As the months passed, Cathy began to anticipate the return of her husband from his military service in Europe. She looked forward to their telephone c...lls each Saturday evening, sometimes speaking for hours using a computer assisted voice network sponsored by the military. She was delighted to hear that he was finally coming home, for certain. She really believed that they had spent more than enough time apart and that it was truly time for them to be together and for him to get to know his. The way she hid in the corner holding her little brother, Jack knew she would make no sound. The poor baby was scared half to death, and after all, who could blame her?He recalled the first time he had killed someone. It was the father of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Ellie Andersen. Jack had found out that her father, who was a widower, had been fucking Ellie since she was seven. She could stand it no longer and went to her auntie’s house to get away from her dad. When Jack found out what. I was chatting to one of the ladies who worked for me in the evening, her name was Clare. She was very petite with elfin features. She looked about 17 but she was actually in her late 20’s with a young family. She was telling me how she used to be into fitness and dance and how one summer she spent a season as a dancer in a nightclub in Ibiza. “So you are telling me you used to be a lap dancer,” I said laughing.“No” she said angrily. “I used to dance in a cage or on a podium”“Oh right” I said. She hadn't enjoyed much of anything since her sister was drugged and murdered, two centuries ago.The worst part of it, now – the part about living on, anyway – was the indeterminable waiting for a tiny ball of fire eight hundred million kilometers away to burst. No one was certain if New Eden was far enough away to be protected by Jupiter's mass when the big event finally occurred. No one was certain that even massive Jupiter, itself, would survive the incredible assault of energy the sun would.