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makeshift and haphazard."
"What we need is an organized program of entertainment, and some kind of
center where people could go to unwind, no matter what shift they're working
or who they are. So they could forget their troubles and have their spirits
lifted. A place where they could remember-remember why we all came here in the
first place."
She said that last softly, she who hadn't been invited on the REF
mission in the first place.
Edward's own voice took on a softness, a dangerous tone from him. "Let
me be clear on this. Knowing your past, do I assume you're suggesting we open
up a cabaret?"
"No, a service club!" she corrected. "People need their morale kept up,
sir!"
"And you're just the one to organize it, hmm?"
She couldn't meet his gaze for a moment. She knew that all her arguments
were true, but Edwards had seen right through her. When she had sung that last
good-bye aboard the superdimensional fortress when the Farrago left, she had
sworn she wouldn't sing in public again.
But bit by bit, her resolve had crumbled. She missed it too much. She
missed the good things her songs did for people, the happiness they brought.
But she had to admit that she missed the spotlight, too, the applause and
adulation and attention. They were in her blood. She needed them.
The REF's situation was so much like Macross's in the old SDF-1 that it
was as if her life were a Mobius strip. And so she found herself following old
forms, feeling old longings and dreaming dreams she had told herself to bury.
"I'm more knowledgeable about show business than anybody else we've got,
sir," she pressed on. "I'll do it on my off-duty time! But I was hoping you'd
speak to the council, General."
It all sounded like something out of one of those twentieth-century
films for which he had such utter contempt. Hey, I've got it, we'll put on the
show in the barn! Yeah, you can make the costumes! Swell; they can build the
sets!
He almost ridiculed her out loud, would have enjoyed it, but at the last
second held back. There was something about her presence, her gamine appeal
and wide-eyed winsomeness. Where other men might have felt attracted to her,
and suddenly protective toward her, Edwards began to feel possessive.
He knew she had been courted by hundreds of love-struck admirers,
worshipped by thousands, perhaps millions, of fans. And none had had her, none
had really touched her, save only two. One of those, Lynn Kyle, her distant
cousin, was long since missing and presumed dead back on Earth.
Edwards also knew that Minmei had once been Hunter's passion. He was
aware, too, through his spies, that that fool Wolff had a hopeless crush on
her.
Minmei wasn't sure what reactions or thoughts she was seeing cross
Edwards's face; the gleaming half cowl and scintillating lens-eye made it
difficult to tell.
Edwards steepled his hands before him and tilted his chair back. "This
idea may have some merit, Cadet. We'll discuss it further over dinner."
Page 71
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
In Edwards's mind, she was already his, body and soul.
Kami realized blearily that he was being borne along to the clanking of
mecha. Reviving a little, he saw to his horror that he was in the grip of a
Crann Inorganic.
The memory of being jumped, mixed with his Vision, began to sort out as
he struggled like a wild thing to no effect. The dreadful recollections of
being caged by Tesla made him look about for a way to take his own life. The
Inorganic's armor and grotesque design screamed mindless hatefulness; the sky
was screeching a death song at him.
But he was held fast and couldn't squirm free. That changed in a few
moments, though, as he was dropped without ceremony. He landed in a heap on
hard, gritty soil, dazed, the Vision almost clouding over into
unconsciousness. He could hear the Invid marching away, and could make no
sense of it.
Something prodded him. Kami rolled over with a sharp yip of alarm, to
find himself looking up at a ring of furry faces. "What are you?" one of them
said. "Are you an Invid, then?"
One of the others made an exasperated sound and jabbed the first with an
elbow. "Stupid! How could he be an Invid?"
"Well, he's no Karbarran!" the first shot back, and they seemed about to
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