" Same old Peter." Lois shookher head. "But we have a new member added to the family. Our niece Brianna. We took custody."Joe nodded, "Oh wow. Well if...you need anything Lois…" Ohwe will. Thankyou Joe."Brian and Brianna walked intothe guest room that was normallylocked byChris's room. It was a medium sized room, like the other rooms in the house. A vanity set was placedon the far right wall; a bed was bythe window, a closet. Brian placed Brianna's bags on her new bed, "Well this is it." Thank. * She didn't know how long she had been there or how long it took her to stopcrying. The sound of earth falling and the noise of the mechanical digger shovellingit all on top of her had stopped a long time ago and she had cried herselfout a long time after that. The paralysing fear had gone to be replaced by feelings of depression anddespair and nothingness. Of futility. Of waste. For the first time in her lifeshe truly wanted to die and she wanted to die soon because she knew that anagonising. Hardly any meat on her. She told me later that she wasn’t very found of me too. Maybe because of that we worked together quite well. Formed a good team. Climbed the corporate ladder together. So we had to spent a lot of time together. And yes, doing business trips together. And no, we didn’t wake up next to each other. The hotel room bed soaked in piss. No clue, except the obvious, what happened in the night before. We just got near each other. Talked a lot. After a while even private, non work. Many of them are way ahead of where we were and most of the species are adapting well to our Empire. I did do one thing to help a lot. I consulted the Collective doctors to give them alternate forms. It made it much easier for many of them to fit in. The refugees are the Azloc’s loss and certainly our gain. There are some first-class scientists amongst them and I have sent them off to Porquenta. Thank you for sending us the Uzliumbax scientists for sabbaticals. They are very easy to get along.