" I promised. My two new friends jostled their way out through the crowd which had accumulated around my table and they were giggling and animated as ...chool girls. After I had settled back into my routine of signing flyleaf inscriptions, Meghan and Chrisor waved at me through the glass from the sidewalk outside and I smiled and shewed them on their way. I kept Meghan's book off to the side and kept thinking about what to jot down about our brief encounter, but I was seriously thinking of the. She took a sip from the bottle. Then she handed it to me. I took a slug."I'll miss you, both of us will," Caitlyn finally whispered to the room."You know I'll miss you," I said as I pulled her against me in a brotherly hug. Again we fell into a comfortable silence."We love you." I hugged her even tighter in response. "You don't regret it do you?" came softly from her a minute or two later. I knew exactly what 'it' she was talking about."I don't know." And I didn't. I leaned my head against. I'd woken early and I left the house before mom had gotten up. And stayed away all day. I wanted her to stew a bit before I gave her my 'nude beach' sales spiel.I bought two wigs that day. Some body paint. Some weird sunglasses – a man's pair and a woman's. A wide brimmed hat. A beard. Fake moustaches. More than enough stuff to disguise two nude bike riders. To disguise a mother and her son.It was just after eleven at night when I finally got home. I'd been in my room for only about five. Or a goddamn battleship..." Hermione muttered under her breath, checking and re-checking her own sensors for signs of another grav-drive in the vicinity.The Santa Maria nosed slowly over the large asteroid, jagged peaks and deep crevasses slipping beneath her hull, starkly outlined by the sunlight coming from almost directly astern."It's not the asteroid, My." Miko told her, using her pet name for her lover. "Something... something in the shadow... Hit the floods, will you?" You sure you want.