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Ueffqo Monologue

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Page 11 of 18 back up, and once again I felt with certainty that it was all a masquerade she was performing--but I was also struck by how intensely she performed, as though lives--not just our lives, or even the lives in this small, sometimes sleepy Massachusetts town, but all life, everywhere, from the worms beneath our feet that blindly dug their myriad and vermicular tunnels to the vast and tenuous astromorphs that feed on clouds of nebulae like earthly cetaceans sieve plankton and krill through their baleens--depended on her performance. She looked up at me, and said: "What were once billions of cycles about your small sun have now diminished over the aeons to an infinitesimal remnant; mere planetary revolutions, in fact. There are still …show more content…

Her eyes were at once roguish and innocent. Ueffqo I tried to repeat the name and failed, rather predictably; phonology isn't my strong suit. I tried aligning the sound with the New England glottal stop that I was much more familiar with, and had more success. There was then a moment of silence, and, attempting to interject something to fill it, I asked, "And your employer's name--?" "Will be made known to you when it becomes appropriate," she said, and I was surprised to hear the slightest note of asperity in her voice. Apparently I had overstepped some boundary by asking. "My apologies," I said. L'lana made no verbal response to this, but the level, expectant gaze she now aimed at me I found even more disconcerting. "I assume you know my name," I said, "since you --" "--sought you out," she finished. "Indeed we did, it being of vital importance that everyone associated with this undertaking be of the Old Blood. We were extremely gratified to learn that one of the last of the Carters still lived." A thought suddenly and obviously struck her; she opened her pocketbook, the while exclaiming "Excuse me; I meant no offense. Obviously custom and formality must be observed." L'lana continued to root in her pocket book as she spoke, and after another few moments she pulled something triumphantly from its innards. It was a crumpled wad of paper, clasped tight in her fist, which she extended to …show more content…

"I believe his name was Jefferson, or maybe Lincoln--Washington? Franklin?" L'lana shrugged, waving her hand artlessly as if dispersing smoke. "One of them, anyway, whose soubrette ends in an 'n'." Her voice turned sulky. "You have so many." She shot me a glance through her hair; I couldn't tell if it was mischievous or wounded, and right now I didn't care. I was abruptly tired of whatever game she was playing: her and her mysterious "employer", or "master", both. I thrust the crumpled banknote into my coat pocket, pulled my office chair from its spot at the desk and straddled it backward, then rolled it toward her a few feet, so that I was blocking her exit. "Okay," I said quietly. "No more posing; no more pretending. Tell me who are you are and what you intend." She pretended to be surprised--not with a great amount of success, as any acting L'lana did was always aimed at the back of the room. "Subtlety" was not in her lexicon. Then she smiled cockily, picked up her handbag and strolled toward me,exaggerating the sway of her hips ever so slightly. "You won't stop me," she said. "You can't." "Maybe not," I replied. "Won't it be interesting to find out?" L'lana hesitated more noticeably this time. She barely glanced to both sides; her exquisite tongue darted out to wet her lips. Then, with shocking suddenness, she lunged at

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