to it. And that's me. So there you have it, Miss Perry: Four years of technical education and twenty years of professional work have allowed me to become a printer monkey at the very ass end of space. Truly, my life's goal has been achieved."
I shrugged. "So let us do it," I said.
"I beg your pardon," Bennett said.
"If all you're doing is making sure the printer doesn't jam, that's something we could do for you," I said. "We'll work for you for a couple of hours, and in exchange you let us use a couple of PDAs while we're here. And then you can do whatever else you need to do."
"Or just go have lunch," Gretchen said. "Surprise your wife."
Bennett was silent for a minute, considering. "Offering to actually help me," he said. "No one's tried that tactic before. Very sneaky."
"We try," I said.
"And it is lunchtime," Bennett said. "And it is just printing."
"It is," I agreed.
"I suppose if you mess things up horribly it won't be too bad for me," Bennett said. "Your parents won't punish me for your incompetence."
"Nepotism working for you," I said.
"Not that there will be a problem," Gretchen said.
"No," I agreed. "We're excellent printer monkeys."
"All right," Bennett said, and reached across his worktable to grab his PDA. "You can use my PDA. You know how to use this?"
I gave him a look.
"Sorry. Okay." He punched up a queue of files on the display. "These are files that need to go through today. The printer is there" - he motioned to the far end of the worktable - "and the paper is in that bin. Feed it into the printer, stack the finished documents next to the printer. If it jams, and it will, several times, just yank out the paper and let it autofeed a new one. It'll automatically reprint the last page it was working on. While you're doing that you can sync up to the Entertainment archive. I downloaded all those files into one place."
"You downloaded everyone's files?" I asked, and felt ever so slightly violated.
"Relax," Bennett said. "Only public files are accessible. As long as you encrypted your private files before you turned in your PDA, like you were told to, your secrets are safe. Now, once you access a music file the speakers will kick on. Don't turn them up too high or you won't be able to hear the printer jam."
"You have speakers already set up?" Gretchen asked.
"Yes, Miss Trujillo," Bennett said. "Believe it or not, even chunky middle-aged men like to listen to music."
"I know that," Gretchen said. "My dad loves his."
"And on that ego-deflating note, I'll be off," Bennett said. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. Please don't destroy the place. And if anyone comes in asking if they can borrow a PDA, tell them the answer is no, and no exceptions." He set off.
"I hope he was being ironic there," I said.
"Don't care," Gretchen said, and grabbed for the PDA. "Give me that."
"Hey," I said, holding it away from her. "First things first." I set up the printer, queued the files, and then accessed "Delhi Morning." The opening strains flowed out of the speakers and I soaked them in. I swear I almost cried.
"It's amazing how badly you remembered this song," Gretchen said, about halfway though.
"Shhhhh," I said. "Here's that part."
She saw the expression on my face and kept quiet until the song was done.
Two hours is not enough time with a PDA if you haven't had access to one in months. And that's all I'm going to say about that. But it was enough time that both Gretchen and I came out of the information center feeling just like we'd spent hours soaking in a nice hot bath - which, come to think of it, was something that we hadn't done for months either.
"We should keep this to ourselves," Gretchen said.
"Yes," I said. "Don't want people to bug Mr. Bennett."
"No, I just like having something over everyone else," Gretchen said.
"There aren't a lot of people who can carry off petty," I said. "Yet somehow you do."
Gretchen nodded. "Thank you, madam. And now I need to get back home. I promised Dad I'd weed the vegetable garden before it got dark."
"Have fun rooting in the dirt," I said.
"Thanks," Gretchen said. "If you were feeling nice, you could always offer to help me."
"I'm working on my evil," I said.
"Be that way," Gretchen said.
"But let's get together after dinner tonight to practice," I said. "Now that we