We became very close and shared many memories over the years through middle, high, and then into our first year of college. Now I know what you’re t...inking, who was unrequitedly in love with whom? Wasn’t like that. Neither of us was into the other. We dated several other people but never each other. Both of us got our hearts broken several times. We really relied on each other to be there through it all. Well one night I was hanging out in my dorm room. I had two roommates, but both of them. Her dissertations on the inner workings of the various corporations, of how they achieved the blatant political manipulation that kept them in perpetual power, had had a tremendous effect on the people of Mars, both welfare and working class. True everyone had always known that the corporations were the real government of the planet and of WestHem itself, but human nature had commanded that they not think about things that they could not change. What Whiting had done was force them to think. "Selia dear, what else doyou remember?"Selia looked to her left at Stacy. Her eyebrows rose and her mouthdropped in astonishment."Stacy, we were in Nam together, weren't we? I recognized you when youwalked in my room but you were a man back then, that's why I wasconfused. We used to call you Stitch." She paused and her lips began toquiver. She swallowed, trying unsuccessfully to hold back a searingemotion. "I'm sorry I couldn't get to you Stitch. None of us could help,we were pinned. "The general laughed easily. "Of course, Doctor Cross. What is it you need?"David wasn't fooled at all. The man was a major roadblock to half the projects going on in Earth orbit. The stupid ones. The partners' project was something else again."Well, we'd like to resupply our asteroid base. We have two hundred kilos of this and that we'd like to send out to Eros -- basically some minor adjustments to our original payload specs. NASA doesn't even want to listen. I was thinking, perhaps I could.