Not too pleased, I hope." "So... the occasion; should they be smart, casual, smart-casual... formal?" "Not formal... god forbid! It's bad enough that...you're calling me sir; contrary to popular opinion, I haven't yet been knighted. My name's Peter... my friends call me Peter, but you can call me Peter." She grinned. "I'm Kimberly... and unfortunately, I have to call you sir. The boss is pretty strict about maintaining formal relationships with customers." "That does raise an interesting. I was seven then. She told me I couldn’t, and then she started screaming at me and hitting me. She told me: don’t you dare. I laughed and went to my room. Parents are so funny.Momma and Daddy wouldn’t let me go anywhere for a long time. But I snucked out the window in my room sometimes and went to my laboratory. I read books on anatomy and found a doll in somebody’s garbage. I drew all the body parts on, and pretended she was my patient. I couldn’t tell if it was all right or not,. He and his mysterious companion had finally crossed into Freespace. No Union ship could follow them there. Just a day ago they reached Karthania itself. The xenophobic engineers let them dock inside a rental hangar above the main planet of the Karthanian Conglomerate.Karthanians openly declared to be neutral and stayed out of the politics and quarrels of the Big Four, but everyone knew they didn’t like the Union much and did not allow anyone not Karthanian to set foot on one of their. We got on well with the whole family and I used to kick a ball about with the kids in the park at the end of the street. A couple of years passed, Steven got too old for kickabouts but Sophie would be in and around our house all the time chatting with me or Clare. She would be round most evenings and her cute face and constant smile was always a nice sight. This went on for some time and I could see that Sophie was developing into a beautiful young girl. She had shoulder length brown hair, big.