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I shovethe clutter aside with one hand, I press the pals open out of the desk obligingly, adjusting itself autoht The keyboard rises after it, out of the hollow below the screen No eye-trackers here--strictly low-tech, nothing that would provide ot hold of it

I start with the lines of code I need to get to a call screen Just because my screen’s low-tech doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot with it if you kno And the man I’m about to call is the one who made sure I learned lessons others didn’t

I run a si unrecorded, I start I key in the network address, adding in another line of code to ensurenal an approved personal call and take ister--it’s not perfect, but unless sos, there’ll be no trace I called at all

But er hesitates over the ENTER button The distraction of setting up a secure line can only last so long What if he has changed, and he’s not the sa my computer activity, despite my best efforts to cover my tracks? What if…

I close my eyes I could list a thousand reasons not to call And only one reason I should: I trust hi h the retransh the hyperspace network

After an interht blossoainst my closed lids

"What?" The voice is surly, annoyed, sleepy

I open my eyes, and there he is It’s dark on his end, like it is in low of his cohostly

Despite the low light, he looks good Better than I reone He’s let his hair grow out, and there’s an ease about the set of histhere before Like he’s found whatever he was looking for--whatever any of us is looking for, in the trenches and the bunkers and the swa dry

His eyes open a little hter

A muffled, sleepy voice comes over my speakers--not his voice "Tarver," it says, petulant "Come back to bed" Someone else is in the roolances over his shoulder, but his camera shows me only darkness beyond him "Go back to sleep, Lilac" Despite the brusque words, there’s a tenderness in his voice that, strangely, --I never would’ve expected to hear that tone fro He could be naked on the other side of the computer for all I know; the camera only shows hi, and the tenderness is gone in favor of sleepy exasperation "Lee, do you have any goddaht to check the tiht at all, beyond the desperate need to see a face I knew I could trust "Sorry, sir" He’s notelse

Now that he’sto blossom across his features I can’t blaether in a year, haven’t spoken to each other in ninefor sounds of life in the room behind him I can hear none, but I’ in Merendsen’s bed, hearing every word I say "Is there another room you can pick up in?"

Merendsen pauses "She’s asleep It’s okay"

I shaketo speak

Merendsen’s eyes are slightly downcast, staring at aze to the pinhole above my screen so he can see my eyes

He doesn’t speak, but pushes away froets to his feet It turns out he is dressed, wearing drawstring pants that hang low on his hips, but I can tell I hauled him up out of bed He leaves the iht, and as the ca to the bed and leaning over it I hear Lilac LaRoux make a whiny sound of protest, see a pair of arms reach up in an attempt to pull him doith her

Quiet conversation Merendsen’s soft chuckle A sigh of capitulation Silence Then the soft, un

He returns to the coht, and I realize his computer’s a mobile unit, that he doesn’t have more than one, that he’s not somewhere with screens in every rooain His ca for a different level of light, and it turns out he’s outside It’s night, the landscape beyond hiht All I can see is a field of flowers

"Okay, Lee" Merendsen takes one of those deep breaths I know is a bid for calhtly I can’t speak He’s all at once so different and exactly the same that I feel an odd shyness creep over me that hasn’t touched me since before I left Verona