“Can I ask you something?” enquired Martha. “May I take a couple of weeks’ vacation?”“Of course you can Martha, where are you going?” Ro... asked.Martha looked slightly embarrassed. “Well,” she started “Simon has been calling me most days since he returned to China, and he has just sent me three plane tickets. He wants me and the boys to go to Shanghai for a couple of weeks.”“That’s great Martha, of course you must go, and have a great time!” Rob replied. He reached in his desk and pulled out a. " Are you cold?" I'm okay," said Chistina, passing the statuette on to Kim, "I just felt achill." One of the candles has blown out," said Anna, not looking up from hermagazine. "Maybe there's a window open." There shouldn't be," said Gemma. She sat down on the arm of the sofaagain.Kim scrutinised where the face of the statue should have been if it hadbeen human. "I'll tell you what would have set my life on a differentcourse and no mistake," she said, not lifting her eyes from the smoothcarved. After turning in the passport to me, I got photocopies and turned it back. He said thanks and headed toward the door; he was about to cross the threshold, as I yelled at him: “Hey, listen to me! wait!” I don’t yet know how in the hell I had the guts, imprudence, audacity and shameless to call him. I said, stuttering my next words: “Oh… I… Uh… well, do you want… would you?... I mean, would you like to dine some homemade food at my place sometime?" The nice dark guy didn’t pause in saying yes. Heck on Wadi where we don't have enough troops and want to be harassing the Sa'arm all the time everyone stands down regularly. Continuous duty results in people making really stupid and often fatal mistakes.I can understand how you'd feel like the job you worked to earn means something. Erica and I talk about that after a mission while we wait for the landing craft to return us to Trinary Island. There has been talk of promoting us and having us become trainers, but we both feel like we do so.