"That is a mark in his favor," She said. "He should be like everyone else." We walked around a corner and She stopped, turning her head as if listenin... to something. "I will meet you back in that inn in two of your days," She said abruptly. "A blessing on you, daughter."I raised my hand to my forehead in the obeisance. "I thank you, Bright Lady." She smiled, and was gone. I considered. I knew I had this day, and the next, and I was curious about this particular young man. What was it about him. The half man was invited because he pressed his girlfriend, a BFF of mine for a threesome and insisted on having two women instead of an extra man. Thinking of himself of course in this day and age was enough to convict him in our court of opinion. Guilty! The sentence…jail time. The man in this case wasn’t a friend of mine this time but a burly acquaintance of my other BFF, he wasn’t terribly handsome but he was hung enough for the task. He didn’t like women anyway which suited us fine, he. ”“Really? Now I’m even more set that we never become a part of that nonsense. We may well become the richest people in the Western USA, but I swear, Opal Anne, if you begin acting like those people, I’ll turn you over my knee.”“Me too, Paul.”“What? You’re going to spank me?” I said with a laugh.“If you ever get like those people, I swear I’ll take a shovel to your head.” Opal Anne looked at me and smiled that smile that scared me, because it was somewhere between serious and a joke.“Yeah, you. They were still in the process of dealing, along with their allies the Alliance, with the problem of the Tcheeklan Ravagers. For all they could build their own heavy fighters, they had chosen to mount a standard compact hyperbeam to keep control of the build to themselves. This still made it a far more deadly craft than anything the Ravagers had. Though finding out where they were from was still the main problem. Naturally enough they had scouts out, however the Ravagers used mobile repair.