I found myself inside a small conference room. A clean-cut, middle-aged Caucasian man greeted me with a firm handshake, before closing the door behind...me. He was wearing a coat and tie; his expression was serious but not unfriendly. "Hello, Jake," he said amiably. "My name is Fred Barton. I'm a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State. I'm based in Hong Kong, and I've been in charge of your case ever since it first came up. I flew in to meet up with you upon your arrival here. Lt. Rider explained to me that it stood for “Freeze your but off”.Since there was no one but me, I walked over to the transparent wall. The Duro-crete landing field stretching beyond the horizon was hexagonal and stretched at least two thousand clicks in every direction.Not that I could hope to see that far from my current position, In had seen the field as we landed. There were six such landing fields, centered on the space port buildings.Even the mighty Hyperion looked forlorn on the huge. “He’s out with my mum, they’ve gone to Grandma’s again, but he should be back mid- afternoon. Try around three’ish. Anything I can do?” she asked, ready for the negative answer and the comment that indeed she would ring again as she signed off, saying `see you soon, and take care.’ Lauren gathered her things again and slammed the door, thinking it was strange that AnneMarie needed to talk to her father and couldn’t tell her what it was about. Concluding that she would find out sooner or later,. "She needs to help with makeup. I wanted to surpriseher."Lucy gave a forced smile, heart beating faster. You surprised the hellout of me she wanted to say. "You look nice," is all she managed as theylocked the house and went to the car."So what do you plan to buy? Do you need money? I don't want Rhianna topay for everything." No, mum, I think I have enough. We don't need to buy much as we willwait for you and Jacinda. We want to get that wig cap and some padding.Maybe we can go to that Thrift.