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led to be assumed in three local years (a Speaker was en route); now, however, Ohan has requested an indefinite stay. Though they have not stated so, I am convinced they are reluctant to sever trading ties with Bh'Haret (and the seven other non-affiliated worlds clustered in a 1.3 light year radius) as required by assumption into the Polyarchy. It is my belief that the administrators of Bh'Haret have convinced their counterparts on Ohan that the acquisition of technology will occur more rapidly through trade with non-affiliated worlds than through the Nexus Ascension program. If so, this constitutes a major setback. Had Ohan been assumed, Bh'Haret would have been further isolated. Instead, we now find ourselves facing an extremely delicate situation on Ohan. Other local non-affiliated worlds are waiting to see the outcome of Ohan's vacillation.

Because of the distances involved, I urge you to act expeditiously. The current Instrument installed on Bh'Haret is not a Speaker; her communications, therefore

native health care.

Naturally, my first stop was a local general practitioner/MD. Hegave me his usual half-hour get-acquainted checkout and opined thatthere almost certainly was nothing wrong with me. I suspect I hadthe good fortune to encounter an honest doctor, because he also saidif it were my wish he could send me around for numerous tests butmost likely these would not reveal anything either. More thanlikely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with theonset of middle age I would naturally have more aches and pains.'Take some aspirin and get used to it,' was his advice. 'It'll onlyget worse.'

Not satisfied with his dismal prognosis I asked an energetic old guyI knew named Paul, an '80-something homesteader who was renowned forhis organic garden and his good health. Paul referred me to hisdoctor, Isabelle Moser, who at that time was running the Great OaksSchool of Health, a residential and out-patient spa nearby atCreswell, Oregon.

Dr. Moser had very different methods

r-class cadets in deep blue, enlisted spacemen in scarlet red, and Solar Guard officers in their striking uniforms of black and gold. Chatting and laughing, they all were entering the great building.

The Polaris unit was well known among other cadet units, and they were greeted heartily from all sides. As Astro and Roger joked with various cadet units, forming up in front of the slidestairs leading down to the mess halls, Alfie turned to take a slidestairs going up. Suddenly he stopped, grabbed Tom by the shoulders, and whispered in his ear. Just as abruptly he turned and raced up the ascending slidestairs.

"What was that about?" asked Roger, as Tom stood staring after the little cadet.

"Roger--he--he said our next assignment would be one of the great experiments in space history. Something to be done that--that hasn't ever been done before!"

"Well, blast my jets!" said Astro. "What do you suppose it is?"

"Ahhh," sneered Roger, "I'll bet it's nothing more than takin

n them. He carried them (they were the budget for the coming fiscal year) into his office, staggering a little on the way, and dropped dazedly into his chair. They showed the budget for his own department as exactly one hundred times what he'd been expecting. That is to say, fifty times what he'd put in for.

When the initial shock began to wear off, his face assumed an expression of intense thought. In about five minutes he leaped from his chair, dashed out of the office with a shouted syllable or two for his secretary, and got his car out of the parking lot. At home, he tossed clothes into a travelling bag and barged toward the door, giving his wife a quick kiss and an equally quick explanation. He didn't bother to call the airport. He meant to be on the next plane east, and no nonsense about it....

* * * * *

With one thing and another, the economy hadn't been exactly in overdrive that year, and predictions for the Christmas season were gloomy. Early retail figures bore them out. Gift buying dribbled along feebly until Thanksgivin

2.1. Principles for Developing Accessible Applications

Developers need to consider the following needs of disabled users when developing an accessible application:

* Choice of input methods. Support should be available for various types of input, such as, keyboard, mouse and adaptive technologies. Pay close attention to keyboard navigation. * Choice of output methods. Support should be available for various types of output, such as, visual display, audio, and print. The main focus is that text labels are provided for all user interface elements and objects, graphics, and icons. * Consistency and flexibil

Your quickened step, your new-found decisiveness of action, your more observant eye, your clear-cut speech instead of the former drawling utterance, your livelier manner, your freshened enthusiasm and enjoyment of life--all of these are but manifestations of a quickened intelligence.

[Sidenote: Quickened Mentality]

They are the working out through the motor paths of mental impulses to muscular action.

And these impulses to muscular action come thronging into consciousness because the livelier environment brings about a more rapid reproduction of memory pictures.

And here comes a particularly striking fact. One would naturally suppose that the more energy a man consumed, and the faster he lived, the more quickly his vitality would be exhausted and the shorter his life would be.

As a matter of fact, by the divine beneficence of Providence, your organism is so ordered as to adapt itself within certain wide limits to the demands made upon it

n high school. Jeff confides in me; I'm an older-brother figure. The death was an accident; Jeff and his friend were launching a model rocket. But deep down, Jeff thinks it was his fault. And ever since then, he's been wanting to find a way to bring reality under control. That's what the nants are really for. Making a virtual world. Not for medicine."

"So there's no cure?" said Nektar. "I babysit Chu for the rest of my life?" Though Chu could be sweet, he could also be difficult. Hardly an hour went by without a fierce tantrum--and half the time Nektar didn't even know why. "I want my career back, Ond."

Nektar had majored in media studies at UCLA, where she and Ond met. Before marrying Ond, she'd been in a relationship with a woman, but they fought about money a lot, and she'd mistakenly imagined life with a man would be easier. When Ond moved them to San Francisco for his Nantel job, Nektar had worked for the SF symphony, helping to organize benefit banquets and cocktail parties. In the process

all the extravagant luxuries of modern civilized life, on whom the discoveries of that first day of sun and wind in the Channel must have come with the greatest surprise. They had heard the ship described as a floating hotel; but as they began to explore her they must have found that she contained resources of a perfection unattained by any hotel, and luxuries of a kind unknown in palaces. The beauties of French chateaux and of English country-houses of the great period had been dexterously combined with that supreme form of comfort which the modern English and Americans have raised to the dignity of a fine art. Such a palace as a great artist, a great epicure, a great poet and the most spoilt and pampered woman in the world might have conjured up from their imagination in an idle hour was here materialized and set, not in a fixed landscape of park and woodland, but on the dustless road of the sea, with the sunshine of an English April pouring in on every side, and the fresh salt airs of the Channel filling

of the race. All other declarations prior to this were but for dynasties, or were ethnic at most. But those men swept the horizon of humanity. These men called forth, as it were, the oncoming centuries of time, and in their presence declared that all men are created free and equal.

They not only declared the ultimate truth of human rights, but they exhausted the right of revolution. They created a constitution founded upon the will of the people, based upon our great declaration of rights, embracing man's inalienable right to life, liberty, and happiness. The instrument which their genius created was left amendable by the oncoming wants of time, modified in subordinate relations which might be suggested by emergencies and the unfolding of our race. Here then are the great fingers of prophecy pointing to our future.

And we have been equally favored in our population, whether we take the Puritans who landed in New England, the Dutch who landed in New York, or the English who crowded Maryland and

not the case with the stout fellow that at that moment entered from the common room beyond. He caught sight of me and let out a yell that could have, and in fact did, summon everyone in the place. The sounds of singing stopped as others rushed to see the source of his consternation.

"Let this be a lesson to you not to waylay innocent travelers!" I shouted, scooping up the pies, one in each hand. I urged Hysteria onward, but no doubt feeling the warm air exiting the window, she was loath to move. The orphan fixed that by slapping her on the backside, her fragile ego notwithstanding. She jumped and shot around to the front of the inn just as the gang of toughs from inside came out the front door. They were just in time to watch us race off into the darkness with two warm and steamy pies.

Chapter Four

: Wherein we make decisions about our supper.

When we were not two hundred yards down the road, I let Hysteria drop to a trot, for in trut