16
STARTLING STORIES
a woman in late middle age, her head large and gaunt, thinning gray hair dragged back from the temples. She must have been lanced once. Her features were rigid down the right-hand side, dimpled like orange peel, the eye pearly and blind.
“Reader,” she had growled, saliva foam-ing in the little recess of her mouth through which she spoke, breathed and smoked, “we three are Scutari Trade, and after this you’ll be free to go. Be seated, retrieve, recon-cile…”
Despite all the distractions, there it was: not compare but reconcile—to harmonize, make friendly or consistent—the very op-posite of compare. Surely that was signifi-cant, but was it important enough to make a difference? Had someone tampered with his neurobrand or the instruction protocols that accessed it? Or
