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. As the time approached, she developed a smile that creased her wrinkles in unaccustomed directions, as if she knew something but wasn't talking. Twice Thorby caught her smiling at him and it worried him; it was better not to catch Grandmother's attention. He had had her full attention once lately and had not enjoyed it -- he had been honored by eating with her, for having burned a raider.
The bogie had appeared on Sisu's screens during the lift from Finster -- an unexpected place to be attacked since there was not much traffic there. The alarm had come only four hours out, when Sisu had attained barely 5% of speed-of-light and had no hope of running for it
The matter landed in Thorby's lap; the portside computer was disabled -- it had a "nervous breakdown" and the ship's electronics men had been sweating over it since jump. Thorby's nephew Jeri had returned to astrogation, the new trainee having qualified on the long jump from Losian -- he was a stripling in whom Thorby had little confidence, but Thorby did not argue when Jeri decided that Kenan Drotar was ready for a watch even though he had never experienced a "real one." Jeri was anxious to go back to the control room for two reasons, status, and an unmentioned imponderable: the computer room was where Jeri had served with his missing kid sister.
So when the raider popped up, it was up to Thorby.
He felt shaky when he first started to test the problem, being acutely aware that the portside computer was out
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