The disk drive whirred. The screen wiped itself again, then said:
IIIC COPY UTILITY 5430K FREE RADIUS?
Dairine stared again. Radius meant nothing to her. She hit the carriage return, hoping the computer would (as some programs did) supply its own data as a result.
DEFAULT RADIUS, the screen said. It was all right, then; the program had been instructed to supply a value of its own if the user didn't specify one. Dairine let out a breath, and resolved to have a look at this thing's manual. Maybe the company had made changes in the software.
COPY UTILITY READY, said the screen. PRESS <CR> TO BEGIN.
Dairine hit the carriage return. The disk drive whirred.
There were two computers on the desk.
She gaped. Hesitantly she put out a hand to the second computer, which was sitting next to the first, and sticking over the edge of the desk a little. It was solid, and its screen matched that of the original computer exactly. They both said:
COPY SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED. DESCRIPTION FILE 'APPLIIIC.DSC' CREATED
HARD COPY 'APPLIIIC.CPY' CREATED A>
Oh, Lord! Dairine thought. She didn't dare turn around or make any outward sign: behind her, her mother and father were arguing peaceably over the contents of the Apple manuals. Desperately, Dairine brought up the directory again, stared at it, and then, for lack of any better idea, typed:
HIDE
The disk drives whirred again. Dairine thought she had never heard such a loud noise in her life, but her parents still didn't notice anything. The screen cleared itself, then said:
IIIC HIDE UTILITY
Choose one:
(1) Hide from COPY utility
(2) Hide from CHANGE utility
(3) Hide from MBASIC
(4) Exit to system
Dairine typed '1.' The screen cleared again.
HIDE FROM 'COPY' UTILITY
Last copy description file in memory: 'APPLIIIC.DSK'
Last hard copy created: 'APPLIIIC.CPY'
Name of hard copy to hide?
Dairine hurriedly typed 'APPLIH.CPY.' The screen said:
HIDE OPTIONS:
(a) Hide in realspace (invisibility option)
(b) Hide in realspace (size reduction)
(c) Hide in otherspace (retrievable pocket)
(d) Discard in otherspace (nonretrievable pocket)
(e) Timed storage
(coordinate-specific claudication)
(f) Exit to main menu
Dairine typed 'c.'
PASSWORD FOR RETRIEVAL?
Dairine swallowed: behind her, her father was muttering about getting some coffee. 'RED FIVE,' she typed.
CHOOSE INPUT OPTION: VERBAL OR KEYBOARD?
'VERBAL,' she typed, very fast. The drives whirred.
HIDING HARD COPY OF FILE 'APPLIIIC.CPY.'
As silently as it had come, the second computer vanished.
A>
Dairine's father turned around and saw her at the computer. 'What are you doing!'
'Uh,' Dairine said. She couldn't remember when she had last been at a loss for words. Her father, though, wasn't even slightly concerned with this. Several seconds later Dairine found herself going to
New York with Nita and Kit.
At the moment, even the thought of the New York Public Library seemed a bit tame.
It took her hours to get free of Nita and Kit. All the while her mind was raging, turning over and over the thought of what power she had been offered when she took the Oath, and when she finally got down to the ladies' room and sat down in one of the stalls, her heart was hammering with excitement and sweat stood out on her.
'Red five,' she whispered, and held her breath.
There was a computer in her lap.
She flipped up the little liquid-crystal screen and was shocked to find the A> prompt staring at her: shocked partly because she hadn't booted the computer up, and partly because it couldn't be running-there were no batteries in it yet-or were there? But Dairine wasn't one to argue the point. She typed hurriedly, using the HIDE.COM program to put the books she'd bought in a 'pocket' and get them out of her way. Then she brought up the directory again. ASSIST.COM, said the first entry. Maybe that was a 'help menu,' a series of screens that would explain how to get the most out of the computer. She typed 'ASSIST' and the carriage return.
The screen cleared, then said at the top:
ACTIVE OR PASSIVE MODE?
Dairine was out of her depth again. 'ACTIVE,' she typed, on a guess, and entered it. The screen cleared again.
UTILITY OPTIONS:
t (1) General Data & Logistics-MANUAL, MENU
'it (2) Travel-GO.COM
>;' (3)Intervention-CHANGE (see also MANUAL)
••n (3 a)Duplication-COPY
