remaining traces of Communist ideology, denouncing it as a Western imperialist plot, and proclaimed himself Chamberlain to the Throneless King. The Throneless King was Confucius, and Lau Ge was now the highest-ranking of all the mandarins.
The Encyclop?dia did not say much more about Colonel Arthur Hornsby Moore, except that he'd resurfaced as an adviser a few years later during some outbreaks of nanotech terrorism in Germany, and later retired and became a security consultant. In this latter capacity he had helped to promulgate the concept of defense in depth, around which all modern cities, including Atlantis/Shanghai, were built.
Nell cooked the Constable an especially nice dinner one Saturday, and when they were finished with dessert, she began to tell him about Harv and Tequila, and Harv's tales of the incomparable Bud, their dear departed father. Suddenly it was about three hours later, and Nell was still telling the Constable stories about Mom's boyfriends, and the Constable was continuing to listen, reaching up occasionally to fiddle with his white beard but otherwise displaying an extremely grave and thoughtful countenance. Finally she got to the part about Burt, and how Nell had tried to kill him with the screwdriver, and how he had chased them down the stairs and apparently met his demise at the hands of the mysterious round-headed Chinese gentleman. The Constable found this extremely interesting and asked many questions, first about the detailed tactical development of the screwdriver assault and then about the style of dancing used by the Chinese gentleman, and what he was wearing.
'I have been angry at my Primer ever since that night,' Nell said.
'Why?' said the Constable, looking surprised, though he was hardly more surprised than Nell herself. Nell had
'I cannot help but feel that it misled me. It made me suppose that killing Burt would be a simple matter, and that it would improve my life; but when I tried to put these ideas into practice . . .' She could not think of what to say next.
'. . . the rest of your life happened,' the Constable said. 'Girl, you must admit that your life with Burt dead has been an improvement on your life with Burt alive.'
'Yes.'
'So the Primer was correct on that point. Now, as to the fact that killing people is a more complicated business in practice than in theory, I will certainly concede your point. But I think it is not likely to be the only instance in which real life turns out to be more complicated than what you have seen in the book. This is the Lesson of the Screwdriver, and you would do well to remember it. All it amounts to is that you must be ready to learn from sources other than your magic book.'
'But of what use is the book then?'
'I suspect it is very useful. You want only the knack of translating its lessons into the real world. For example,' the Constable said, plucking his napkin from his lap and crushing it into the tabletop, 'let us take something very concrete, such as beating the bejesus out of people.' He stood up and tromped out into the garden. Nell ran after him. 'I have seen you doing your martial-arts exercises,' he said, switching to a peremptory outdoor voice, an addressing-the-troops voice. 'Martial arts means beating the bejesus out of people. Now, let us see you try your luck with me.' Negotiations ensued as Nell endeavored to establish whether the Constable was serious. This being accomplished, she sat down on the flagstones and began getting her shoes off. The Constable watched her with raised eyebrows.
'Oh, that's very formidable,' he said. 'All evildoers had best be on the lookout for little Nell-unless she happens to be wearing her bloody shoes.'
Nell did a couple of stretching exercises, ignoring more derisive commentary from the Constable. She bowed to him, and he waved his hand at her dismissively. She got set into the stance that Dojo had taught her. In response, the Constable moved his feet about an inch farther apart than they had been, and pooched his belly out, which was apparently the chosen stance of some mysterious Scottish fighting technique.
Nothing happened for a long time except for a lot of dancing around. Nell danced, that is, and the Constable blundered around desultorily. 'What's this?' he said. 'All you know is defense?'
'Mostly, sir,' Nell said. 'I do not suppose it was the Primer's intention to teach me how to assault people.'
'Oh, what good is that?' the Constable sneered, and suddenly he reached out and grabbed Nell by the hair— not hard enough to hurt. He held her for a few moments, and then let her go. 'Thus endeth the first lesson,' he said.
'You think that I should cut my hair off?'
The Constable looked terribly disappointed. 'Oh, no,' he said,
'never, ever, ever cut your hair off. If I grabbed you by your wrist'— and he did— 'would you cut your arm off?'
'No, sir.'
'Did the Primer teach you that people would pull your hair?'
'No, sir.'
'Did it teach you that your mother's boyfriends would beat you up, and your mother not protect you?'
'No, sir, except insofar as it told me stories about people who did evil.'
'People doing evil is a good lesson. What you saw in there a few weeks ago'-and by this Nell knew he was referring to the headless soldier on the mediatron-'is one application of that lesson, but it's too obvious to be of any good. Ah, but your mother not protecting you from boyfriends-that has some subtlety, doesn't it?
'Nell,' the Constable continued, indicating through his tone of voice that the lesson was concluding, 'the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people-and this is true whether or not they are well-educated-is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations-in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.
'In your Primer you have a resource that will make you highly educated, but it will never make you intelligent. That comes from life. Your life up to this point has given you all of the experience you need to be intelligent, but you have to think about those experiences. If you don't think about them, you'll be psychologically unwell. If you do think about them, you will become not merely educated but intelligent, and then, a few years down the road, you will probably give me cause to wish I were several decades younger.'
The Constable turned and walked back into his house, leaving Nell alone in the garden, pondering the meaning of that last statement. She supposed it was the sort of thing she might understand later, when she had become intelligent.
Carl Hollywood returns from abroad;
he and Miranda discuss the status and future of her racting career.
Carl Hollywood came back from a month-long trip to London, where he'd been visiting old friends, catching some live theatre, and making face-to-face contacts with some of the big ractive developers, hoping to swing some contracts in their direction. When he got back, the whole company threw a party for him in the theatre's little bar. Miranda thought she handled it pretty well.
But the next day he cornered her backstage. 'What's up?' he said. 'And I don't mean that in the usual offhanded way. I want to know what's going on with you. Why have you switched to the evening shift during my absence? And why were you acting so weird at the party?'
'Well, Nell and I have had an interesting few months.'
Carl looked startled, stepped back half a pace, then sighed and rolled his eyes.
'Of course, her altercation with Burt was traumatic, but she seems to have dealt with it well.'
