I tuned up my guitar, suddenly angry at the way it was going. Then I took a breath and decided to let Lara make her own case when she arrived. This wa... all useless preamble. But what if she flaked out and was underwhelming?We warmed up with a couple of runs through familiar material. Pete seemed impatient, glancing out the windows every few seconds. Eventually his demeanor changed, so I knew Lara was on her way up. She settled on the couch to wait until we finished the song we were playing, but. I rather lost track, but I’d guess it was the better part of an Earth month when Andromeda informed me of the impending first actual flight of the hyper-ship Scott ... and Gladys, of course ... had been training in. We ... Romy and I ... flew over to the hangar and watched as Scott and Gladys disappeared inside. Perhaps half an hour, maybe an hour (it seemed like an eternity) later, a section of the hillside quite some distance away lifted; silently, as far as I could tell. Later still, the. It was a huge building, and I had no idea what itcontained beyond the office. No one I knew had any idea what went on inhis building, and beyond idle curiosity, no one really cared.His office alone was something of a wonder. To any visitor, it was animposing one. He sat at a large desk at the end of a long ornate room.It was an ornate, imperial carved wooden desk, and sitting in the simplechair across from the director was clearly meant to be a humblingexperience. The fact that he was the. " Are you scared of them?" No, silly."Bill said to the grown-ups, "So maybe girls start out being OK with boy tussling until we teach them it's bad?" It's bad?"Bill looked at Alison, who answered. "No, honey, we're just doing grown-up talk. It's bad if they hurt each other." Oh," said Addie, who gave her father a big kiss on the cheek, wriggled down, and went off to a different patch of dandelions."Allie, I've pretty much kept quiet for five years now, but I've got something to say," said.