But not Miss Melody, I assume.But not Miss Melody, I assume." "No. Miss Melody will not be invited. Nor will C'Mish or Randall be invited. No media at all. If it is necessary, I will dispatch Hookers into the air." "Hopefully, none of them will have the brains to find a pilot and get a ship with no AI telemetry. Still, if any of them do, a few Hooks might not be a bad idea. How's the weather?" "Very cold, as you'd expect." "Cold caused by blanking, I expect." "Yes." You see, blanking is the phenomenon whereby clear nights are the coldest; what little heat the Ring traps is not held in place by an insulating layer of cloud cover. "Well, at least it'll be pretty. I assume you've cleared out the fifth floor and cleared the windows." "Yes. And we are above the ridgeline. The view is beautiful." "Excellent." The next seven hours I spent very lazily with Nyss. We actually played a few games of backgammon, she killed me in a round of Pyramid (she always does), did crosswords in languages we did not know and generally had the kind of good time two people who lived together for a long time have when they're not having sex. At 14 Arie' I went downstairs to find Ress and Ember stringing up decorations and making preparations. Carroll was in the Castle's main kitchen whipping up something for dinner... Carroll is a damn fine cook, and when she cooks for several dozen she always makes the one thing of hers that I absolutely adore; her onion soup. My mouth watered at the mere thought. But I merely breezed through the kitchen, giving her a playful kiss on her centaur buttocks as I passed by. She nearly kicked me, but then she always nearly kicks me. She's never hit me once in her entire life. I have been whipped by her tail across the face before, though. Paul was helping load three large wooden kegs up onto a grav sled, and who should be there but Kurt, an old friend who made it through The Great Hall intact. |