As she cried.As she cried. I felt very awkward; I never know what to do when somebody, anybody, is crying in my arms. I want to say something and I know that anything I say will be wrong, so I wait and hope that holding is enough. After a while the sobs eased a little, and she wiped the tears from her eyes. She'd gotten my tunic a little wet as well, but I didn't care. She sniffled. "We're not getting out of here, are we?" "I wouldn't say that. Pan's got the linear signal going, and we've got food, water, shelter, clothes." "They think we're dead, Ken. According to Pan's calculations, those two weeks in statis put us sixty years in the future from when we were attacked. We're shipwrecked, and even Pendor gives up after a while." Her tears were still flowing. Yeah, and we cracked the ship up pretty bad. Mark 454 Starcruisers take a lot of damage, and the landing 'pressors had held up just long enough; we'd been only four meters above the surface when pressor seven died, tipping the ship over and smacking us into the ground. Here we were, seven stranded castaways... when I think of it that way, I feel like singing "Gilligan's Island," but Chroff has promised to slug me if I do. She wiped away the tears. "I never... never did get a chance to show you my tattoo, did I?" "You've a tattoo? Kathy, I've seen you without your clothes at least a dozen times since we boarded the 'Elen. Where are you hiding a tattoo?" "Watch. Pedro, turn the lights down to ten percent, would you?" The lights dimmed slowly as she backed away from me and unzipped her grey jumpsuit. She smiled as she slid it over her hips, and I winked back, getting a laugh from her. |