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PAUSE
This section deals with George's worries.
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section.
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Worries
13/05/2093 Wednesday
George hoped that Undepoldus would be happy to continue travelling
on his own between the Park and the Club. Undepoldus never gave
any indication of what he was going to do but he had been helpful
and showed that he liked to be with people, particularly himself.
On his way to the Park George used his new vidbook to check for
followers. Now and again it gave an indication that there was
a single follower nearby but George accepted the woman's presence
as something to be endured. Somewhere else nearby were more friendly
followers whose job it was to ensure that he came to no harm.
With that comforting thought George tried to concentrate on his
vidbook's more interesting contents.
George found Undepoldus in his usual place when he went into Undepoldus
house. He looked at him for a while and then he thought that he
noticed something odd as he looked away. He looked again, this
time more closely and intently. Undepoldus was not moving his
whiskers in the usual way. He looked even more closely and saw
that the Undepoldus on display was a replica like the one he still
had on his collar. Then he saw the real Undepoldus lying next
to the processor on his desk. Undepoldus has somehow found the
second replica that George had intended to give to Ivor. George
had not thought of Undepoldus as a creature that could pick up
and carry things but nobody could have entered Undepoldus House
to do it for him. George decided to see what Undepoldus would
do when the Park's opening time approached. Just when George thought
that Undepoldus would stay where he was on his desk he began to
move towards the display area. George watched him closely to see
what he did. Undepoldus moved alongside the replica and then pushed
it sideways until it was well out of the public's view. He then
returned to his usual place and began feeding.
George felt a little disappointed that Undepoldus had not shown
that he had to ability to lift anything but at least he went back
on duty without any signs of dissent.
The new building had been constructed with security in mind. The
walls and floors were virtually impervious to any form of attack
and the roof was equally impenetrable. There was a weakness in
the ventilation system. It was designed to allow a very rapid
exchange of air in case Undepoldus produced noxious fumes when
he was digesting his rocks. There was no barrier in the ventilation
system to impede the free movement of air. However, at several
points along the horizontal ventilation pipes were sprung trapdoors
designed to operate as deadfalls. There were a series of small
rooms with no exits under the path of the pipes. The rooms were
equipped with gravity neutralisers that would operate if anything
large like a person fell in. A soft landing was assured but there
was no way of escape from these rooms without Spacer assistance.
The gravity neutralisers provided support for a depth of thirty
centimetres. A recumbent person would be in zero gee. Anything
above the 30 centimetre level had its normal weight. Nobody could
stand up in the neutraliser field because there was no floor to
stand on A lower powered gravity neutraliser situated one metre
below the ventilation pipe was set to prevent any smaller, lightweight
object falling into the room. It could also prevent a rope or
a rope ladder being lowered into the room. Only the few Spacers
involved in the construction of the building apart from George
knew of the traps in the ventilation pipes.
One of George's jobs was to check that nothing had activated
the gravity neutralisers since he has last in Undepoldus House.
Nothing had. George looked at the collected slurry samples almost
with a slight air of resignation. The watchers were still watching
but there was no telling when and where they would strike. In
Undepoldus House it was very unlikely that anything could happen
but the crunch could come when he went back to the Club in the
evening. The other problem was that Marita was also a target.
If she was involved in an incident, he wouldn't know until after
it had happened and it was too late to help her.
George went back to his vidbook when the jobs had been completed.
Undepoldus maintained his place as if nothing could or would worry
him. So the day went. There were no distractions, not even the
odd message on the vidcom. George was relieved when it was time
to go. He kept thinking as he walked across the Park to the strip,
maybe this will be the time. On the strip the vidbook showed him
that again there was only one follower. Tomorrow could be another
day like today. It could be another day of waiting in the hope
that something would happen. George wanted the waiting to be over
while knowing that no harm could come to him while he was waiting.
He knew that the police could do nothing about the followers because
there were so many of them and he was only followed infrequently
by any one of them at a time. They stayed well away from him when
they followed him so it would be hard to prove that any one of
them was stalking him.
As he usually left the Spacers Club around the same time each morning, it was inevitable that there would be a fair number of people going to their places of work in the same direction at the same time. The strip made it possible for people who used it within seconds of each other to be a long way apart. In the old days when vehicles were used, regular travellers often saw each other because they shared the same vehicle or even the same part of a vehicle. If travel was still the same as it was then, the police would have had less difficulty in identifying a possible stalker. The moveway strips made it possible for a traveller to leave a minute earlier or later without affecting the arrival time significantly.
George tried to imagine what it must have been like to be forced to accept a vehicle operator's travel schedule. He thought of the horrendous inefficiency of the way people travelled in individual vehicles in the old days. The combined power of all their motors could drive thousands of strips. The pathways for these vehicles had to be constantly repaired because of the weight and number of vehicles. George resolved to consult the encyclopaedia sections of the vidbook about the old transport systems.
During the journey back to the Club George noted the odd vibration from the vidbook but saw that it was only one known follower and no great cause for concern. Marita said that she had had a relatively quiet day too. By mutual consent they decided to do their best to forget about the followers and to spend the evening getting to know each other better.
PAUSE
The next section covers the detection
of bugs.
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section.
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