“Can you believe it, he didn’t want tocheat on his girlfriend!” Sue gushed.She told me she had exposed her underwear to him at theba... in the restaurant. It had been hard to find justthe right time, what with all the others millingaround. She had guessed wrong, and about one-thirtythe boss suggested it was time to go back to work. “We hung back until everyone had left and then I had tofinish talking him into going to his place” Sue said.“I know you fucked,. "Hello!" Daddy, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be In Romania with Mum." It was my daughter Phoebe."It didn't work out the way I'd hoped; perhaps I should have told her I was coming." What do you mean dad, surely she was pleased to see you?" I mean it would have given her time to get rid of her house guest." Daddy what are you talking about. I spoke to mum this morning and she said she hadn't seen you." Oh, she saw me alright, not for long, but she saw me." We can't talk about this. I just learned to pretend. I faked it, and it kept the worst of your desires from being afflicted upon me.” She lifted her throat. “I die free of you, Malakisha!”Anger surged through me. My fur sprouted as I leaped at her. Teeth became fangs. Never loved me? Never cared for me? All those times she spoke those three beautiful words were a lie? Tears matted my fur as I landed on her body. My teeth snapped about her throat. I felt the beat of her heart.No fear. She was never afraid of me. But she. The clouds have broken up, the sun is shining. We couldn’t ask for a better setup, ultra-high resolution images of everything within fifty kilometers of here.” Mark could hear several of the other team members whoop for joy as they heard him speak. Jada promised to hurry and then she closed the connection.The group spent the next hour gasping and admiring the beauty of the planet, switching between real-time observations and the vast memory stores of the orbital platform. Their impression was.