ref: cde05f4187aed1c77b8efb57ee5dabe8d5d5106d
dir: /troff/048.ms/
\" This master file produces text suitable for a 6"x9" paperback. .ds CH \" turn off page numbering (top) .B .nr HM 1i \" header margin .nr FM 1i \" footer margin .nr LL 4.25i \" line length .pl 9i \" page length .po .87i \" page offset (from left) .nr PS 8 \" font point size \" .kern \" pairwise kerning (groff only) .hy 14 \" automatic hyphenation \" .nr VS 24 \" double space .fp 1 R GA \" URW Garamond .fp 2 I GI .fp 3 B GM .fp 4 BI GMI .fp 5 CW H \" Helvetica .LP \& .nr % 129 \ " start with this page number .ds CF [%] \" first numbered page (bottom) .ps 10 .SH PEOPLE WHO DON'T CHANGE .R .PP .ps 10 It was nothing for Maude Mold to sit still for ten years. Even longer, if she were left unprovoked. She'd been doing this for most of her life without even trying. Vulnerable narcissists could be relied upon to plague her every move, even as she found herself so inclined, so she simply sat still and let them dance, running through their kinetic surplus until their batteries finally ran down. Decades would pass. The only downside to all this stasis was the early onset of tech neck. Yes, she wore her visor as she sat. .PP .ps 10 Anomie, she decided, was the price of eternal vigilance. As plain as the balls on her face. .PP .ps 10 Odin had dropped by. .SH THE INABILITY TO SIMULTANEOUSLY VERIFY SENTIENCE, LOCATION, AND IDENTITY .R .PP .ps 10 "Rub this blue plant wherever it feels good." .PP .ps 10 Odin shifted in his belabored crouch, seeming rather unstable, but deftly manipulating the \fIkukan\fR and creating an opening for Maude to decide to comply. Somewhat groggily, she shrugged off her visor and accepted his withering blue stalk, laying it gently across her forehead. .PP .ps 10 It was smooth on her skin. .PP .ps 10 Odin had fallen in with a strange new sect who painted their entire bodies blue with the rubbings of a vibrant, scrawny plant, wandering the spaceways in their fruitless yearning for true equality with God. To his great amusement, his new friends didn't seem to realize who he was. .PP .ps 10 Odin was also amused by Maude's desktop tan, and he swabbed his stalk back and forth across her face in wonder, admiring the way her wrinkles would kink and unkink, kink and unkink as he worked. .PP .ps 10 "You look like you're still wearing the visor," he said, and laughed again. .PP .ps 10 If he was trying to embarrass her it wasn't going to work.