She had often heard about the superior strength of Vulcans, but this was the first time she'd actually seen it in person. The Vulcan, whom she only no... recognized as Lorian, Trip's son from the different time line, landed halfway up the ladder. With no more than two additional steps he was on top of the engine. She felt immediately reminded of the time that the boss had started the fireworks in engineering to recycle the engines in under two minutes, but unlike Trip back then, Lorian didn't. "Umm, so, you're headed right back to work?" "Well, my meetings were cancelled, so I came home to get a book for a paper I'm writing. I want to get ahead on a deadline." I said, sitting down next to Jill. Jill leaned back, "So, nothing pressing?" "No, not really." "And your wife's working all day, and your son will sleep for an hour, too? So it's just you and me?" "I guess," I said. The corner of Jill's mouth curled into a smile, and she bit her lip like she had done outside. . Can you do that, please?" Ten," I said, weakly nodding my head. "Nine, eight, seven... Siff- sick-six... Fiiii..."When I woke up, I was still in the same bed, wearing the same sterileblue gown, but my chest was in a lot of pain. A LOT of pain, but unlikethe pain and discomfort I'd felt over the previous two years, this wasdifferent. It was sharp, invasive, acute- and when I looked down at mychest, I almost started to cry. My breasts were gone, but in their placewere two angry horizontal scars,. This booth was never unattended, so it was possible to buy or trade in chips at any time of the day or night. A few passengers had headed for the chip booth as soon as they came aboard, and, except for certain necessary body functions, never left the poker table. We even had waiters who could bring food to the table for those who could not stand to leave to eat. At least one poker game went on during the pirate attack; it was easy to see where priorities lay.We made our money by taking 10% from.