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HMSS Hephaestus

Manticore Planetary orbit

Manticore Binary System

April 4, 1906 PD


“lady harrington, would you care to comment on—”

Andrew LaFollet stepped in front of his Steadholder.

He and Corporal Simon Mattingly were the Steadholder’s detail for the day, and, Like Jamie Candless, Mattingly was left-handed. That was why the two of them normally had the Steadholder’s left while LaFollet had her right, and he’d been watching the cross corridor as she approached it. He’d seen the trio of reporters stepping out of it before she’d noticed them, and, as he’d anticipated, she’d stopped walking when they blocked her way, which had let him slide in front of her before any misguided sense of courtesy on her part might have stopped him.

Now he regarded them with the cold, measuring dispassion of a Grayson armsman. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move a hand toward his holstered pulser, didn’t even scowl.

He didn’t have to.

The center newsman reached up with one very careful hand and deactivated his shoulder-mounted camera. Then the three of them parted magically to clear the Steadholder’s way.

She gave them a nod—far more courteous than they deserved, almost as if nothing at all had happened—and stepped past them, with Mattingly at her heels. LaFollet waited a moment, then gave them a far colder nod of his own and fell in two paces behind at her right elbow.

“That’s not quite how things are done in the Star Kingdom, Andrew,” she murmured, and he snorted.

“I know it isn’t, My Lady. I spent some time viewing the garbage the Manties— Beg pardon, My Lady. I meant I viewed the Manticoran coverage of the Young court-martial.”

He made no effort to disguise his opinion of that coverage, and the Steadholder’s lips quirked. It was only the barest hint of a smile, but he was enormously relieved to see it.

“I didn’t say I didn’t appreciate your efforts,” she said. “I only meant that you can’t go around threatening newsies.”

“Threaten, My Lady?” LaFollet gave her a wide-eyed look. “I never threatened anyone.”

The Steadholder started to reply, then closed her mouth. She looked back at him for a moment, then shook her head and returned her attention to the space station corridor.

LaFollet spared a moment to glance at Mattingly with only the slightest hint of triumph, then returned his own attention to his systematic threat search as they continued down the passage to the personnel tube waiting to carry them still deeper into the enormous space station.

LaFollet stepped around the Steadholder again to enter the tube capsule first. She gave him a semi-resigned, exasperated look, but at least she stopped. That was progress.

After a quick but thorough inspection of its interior, he stepped back for her to enter. She gave him another look—rather like the ones his mothers had given a much younger LaFollet who’d been “obstreperous” in company—as she entered it and punched in their destination code. He only looked back blandly, and then, as the capsule doors closed and it began to move, allowed himself to relax—a bit—into his own thoughts while the capsule’s icon moved across the bulkhead-mounted location display.

He almost wished the newsie had given him an excuse to discourage him and his companions a bit more proactively. Not that he’d expected them to. One of the many things he’d done in preparation for his current duties was to spend quite some time analyzing the differences between the Manticoran media and that of Grayson. He’d realized even before he’d studied them that there would inevitably be differences between the way in which Manticoran public figures interacted with one another, with their society, and with the media. Despite that, he’d been unprepared for the intrusiveness the Star Kingdom apparently took for granted. No Grayson reporter would have dared to waylay a steadholder in a public passage. For that matter, no Grayson newsfax or public board would have blasted out the story of Steadholder Harrington’s relationship with Paul Tankersley—or, for that matter, with Pavel Young—the way the Manties had. It just wasn’t done.

Fortunately, one of the first things a Grayson steadholder’s personal armsmen learned was how to communicate in a nonverbal manner with the more loathsome specimens of humanity who crossed their steadholder’s path. They might not need to do that with Grayson reporters, but the Manticoran subspecies was a different breed. Still, it would appear even they could learn—or at least recognize the path of courtesy—when suitably reasoned with. LaFollet was fairly sure Steadholder Harrington wouldn’t approve of that sort of thing in the long term, but he didn’t really care about that.

What he cared about was the Steadholder.

His lips tightened as he recalled the agony, the stunned loss, in her exotic brown eyes when Captain Henke gave her the news. The woman—the warrior—who’d faced a dozen assassins unarmed had swayed, unable for a long, terrible moment even to speak. And then she’d turned to Regent Clinkscales and begun giving orders in the dead, emotionless voice of a white-faced, dry-eyed automaton. She’d ignored the Regent’s efforts to express his condolences, to comfort her. She’d only given those orders, and within six hours, they’d been aboard Captain Henke’s ship and headed back to Manticore.

He suspected she hadn’t even realized—then—that her personal armsmen were aboard.

He’d never imagined he might see her so . . . broken. So shattered. If any of the Graysons who’d whispered behind their hands about her “shameful affair” with Paul Tankersley had seen her, even they would have recognized the depth of the love they’d shared. And the fury of her armsmen as they learned the details of the duel in which he’d died had become a dark, savage flame on the day one of Agni’s Marines had finally told Jamie Candless what the miserable bastard had said to Tankersley to provoke it.

Captain Henke had settled them in Agni’s Marine quarters for the voyage. The captain had been surprised by their presence, but if she’d been tempted to object, Protector Benjamin’s personal explanation of why they were there would have prevented it. Not that she had been. LaFollet was certain of that, and she’d made no objection at all to adding one of the Steadholder’s armsmen to the Marine sentry she’d stationed outside the Steadholder’s cabin hatch.

For two full days, the Steadholder hadn’t even left her personal quarters. The only person who saw her, aside from her treecat companion, was Steward MacGuiness. No doubt there were Graysons who would be ostentatiously shocked by the mere notion of a male body servant for any woman, far less a steadholder. LaFollet wasn’t. He’d seen the Steadholder and MacGuiness together on Grayson after she’d been wounded fighting for the lives of Protector Benjamin’s family, long before the Protector created her steading. He understood the devotion—the love, really—between them, and he’d seen MacGuiness’ desperate concern for the woman they both served.

He’d offered the steward as much support as he could, but for those first two days, there’d been nothing anyone could do. And then, on the third day, she’d emerged from her cabin.

Captain Henke had been there when she did. LaFollet didn’t know what the two of them might have said to one another before they’d stepped out of the hatch, but he’d seen the concern in Henke’s expression as the captain followed her into the passage.

He didn’t think the Steadholder had. He didn’t think she’d really seen much of anything, actually. Her uniform had been perfect, her grooming immaculate, but her eyes had been brown, frozen flint in a face that was gaunt with pain, and Nimitz had been hunched and silent on her shoulder, his tail hanging like a defeated army’s banner. She’d simply started down the passageway, and she hadn’t even noticed when LaFollet followed her.

He’d wondered where they were going, but only until the intra-ship car delivered them to Agni’s armory. The Marine armorer had snapped to attention behind the high counter as his CO and the Steadholder stepped out of the lift.

“Is the range clear, Sergeant?”

If glaciers could speak, one of them might have sounded like that soprano.

“Uh, yes, Milady. It is.”

“Then issue me an automatic,” she’d said in that same icy voice. “Ten millimeter.”

The sergeant had looked past her at his captain, and LaFollet had understood the worry in his eyes. He’d spent almost half his own life in armories just like this one, and he would have flatly refused to issue a weapon to someone who spoke like that. Indeed, his own expression had tightened as he wavered on the very cusp of objecting. But he’d made himself stand silent, instead, and after the briefest of hesitations, Captain Henke had nodded ever so slightly to the sergeant.

The Marine had reached under the counter for a memo board and laid it in front of the Steadholder.

“Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady.”

The Steadholder had started tapping keys as the sergeant turned toward the weapons storage, but her voice had stopped him.

“I need filled ten-round magazines,” she’d said. “Ten of them. And four boxes of shells.”

“I—” The sergeant had cut himself off. “Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box,” he’d said.

The Steadholder had filled out the requisition slowly and methodically, then thumbprinted the scan pad and stood there, waiting, until the Marine returned.

“Here you are, Milady.”

He’d laid the holstered pistol and two sets of ear-protectors, one of them adjusted to fit Nimitz’s ears, on the counter, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them.

“Thank you.”

The Steadholder had scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other. LaFollet had stirred behind her, hovering once again on the brink of a protest. But before he could say a word, Captain Henke’s hand had shot out and pinned the carrier to the counter.

The Steadholder had turned her head, looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Honor, I—”

Henke’s voice had died, LaFollet had known what she’d wanted to say. What she couldn’t find the words to say. The same thing he’d wanted to say.

“Don’t worry, Mike.” The Steadholder’s mouth had moved in a cold, dead ghost of a smile. “Nimitz won’t let me do that. Besides”—an edge of something hungry had crept into that frozen smile—“I have something more important to do.”

Understanding had gone through LaFollet in that moment. Or perhaps it had been more of a revelation, the recognition of something he’d really known all along about the woman he’d sworn to serve, and he’d felt no surprise when the captain sighed and lifted her hand.

The Steadholder had picked up the ammunition carrier, settled its strap over her left shoulder, and looked at the armorer.

“Program the range, Sergeant,” she’d said. “Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for twenty meters. Human targets.”

And then she’d stepped through the firing range hatch.

LaFollet had stood outside the range, watching through the armorplast bulkhead as the Steadholder took her position. At least one of his concerns had been laid to rest as he watched her draw the heavy semiautomatic pistol, check the chamber, and lock the slide back. He’d never seen her handle a firearm before, not even one of the modern pulsers Grayson had been unable to afford before joining the Manticoran Alliance, far less an old-fashioned chemical-fueled weapon with equally old-fashioned iron sights, but she’d obviously known precisely what she was doing.

She’d laid out the magazines on the firing bench, then manipulated the joystick at her station to turn the holographic human target until it stood with one shoulder toward her, one arm raised in a one-handed shooting position. The firing range’s physical depth was only ten meters, not the twenty she’d specified, but LaFollet had realized that the target had been downsized—and, he’d discovered later, the grav plates had been adjusted—to create a twenty-meter apparent range and bullet trajectory. And, as he’d watched, she’d raised the pistol . . . and put the entire magazine into the target’s head. The entire group couldn’t have spanned more than twelve centimeters.

Then she’d done it again. And again. Ten times, without a single shot that hadn’t landed dead center. And as he’d watched, a sense of grim, cold satisfaction had filled his soul.

She’d reloaded the magazines methodically from the boxed ammunition, then done it again. And after she’d refilled them all for the second time, she’d gone back to the armorer for more ammunition, and then returned to the range. She’d spent the next best thing to eight hours on that range over the next two days, until they’d reached Manticore. After that first session, she’d shifted from a stationary target and reprogrammed the hologram to move—slowly at first, but with increasing speed—and still those unerring bullets had plunged through it again and again.

After the second trip to the range, she’d paused and raised an eyebrow at LaFollet as she returned the pistol to the armor.

“You have a question, Andrew.”

It was a statement, not a question, he’d realized. And she’d been right. But how did he—?

“Actually, My Lady, I was just curious,” he’d said after a moment. “A weapon like that”—he’d flipped his head in a nod at the pistol on the armor’s counter—“would’ve been standard issue for any armsman before the Alliance. With holographic sights, but the basic platform would’ve been pretty much identical. The Star Kingdom’s military hasn’t used them for a long, long time, though. I’ve met quite a few Manticoran personnel who are pretty fair shots with one of these.” He’d tapped the pulser holstered at his hip. “Not so much with one of those. They really don’t like the recoil—or the muzzle blast—the first time they try one.”

“They don’t?”

There might actually have been a flicker of humor in those frozen brown eyes, and Lady Harrington had smiled ever so slightly. An Old Terran wolf might have smiled like that, and the humor was a cold, hard, hungry thing.

“No, My Lady. They don’t,” he’d said.

“My Uncle Jacques is from Beowulf,” she’d said then. “He used to be a major in the Biological Survey Corps—don’t let the name fool you; it’s one of the best Special Forces organizations in the galaxy. I rather doubt Summervale knows about him, given how tight BSC’s security is. And my dad may be a retired Navy doctor, but he was a Marine before that. And I grew up on Sphinx. You don’t go into the bush on Sphinx without a gun, Andrew. So I learned to shoot before I was eleven, and you might say I had good teachers.”

“With ‘antiques’ like that, My Lady?” he’d asked, nodding at the pistol again.

“That’s where Uncle Jacques comes in.” She’d smiled even more coldly. “He belongs to something called the Society for Creative Anachronisms. It’s a bunch of hobbyists fascinated by the past. He gave me my favorite nitro-powder rifle—Daddy’s always preferred pulse rifles—when I was twelve. And both of them made sure I understood handguns, too.” Her smile had vanished. “I don’t imagine either of them ever thought I’d need one for this.”

“No, My Lady. I don’t imagine they did, either,” he’d said, and heard the grim approval in his own voice when he did.

The range was the only place she’d gone, and those frozen brown eyes had never thawed, but Andrew LaFollet had been satisfied. Not happy, only satisfied.

Now the capsule stopped. The door opened, and Mattingly stepped through it before the Steadholder. She shook her head but let him, and then LaFollet followed her out and down yet another passageway—this one a good twenty meters across and ten meters tall, with an island of greenery down its center—toward what looked for all the world like a pair of swinging doors under flowing golden letters that read simply DEMPSEY’S.

The Steadholder paused about two meters from them and drew a deep breath, then turned to her armsmen.

“All right, Andrew. Simon. I’m not going to have any problems with you two, am I?”

LaFollet gazed back at her. She hadn’t specifically discussed what was about to happen with him, but he knew. Just as he knew the reason she’d left Nimitz in her quarters aboard Nike.

For that matter, he knew she would have preferred to leave him and Mattingly with Nimitz. In fact, it was obvious she truly hadn’t yet fully internalized the requirements of Grayson law where steadholders’ security details were concerned, and she’d tried to do just that. Fortunately, Regent Clinkscales had briefed Andrew LaFollet carefully against this very moment. Even better, in some ways, he’d spent hours picking James MacGuiness’ brain on the best way to approach explaining the realities to her. MacGuiness probably knew her better than anyone outside her parents and Captain Henke, and he’d obviously approved of her armsmens’ presence even before he’d learned of Captain Tankersley’s death.

“Tell her it’s her duty,” he’d said with a sad smile. “That’s the one argument she can never, ever ignore.”

That was precisely what LaFollet had done, and when she’d pointed out that armed foreign nationals weren’t permitted aboard Manticoran warships, he’d simply shown her his copy of the Star Kingdom’s official response to Protector Benjamin’s personal communication to its foreign secretary over a year ago in anticipation of this moment.

The one signed by Prime Minister Cromarty and countersigned by Queen Elizabeth herself. The one that officially recognized Lady Harrington as Steadholder Harrington, a foreign head of state who happened to share the same body with Countess Harrington, and specifically granted her armsmen the right to keep and bear arms in her presence, wherever she might be. And, for good measure, granted them diplomatic immunity, to boot.

That was the point at which she’d realized she truly was stuck with them, he thought as he looked back at her now.

“You’re our Steadholder, My Lady,” he said. “Your orders to us have the force of law. We don’t like the idea of your risking yourself, but we won’t interfere as long as this Summervale offers you no physical violence.”

“I don’t like qualifications from my subordinates, Andrew,” she said, and his shoulders straightened in involuntary reflex. “I won’t try to tell you your duty under normal circumstances, but when I tell you you will do nothing, whatever happens between Summervale and me, that’s precisely what I mean. Is that understood?”

LaFollet felt his face go blank as, for the first time, he heard the unmistakable snap of command in her voice.

“Yes, My Lady. I understand,” he said crisply, and the Steadholder nodded.

“Good,” she said, then drew a deep breath. “In that case, gentlemen, let’s be about it.”

* * *

She really shouldn’t be here.

She knew that. She’d even told herself that. But sometimes Iris Babcock didn’t listen to herself, and this was one of those times.

No one had told her what was likely to happen today, but it was a sorry excuse for a Marine noncom who couldn’t figure out what was going on. She knew HMS Agni had returned from Grayson with Lady Harrington the day before, and she knew Lady Harrington. There was no question in her mind what the Countess intended to do, and there was really only one place she could do it. Babcock’s cousin Malachi had confirmed that for her, and he’d also quietly reserved a corner table near the bar for her. Major Yestachenko had looked at her a bit oddly when she’d announced she had a personal errand to run aboard Hephaestus, if that was all right with the Major. She suspected Yestachenko had a pretty shrewd idea of what that “errand” was, but the Major was another of the good ones. He’d only suggested—a bit pointedly, true—that he expected her to “stay out of trouble.”

Which she intended to do.

Probably.

Now she sat back, nursing a beer and watching the slim, fair-haired man at the bar. He’d been there for the last three hours, and according to Malachi, he’d been there for over five hours, yesterday.

Nothing suspicious about that, she thought with a snort.

“Now why did I expect I’d find you here, Gunny?”

She looked up with a start, and her eyes widened briefly.

“Harkness?” She produced a scowl. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Really?” Horace Harkness said almost pityingly, then toe-hooked a chair out from under her table and sat down. “You think you’re the only person tapped into the grapevine?” It was his turn to snort. “I wouldn’t miss this for the frigging world, Gunny! Or maybe I should say I wouldn’t miss this for the frigging world either?”

She glared at him for a moment.

“Okay, you caught me.” She shrugged. “So sue me.”

“Nah.” Harkness raised a hand to catch the attention of one of Dempsey’s real, live human waitstaff. “Couldn’t do that without suing myself.”

“What do you need, Senior Chief?” the waiter asked.

“A stein of Old Tillman, I think,” Harkness replied. “Oh, and a side of fries. You need anything else, Gunny?”

“Actually,” Babcock decided, “fries sound pretty good. Make that a double, Ken. And put it on my tab.”

“You got it, Sergeant Major.”

The waiter nodded and headed off, and Harkness grinned.

“That was right neighborly of you, Gunny!”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Babcock said dryly. “Just remember, I get the family discount.”

“Man, never thought of myself as a cheap da—” Harkness began, then paused in mid syllable as the double doors opened.

“Showtime, Gunny.”

“Yeah,” Babcock agreed, then twitched her head to her left. “Keep an eye on that big guy in the Hauptman shipsuit. He’s had his eye on our friend at the bar as long as I have, and the son of a bitch is packing. I’m thinking our friend might have brought a little extra muscle along after his conversation with the Colonel.”

“Shoulder holster on the left side?” Harkness nodded. “Noticed that while I was sneaking up on you.”

“Observant bastard for a vacuum-sucker, aren’t you just?”

“I try, Gunny. I try.”

* * *

Andrew LaFollet and Simon Mattingly followed the Steadholder through the swinging doors.

She paused long enough for a single, sweeping glance. It found the fair-haired man seated at the bar, his back to the doors, and she started across the restaurant with a steady, measured stride.

LaFollet and Mattingly held station behind her, and LaFollet’s antennae tingled as a big, beefy fellow in a yellow shipsuit turned his head. The major didn’t care for the way the Manty’s eyes followed the Steadholder, but his weren’t the only eyes following her. The man with his back to her looked as if he had not a care in the world, but his eyes were on the mirror behind the bar, focused on the Steadholder’s reflection like lasers.

The Steadholder crossed the restaurant and stopped a meter behind him. LaFollet saw her eyes in the mirror, too, and then—

“Denver Summervale?” she said in a tone like a daggered icicle.

He sat for an instant, then turned, and Andrew LaFollet’s palm itched as he curled a contemptuous lip at the Steadholder.

“Yes?” he sneered.

“I’m Honor Harrington,” she said.

“Should that mean something to me?” he demanded in that same, sneering tone, but LaFollet saw something in his eyes that belied his finely honed scorn. Something that suggested this meeting wasn’t developing exactly the way he’d planned. And then—

“Yes, it should,” the Steadholder said. “After all, I’m the woman Earl North Hollow hired you to kill, Mister Summervale. Just as he hired you to kill Paul Tankersley.”

She hadn’t raised her voice, but it was a voice accustomed to command. It carried clearly, and disbelieving silence radiated outward across the crowded restaurant with stunning, lightning speed.

Summervale’s disdainful expression vanished. He gaped at her, obviously dumbfounded, and LaFollet wondered just what the idiot had expected the Steadholder to say. In Summervale’s defense, he’d never seen her ankle-deep in assassins’ bodies, but a man with his record should have done his homework. Then again, perhaps that record of his was the reason he hadn’t. LaFollet’s research had turned up over a dozen duels Summervale had fought. He’d won all of them easily, and Lady Harrington had never fought even one. This was his game, not hers, and no doubt he’d expected her to approach him in a white-hot fury. For her to challenge him, put him in position to dictate the terms of their inevitable meeting. Clearly, he’d anticipated neither her ice-cold control not that she—that anyone—would dare to publicly denounce him as a paid killer . . . and name the man who’d hired him, as well. It was an understandable error, if not a forgivable one.

And it was also the last error he would ever make.

Andrew LaFollet was an armsman. He didn’t like the thought of Lady Harrington exposing herself to risk, but what he felt in that moment was an overwhelming sense of grim, confident pride in his Steadholder.

Summervale simply sat there, thoughts obviously skittering like a ground car on ice as he tried to process what had just happened. There was no question in LaFollet’s mind that the paid duelist had been waiting here, anticipating Lady Harrington’s arrival, but his carefully planned scenario had just gone out the airlock. He no longer knew the script, and his brain was a beached fish, floundering on the sand, while he stared at her like a rabbit.

“We’re all waiting, Mister Summervale,” she said. “Aren’t you a man of honor?” Her contempt cut like a lash. “No, of course you’re not. You’re a hired killer, aren’t you, Mister Summervale? Scum like you doesn’t challenge people unless the odds and money are both right, does it?”

“I—” Summervale began, then stopped, and LaFollet smiled thinly.

Not working out the way you’d planned, is it, asshole? the major thought coldly. So now what do you do?

Summervale clearly had no answer for that question. The accusation—the insult—Lady Harrington had just delivered left him no option. LaFollet understood that, too. Summervale had to realize as well as LaFollet what he had to do—what he had no option but to do—yet he seemed incapable of getting the words out.

“Very well, Mister Summervale,” Lady Harrington said. “Let me help you.”

She slapped him across the mouth.

Andrew LaFollet had seen Honor Harrington kill a man with her bare hands. He knew exactly what she could have done to Denver Summervale. But that slap—that open-hand blow, delivered by an arm reared in Sphinx’s gravity—wasn’t intended to kill. It was intended to do something far worse, and it landed precisely where she’d intended it to. Landed with all the contempt in the universe.

Summervale’s head snapped back, his lips pulped, his mouth instantly bloody, and the Steadholder slapped him again, this time with the back of her hand. He staggered back, and she crowded in on him, pinning him against the bar, and slapped him again. And again. And again, forehand and backhand, full arm blows, each slap landing with an explosive CRACK, while every shocked eye in the crowded restaurant watched.

Summervale finally got a hand up, trying to grab her wrist, and she let him—for a moment. Then she broke his grip contemptuously and stepped back, watching him with brown-flint eyes.

“I—”

Summervale coughed, then dragged a handkerchief from his pocket as the blood drooled down his chin and across his shirt and tunic, and his eyes blazed with mingled shame, fury, hatred . . . and fear.

The Steadholder only stood there, waiting, and he clutched the balled-up handkerchief in one hand and forced his shoulders to straighten. It was an almost pathetic gesture, LaFollet thought with cold pleasure.

“You’re insane,” he said finally. “I don’t know you, and I’ve never met this Earl North Hollow! How dare you accuse me of being some—some sort of hired assassin! I don’t know why you should want to force a quarrel on me, but no one can talk to me this way!”

I can,” Lady Harrington said coldly.

“Then I have no choice but to demand satisfaction!”

“Good.”

For the first time, there was something in the Steadholder’s voice besides contempt. There was hunger. There was satisfaction, and more than one of the restaurant’s patrons shuddered as they heard it.

“Colonel Tomas Ramirez—I believe you know him?—will act as my second,” she told him in that hexapuma voice. “He’ll call on your friend—Livitnikov, isn’t it? Or were you going to hire someone else this time?”

“I—” Summervale swallowed again, then drew a deep breath. “Mr. Livitnikov is, indeed, a friend of mine. I feel confident he’ll act for me.”

“I’m sure you do. No doubt you pay him enough.” Lady Harrington’s smile was a scalpel, and her eyes glittered. “Tell him to start studying the Ellington Protocol, Mister Summervale,” she said.

He stood, staring at her, bloody mouth working, and she snorted contemptuously.

Then she turned away, nodded to LaFollet and Mattingly, and walked out of the restaurant’s ringing silence without another word.


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