And
why would anyone or anything want to hurt her, who would not even kill a
spider if she found it in her bedroom. But as she looked down at the
bright bands of color encircling the serpentine corpse, she vaguely
remembered something nasty about the coral snake. She moved away with a
shudder.
But remembering herself, she looked around quickly. Kalus was gone---he
had not seen. And Rawlings was walking off without further comment.
TOO CLOSE, she told herself. TOO DAMN CLOSE. She was not sure whether
she referred to the snake, or to the show of weakness, when the illusion
of strength was so critical.....
WELL, replied her harder self, AND WHAT OF IT? You couldn't let
something like that ruin your whole day. Especially this day, when she
had to be calm, and prepare herself. She cleared away the dishes as if
nothing had happened.
And Nothing had.
Later that morning she at last admitted her loneliness, and her fear.
She wanted to go to Kalus, so badly, to forgive him and start again.....
But she could not. Too much strength remained in her illusions. So she
set upon a compromise, going instead to her closest friend among the
colonists, a man whose affection was unconditional, and (she thought)
without judgment: Flight Commander Miles Stenmark.
She found him in the solitary structure a short distance from the camp:
the library, or archival building.
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