My mother died a month ago.”“Very nice English. Tell me Andula, do you like living with Vitaly? Tell me the truth.”“No. I do not,” I said. M... heart was hammering like a drum as Vitaly gazed at me with a questioning look. Jack cast an amused glance at Vitaly. Vitaly didn’t speak English well.“Why don’t you like him?” I looked away. Tears of hatred and anger filling my eyes. I just shook my head. He motioned me over closer. He raised my chin and looked at my face and shrugged indifferently.“Is. ’ ‘I promise I’m serious Dee. I want you and Eve to be proud of me. She’s been like my big sister, everybody’s big sister and I want to pay her back by lightening the load for you. It’s the best way I can think of.’ The radio hummed as it came to life finally. ‘Here we go then.’ Ten days after the last small transport had visited ‘Sideways Landing’ another one was waiting on the landing site. Stella had been approved and was to report to the training academy. Her parents and Eve and Dee were. By coincidence I arrived in her town at the same time she was leaving work, and when I arrived at my hotel she was a few minutes behind me. We stood out in the dreary weather and had our first embrace in nearly a year. The taste of her lips, the smell of her hair, and way her short body fit so well into my chest, it was something that was sorely missed over that time. We laughed, we danced around, we kissed, knowing full well what we would be doing. We were both excited by it; she openly. Ran bowed and walked away. I should have said something, but nothing came to mind. I went home and slept, without even trying to clean up the workshop. Finding out that your sex life is being made public hurt almost as much as the dream. I really didn’t want to see Motoko, because I was afraid that I would tear into her about talking in the bath. I also didn’t want to tell her, because that would mean that Ran was confiding in me. Around mid-afternoon, when I did finally wake up, I was feeling.