the best bovine milkers are the ones who are the most pampered. The most productive hens—”
“And this is the hen with the gold eggs,” he agreed. “All right, I bow to expedience. If CC will make a formal royalty commitment, and eschew recriminations, penalties—”
“I have no doubt it will—if you acquaint it with the facts I will have forgotten.”
“Making me an agent of CC! Is that what Mit means?”
“A hint of it. You will have to do what you feel is best for the interests you serve. In this case, the leadmuter and the mutant enclave. You aren’t going to hurt a number of mutants just to spite CC.”
“Why do I have the sinking feeling that all is foreordained?” he grumbled rhetorically.
“Because it is.”
He had walked right into that one. “ My service isn’t! The leadmuter is one thing, but—”
“An analogy, if you will,” Finesse said, adjusting her skirt to show a trifle more leg. His eye was of course drawn to it. The flickering light made the shadow between her thighs jump forward and back, as though beckoning. He wished he could run his hand into that shadow, and knew that he could—which was why he could not. The moment the fish did more than nibble at the lure...
“You think of the leadmuter in terms of precious metals or stones,” Finesse continued as if blithely unaware of the lure of leg and shadow. “But he may be wasted in that capacity. Did you ever think what transmutation of substance entails?”
“It is an exercise in futility to speculate how a mutant performs,” Knot said. “The processes of the brain are in many respects too complex for the brain itself to comprehend. Somehow it taps into a source of power no machine can even detect, and uses it to do things no machine can do as readily. If laboratories could duplicate any portion of true psi, they would have done so long ago.”
“I was not referring to the mutant, but to the effect.” She twitched a muscle in her thigh, and Knot finally had to look away, lest his battle be lost right here. “Do you know how nature produces lead?”
Knot focused on that as though grasping a lifeline. “Never thought about it. Isn’t it one of the elements, the basic forms of matter from which all others are made? Created in a supernova by heat and compression and whatnot? As with copper, silver and gold? I do know it is one of the four most used metals of the industrial age, or used to be.”
“Start with the radioactive element thorium 232,” she said briskly. “It has a half-life—you know what half-life is?”
“What I have here.”
She did not smile. “It is the time it takes for a substance stance to lose half its radioactivity.”
“Why not double it and take the whole life?”
“Because it is not a linear progression. It’s a percentage loss. It takes just as long to halve the remaining radiation as it did the first time, and as long to halve it again. A theoretically endless progression. So for convenience—”
“I get it. What does this have to do with lead? I understood lead was not radioactive.”
“Thorium 232 has a half-life of close to fourteen billion years. As it—”
“Fourteen billion years!” he exclaimed. “That’s longer than they used to think the universe existed! Who was standing there with a stopwatch, timing it?”
“Rates of decay are calculable. Now stop playing the ignoramus and let me get on with—”
“The seduction?”
“In my fashion. If the physical appeal is not immediately effective, the intellectual one may be. Unless you have some other approach to recommend?”
“No, I’m sort of interested. I’ve never been intellectually seduced before.”
“As the thorium breaks down, it transmutes naturally into radium 228, with a half-life of a scant seven years. Then into actinium 228—actually the radioactive elements have different names, but I’m simplifying for convenience—”
“How nice. Simplify some more.”
“With a half life of about
“And this is the hen with the gold eggs,” he agreed. “All right, I bow to expedience. If CC will make a formal royalty commitment, and eschew recriminations, penalties—”
“I have no doubt it will—if you acquaint it with the facts I will have forgotten.”
“Making me an agent of CC! Is that what Mit means?”
“A hint of it. You will have to do what you feel is best for the interests you serve. In this case, the leadmuter and the mutant enclave. You aren’t going to hurt a number of mutants just to spite CC.”
“Why do I have the sinking feeling that all is foreordained?” he grumbled rhetorically.
“Because it is.”
He had walked right into that one. “ My service isn’t! The leadmuter is one thing, but—”
“An analogy, if you will,” Finesse said, adjusting her skirt to show a trifle more leg. His eye was of course drawn to it. The flickering light made the shadow between her thighs jump forward and back, as though beckoning. He wished he could run his hand into that shadow, and knew that he could—which was why he could not. The moment the fish did more than nibble at the lure...
“You think of the leadmuter in terms of precious metals or stones,” Finesse continued as if blithely unaware of the lure of leg and shadow. “But he may be wasted in that capacity. Did you ever think what transmutation of substance entails?”
“It is an exercise in futility to speculate how a mutant performs,” Knot said. “The processes of the brain are in many respects too complex for the brain itself to comprehend. Somehow it taps into a source of power no machine can even detect, and uses it to do things no machine can do as readily. If laboratories could duplicate any portion of true psi, they would have done so long ago.”
“I was not referring to the mutant, but to the effect.” She twitched a muscle in her thigh, and Knot finally had to look away, lest his battle be lost right here. “Do you know how nature produces lead?”
Knot focused on that as though grasping a lifeline. “Never thought about it. Isn’t it one of the elements, the basic forms of matter from which all others are made? Created in a supernova by heat and compression and whatnot? As with copper, silver and gold? I do know it is one of the four most used metals of the industrial age, or used to be.”
“Start with the radioactive element thorium 232,” she said briskly. “It has a half-life—you know what half-life is?”
“What I have here.”
She did not smile. “It is the time it takes for a substance stance to lose half its radioactivity.”
“Why not double it and take the whole life?”
“Because it is not a linear progression. It’s a percentage loss. It takes just as long to halve the remaining radiation as it did the first time, and as long to halve it again. A theoretically endless progression. So for convenience—”
“I get it. What does this have to do with lead? I understood lead was not radioactive.”
“Thorium 232 has a half-life of close to fourteen billion years. As it—”
“Fourteen billion years!” he exclaimed. “That’s longer than they used to think the universe existed! Who was standing there with a stopwatch, timing it?”
“Rates of decay are calculable. Now stop playing the ignoramus and let me get on with—”
“The seduction?”
“In my fashion. If the physical appeal is not immediately effective, the intellectual one may be. Unless you have some other approach to recommend?”
“No, I’m sort of interested. I’ve never been intellectually seduced before.”
“As the thorium breaks down, it transmutes naturally into radium 228, with a half-life of a scant seven years. Then into actinium 228—actually the radioactive elements have different names, but I’m simplifying for convenience—”
“How nice. Simplify some more.”
“With a half life of about
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