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* Title : #021 : DEADLY SEEDS *

* Series : The Destroyer *

* Author(s) : Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir *

* Location : Gillian Archives *

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CHAPTER ONE

When James Orayo Fielding looked at people, he saw bugs. Except bugs didn't cry or quiver or try to hide their terror when he fired them or told them he might fire them. Bugs went squish when he stepped on them. And then his manservant Oliver would clean up the little blotches with his thumbnail and James Orayo Fielding would ask:

"Don't you hate that, Oliver? Doesn't it make your stomach turn to put your fingers in a bug's belly?"

And Oliver would say:

"No, Mr. Fielding. My job is to do whatever you wish."

"What if I told you to eat it, Oliver?"

"Then I would do as you wish, Mr. Fielding."

"Eat it, Oliver."

And James Orayo Fielding would watch very closely and inspect Oliver's hands to make sure he hadn't pushed a remnant of the insect up into his sleeve, or in some other manner deceived his employer.

"People are bugs, Oliver."

"Yes, Mr. Fielding."

"I'll wear grays today."

"Yes, Mr. Fielding."

And James Orayo Fielding waited by the immense picture window that gave him the glorious view of the Rocky Mountains, stretching in white peaks right to Canada and left to Mexico. The Fieldings were one of the old Denver, Colorado, families, descended from English nobility on the father's side and French on the mother's, although it was rumored some Arapaho had made its way into the bloodstream, culminating in James Orayo Fielding, owner of the Fielding ranches, Fielding sugar beet plants, and Fielding Enterprises Inc., which included manufacturing plants in New Mexico and Texas which few Denverites knew anything about. James did not discuss them.