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“That’s my little secret,” he replied with a smile “Why don’t you try your food?”

She looked at hier, suspicion in her eyes He could tell she didn’t believe him about the wine, which made it all the more fun to see the surprise in her face when she took another sip

She reached down, and hesitantly cut into the mushroom He followed suit, careful to watch her face as she took a bite

“Oh, Goddess,” she said “This is alet these? They don’t taste like they’ve been in storage at all, but I know you didn’t buy the way from Gnoscanny”

Now she had surprised him

“You’ve had Gnoscan mushrooms before?” he asked “Not many people have”

She nodded and turned away for a second Then she turned back to hiulp of her wine It didn’t hit her as hard this time, but she flushed and stayed silent for a et addicted to this stuff,” she said slowly “It really has a way of s I used to have Gnoscan rew them myself”

“Really?” he asked, startled “It takes a pretty sophisticated biosphere set up to grow the how you could afford so like that on a waitress’ incohed, but this tiroild on Hector Pri wistful “I used to live there I had one now”

He nodded his head slowly, re Hector Prime’s surface had been destroyed by Imperials several months after the cease-fire They’d claience error, athe creay

“You’re Saurellian, aren’t you?” she asked “I haven’t nized the facial features Or kind of recognize theht”

“Yes,” he replied, not quire sure where she was going with this “I’m Saurellian I remember when your planet was destroyed I’m so sorry—did you lose family?”

“No,” she said slowly “But I lost friends And e with a supplier on one of the moons It was a fluke Two hours earlier or two hours later and I would have been dead Tellhe hadn’t asked There was pain written all over her lovely face, and it hurt in hiht possible

“Why didn’t your governuished “We were in the neutral zone We were supposed to be protected Why didn’t you do anything when they broke the truce and killed us?”

“We couldn’t,” he said slowly “We had to pretend to believe their excuses, otherwise the ould have started again We couldn’t afford to let that happen Too many people had died already”