“Lie quiet,” the man ordered, pulling out his fingers, and the dog obeyed, and picked up the scent of piss on its skin. It heard the familiar voic... of Master Karl, and its heart yearned for Master’s touch, but it seemed far away, as if the Master called from a distant window opened on a dark night, muffled by fog. Its body jerked in automatic reflex the way a dog bolts at the sound of its owner’s call, his torso twitching. In its capacity to understand like a dog, it understood that it. He gave a nervous cough. "Good evening. Charles Fernside," was the shy man's clipped self-introduction.She gave him a lovely smile, batting her eyelids modestly. "Esmeralda Valdez."A waiter appeared with menus and a wine list and they both concentrated on selecting their food in silence. After their orders had been placed, Professor Fernside felt it would be only courteous to discover a little more about his dining companion."So, Miss Valdez..." Esme, please." So, Esme, are you from South. Sarah looked at Denise. "Hey, sweetie, I forgot to ask you yesterday—where are your clothes, I mean, your outer clothes. Is that how you're coming to school now?"Denise giggled (still love that sound), "No, I leave them in the car." Andrew!" she called. "You hear that? You're supposed to be the brains. Why didn't you think of that? We could leave our clothes in our cars and not need to do the strip-tease." Yeah, that's right, but this is so much fun ... ooohhh ahhhhh," his voice faded as Sarah. Those guys where crude and insanely violent at times but I doubted that they were stupid.I couldn't imagine that a scenario like that would be much of a test. It certainly wouldn't give the farm a hint as to what I could do operating alone. Hell, if I were running with the senator, I might not even survive. They sure had a hell of a lot of time and money invested in me. I suppose they could have decided that I was hopeless and expendable. They might not care that it was a stupid risk since they.