QUES: Search "Emiliano Malaquez" and you'll find he's a master of the "captured moment" school of sculpture. Even The Terran Times has only praise for his work. To compare his pieces to those of others is to compare mannequins to living models. He accents the illusion of reality --I paraphrase his entry in La Enciclopedia Humanica --by doing life-size scenes in "The full round," never the easier frontal or three-quarters view. Moreover, he never did portraits of famous people; his works were therefore the reality and could never be compared to it. As is typical of his school, his pieces are sealed in stopboxes. The shimmer of light on their surfaces always reminds us that we're looking at an instant snatched from under the hooves of time. They say the cubes will outlast planets and suns, that when the universe dies, the works of Malaquez and his followers will be the last things seen in the final wink of God's eye. Yes, Self, I am also bothered that this observation ignores half-eaten cheese sandwiches, incomplete insect collections, and locks of infants' hair, forgotten in closets, basements, and warehouses. You see the inspiration for my latest play, "Captured Moments." The mindwipe will take its creation from my future self --but time too often does that without aid. The play's second act concludes with the last fight between Tasha and me. I have disguised us in the play, and deleted one brief melodramatic interchange. Now I will mention it, in case I/You decide to restore it. Shortly before she left, Tasha said, "You steal from life for art, Bernardo. You'll impoverish yourself." I only snarled at her and -- My story leaps ahead of itself. Let me retreat and retrench: One night during N'apulco's mild winter, Tasha returned to The Flamingo, saying, "Nardo! Nardo! Guess what?"
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What do Tasha and Bernardo fight about?

QUES: Elettra stuck the little slip of paper, on which the recipe was written, into her shabby pocket-book without looking at it. She could read and write fairly well, and had been used to helping her husband the under-steward with his accounts at Muro, but even if she had looked at the recipe she would have understood nothing of the doctor's hieroglyphics and abbreviated Latin words. The prescription was for a preparation of arsenic, which Matilde had formerly taken for some time. The chemist would not make any difficulty about preparing twenty doses of it for the Countess Macomer, though the whole quantity of arsenic contained in so many would probably be sufficient to kill one not accustomed to the medicine, if taken all at once. But though Matilde was so anxious to have the stuff before luncheon, she had a number of doses of it put away in a drawer, which she took out and counted, after Elettra had gone. She opened one of the little folded papers and looked at the fine white powder it contained, took a little on the end of her finger and tasted it. Then, from the same drawer, she took a package done up in coarser paper, and opened it likewise, looked at it, smelt it, and touched it with the tip of her tongue very cautiously indeed. It was white, too, but coarser than the medicine. She was very careful in tasting it, and she immediately rinsed her mouth with water, before she tied up the package again, shut the drawer, and put the key into her pocket.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What stuff was Matilde so anxious to have before luncheon?

QUES: The center of an atom is held together by powerful forces. This gives them a huge amount of stored energy. This type of energy is called nuclear energy. This energy can be released and used to do work. This happens in nuclear power plants where they split apart the nucleus of an atom. This splitting apart is called nuclear fission. Another type of nuclear energy happens in the Sun. Here the atoms nuclei are not split apart. Instead, the nuclei of the atoms are fused, or joined together. This process is called nuclear fusion. Some of the suns energy travels to Earth. This energy from nuclear fusion warms the planet and provides the energy for photosynthesis.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What can be done with the stored energy that holds the center of atoms together?

QUES: Moscow (CNN) -- Divers have completed their search of a Russian cruise ship that sank last weekend with the loss of many lives, the Emergency Situations Ministry told CNN Friday. The official death toll has reached 114 -- including 66 women, 28 children and 20 men, the ministry said. The bodies of 15 people are still missing. There were 208 people on the "Bulgaria" at the time of the accident Sunday, of whom 79 were rescued. Divers have checked all the boat's compartments, the ministry said, and are now looking for more bodies around the boat as well downstream on the Volga River, where they could have been carried by the current. The area where search efforts continue has been enlarged to 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the scene, Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said at a briefing Friday. Preparations are under way for the cruise ship to be raised from the river bottom in the coming days. Two large boat cranes, one from Moscow and another one from Volgograd, which will be used for the lifting, are on the way to the accident site. "We have asked the Emergency Situations Ministry to keep 23 divers at the scene to continue the search for bodies even during the lifting operation," Levitin said. Specialist military divers were brought in mid-week to aid in the search efforts. Four people face criminal charges over the sinking of the ship, which Russian media have called the most devastating river accident in the country's history.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
How many had the official death toll reached?