He asked who we were allied to and then made some snide comment about being our own masters.” Colin shrugged, “Angus butted in then and said somet...ing about not questioning Hadden honour and the whole thing got pushed to one side.”Jason frowned whilst nodding, “That’s pretty much what our people have been reporting. Nothing overt, just a lot of little digs and innuendoes.”“I hope there’s not going to be any trouble,” said Colin.“So do I,” responded Jason, “especially as I’m hoping to send. He'd only ever visited virtual representations of such places. The real thing was both less well rendered but, given the vastness of space, more impressive than the computer-generated colonies he'd visited in virtual space.The Byzantium finally reached its final orbit around the colony of Ecstasy where it would circle for a full month before carrying its passengers back home to their homes elsewhere in the Kuiper Belt. Paul boarded a shuttle that took him and several thousand others to the. He lunged at me in reply. He must have thought I would frighten and run. He had one surprised look on his face as I grabbed his hand. In a move I had taught for years I twisted his hand and arm then with an upward thrust shoved his own knife into his heart.As he was going down his partner decided it was time to get into the act. At the same time the other two made the same decision and started towards the truck.Number two was just as dumb as the first one but a little more of a showman. He made. They stopped in the room only long enough to pick up wallets and car keys and drop off the beach stuff. Doug wondered about changing clothes but Cassie informed him that here on the island, flip-flops and a towel were often considered formalwear. Or at least it seemed that way. She did take time to comb her wet hair and pull it up into a long ponytail. As they drove, the wind whistling over them made the early afternoon sun bearable – even pleasant – to Doug, who had come from winter. He wasn’t.