It was when the Intrepid was within a few million kilometres of the Anomaly that Beatrice saw her first such Apparition. It was nothing more exciting ...han a candelabrum with several lit candles that came into view just outside the villa. The candles flickered in the artificially generated breeze and the entire object vanished after only six or seven seconds. Beatrice played back her recording of this fantastic event over and over again, not just for her own benefit but for the accompanying. . sit down" she did."Mary, I am over twice your age" (almost three times but why niggle) " and I despise 'dirty old men''She looked confused and took it the wrong way."I figure that if, for some reason, a young girl finds me attractive enough to accept an approach, she would also know that a gentleman would never insult her by implying that he's got all the same attractions as a young man." So what you just did is the only way of opening up that door to further possibilities"I looked at her. The entire flight crew had seen us leaving the airport together. They may not have seen the limo the hotel sent to pick us up, but they had seen me waiting in the terminal for her to deplane, and we had walked out together. Naturally, that sparked speculation, and the following day — after she had failed to check in to the hotel room the airline provided for layovers, the others naturally wanted all the details. It was just girl talk but even a big plane is a small place and when he heard where. I told him what had happened to the engine crew, and he ran to verify my statements. He came back cussing a blue streak. Both members of the crew had been his friends as well as his subordinates, so he was really mad. Oh, well, there was a protocol for this, and the conductor climbed the pole with his portable telephone to call in a request for a replacement crew. It was going to take almost three hours for them to reach us, and all we could do was wait.Meanwhile, so that we would have.