She didn’t date, and preferred to be left alone. At work, someone always pulled some sort of prank. They didn’t care that the ink they tossed rui...ed her only dress, or when they took her material she had to wait for her payday to replace it. It seemed not to matter to them that the cruel things they said cut worse than a double edged blade. They laughed, and each time it seemed to get worse. It wasn’t funny to Petra though. Many nights, at the end of a long day, she sat in her small efficiency. " "Then what are you going to do to me?" Sam asked, realizing how stupid thequestion sounded only after the words had left her mouth. The man hesitated. "We're going to wax you." He tilted the bottle over andspilled the baby oil over her body, splashing it copiously. Sam gasped. Shehad expected it to be a little cold, but it had been heated warm and it feltlike a warm bath splashing over her skin. "My roommate is going to call the cops if I'm not back soon." She said,her breath coming in. "Will she live?" Jonas asked."It's up to her, now. The only hope for a fire-bush victim is to support her while her body throws off the toxin." In other words -- by rights she should be dead by now." Without treatment she would be. Whether that's by right or by wrong isn't a judgment I'd care to make." Elias regarded the girl. "She's a Galactic. I wonder what she was doing outside her compound." I've never seen any of them," Jonas replied. "How did they get here?" They came here the same way we. I was not hurt by the buckshot, but I got a sound knock on the head when I fell to the floor.Judy ran to cover us from anybody coming up the stairs while Marlene looked after me. Fortunately, the only harm to me was a headache and a torn uniform shirt. The four buckshot were embedded in my Kevlar vest, but we could worry about them later.There was no sign of anyone trying to come up the stairs, so I just sat on the floor for a few minutes while my head cleared. It only took about five minutes.