well, that certainly wasn't any “American ballad!” Was Dries having a joke? He never joked, really. A very serious, small gray man.
Jo
Home, home on the range, Where the deer and the buffalo
Jo
Where there seldom is heard A discouraging word...
“Mister Tyler!" came through the intercom from the nervous Pierre, “I can see Lake Victoria on the viewscreens through the overcast. It 's totally clouded in ahead. Hadn't I better go on to Kariba?"
Jo
Jo
And the skies are not cloudy all day!
What a lousy forecast, thought Jo
Chapter 4
After glancing over the flying conditions, Jo
By looking very hard, and only then with trained pilot's eyes, one could just barely make out Mount Elgon rising above the black cloud carpet, for there was no moon and such a peak became mainly visible because it blocked out certain stars.
It was the screens which caused Jo
Pierre, however, was in a state of mind that wasn't asking for anything but to stand on solid ground. He could not read the screens. He could not see anything but some stars above them and blackness below them, a blackness lashed now and then by some internal flash. He thought they were done for
If they tried to go down through that. Who knew what hill they would run into? He would have been petrified had he known that Mount Elgon was higher than they were flying but mercifully he did not know that. Nor, even more frightening, that they had passed by a couple of peaks even higher. Magnifying his alarm, Monsieur Tyler had come back to the pilot seat and hummed a strange song. Mon dieu, one did not sing when one faced certain death. Lunacy!
Victoria gave them permission to land and Jo