“QX, girls. A nice job—thanks,” he said. “Now, Vesta, please tape the actual facts and the actual words of the interview—none of the pictures or guesses—in Middle Plateau Tomingan. Wherever possible, bracket real names and addresses with the code numbers. Tommie and Jim can help you on that.”
She did so.
When they came to that part of the transcription dealing with Number Ninety Two, Jim stiffened and swelled in rage.
“Ask him if that’s an accurate report,” Cloud directed.
“It’s accurate enough as far as it goes,” Jim boomed. His voice, deeper and louder than Tommie’s, and not nearly as musical, almost shook the walls. “But he left out half of it. What I really told him would have burned all the tape off of that recorder.”
“But they left in that . . . that awful one, three times.” Tommie, tough as she was, was shocked. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Srizonified?” Cloud whispered to Vesta. “It sounded bad, but not that hot. Is it?”
“Yes, the hottest in the language. I never saw it in print, and heard it only once, and that was by accident. Like most such things, though, it doesn’t translate—‘descended from countless generations of dwellers in stinking, unflowering mud’ is as close as I can come to it in Spanish.”
“QX. Finish up the tape and make two copies of it.”
When the copies were ready Cloud handed them to Tommie.