“What? Huh?” I said. “I can’t be. I was tested when I got out, and I was clean!”“Sometimes the virus can lay dormant for as many as ten ye...rs even longer.”I had to think. It could have been Lily, the tattooed lady. It could have been Henrietta, she had been a prostie. But in Henrietta’s case I was pretty sure she was not the one. She’d tested while we were going together and I had her med records. And, add to that, she swore that no man had ever had her without protection, and I believed her.. A quest. A promise unfulfilled. Princess Cathy WOULD walk. Petty thoughts of love were just a distraction. A weakness to be discarded. She was better than that. HAD to be better than that. To be otherwise would be to again prove she was unworthy of Cathy.And Sam.Forcing one foot, then the other, she walked towards the waiting horses. A door opened, then closed, behind her. She ignored it. Coming to the animals, she grabbed her saddle from its resting place, heaving it up onto her mare. A form. I felt fine with my annual Veterans Administration check-up that always included a shot with a new blend of vaccine.Just before I reached her floor, I had the sudden thought that perhaps I should have called her first to warn her of my visit. I smiled at my lust laden reflection in the hallway mirror that confirmed my hesitation in calling was because I feared rejection out of hand and I was not good at persuading females on the phone to change their mind with my ability to charm face to. "It can be a bad thing too. Antheia is right. We need to put away the paranoia, and work on being in the position to do whatever we can when the time is right. At the moment, that just means being as good at what we've been asked to do as we can be."== Mar Chine Hills, Retici IV ==The Omicin Brigade, Third Division, First Advance Corp had been on the ground for three weeks. The resistance in the hills surrounding Mar Chine was proving to be a tough nut to crack. The Skafti high command, as.