She was projecting this calmness to Jim, and he accepted it. His mind relaxed even as it accepted and digested the news."I see. Do we know who the kid...appers are, and what they want?" No, Sir. We have no idea of the whom, however we do have the holo of the abduction from a monitoring station in the Kalmias system." Let's see it in here, please."Gloria smiled at her affect on Jim. He wasn't irrational, but he was prone to far more emotional fluctuations than were most people of her world. She. "You need to get dry clothes on." He's dead," she whispered, her voice broken." You'll get sick if you don't take care of yourself," I said."He kissed me goodbye this morning and now he's dead." Her dull voice broke and a wail of pain welled up out of her. All I could do was hold her as she sobbed and screamed.Jill joined us, trying to hug her mother too, and crying again herself. I let her into the hug and we all just stood there. We were still standing there when I heard the siren and saw the. She took a deep breath, fighting back the tears, and letting go of the chair's leg she steadied herself with hands flat to the floor, then dug into with her bare toes on the other side, braced her legs."There ya go, babe, that should help."She cracked her eyes for a second, "Kevin, look, please, can't we talk about-" WHAP!And she clammed up for good this time and just prayed for it to be over.Kev was as good as his word, he delivered all twenty promised slaps, and not just to the one cheek,. First, though, tell me five times before the real call.She did it. She was shaky the first couple times, but got to sound normal nearthe end. I told her if she did this well enough I would Reward her with food,and I would not take her into the torture chamber today. She didn?t seem sureabout trusting me with that, but she made the call anyway. I could hear her momask some question, but I had her tell her mother she met a rich doctor, andthat she wouldn?t be able to visit often. Her mother.