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In his roo shower Lydia’s face stared back at him from the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth and shaved off the short stubble growing on his head Getting clean had the feeling of ritual Like preparationssome sacred rite

When he was done, he sat down nude in the e bed and looked up Lydia’s obituary

LYDIA MAALOUF ALLEN, PASSED AWAY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14TH AT…

Allen Aood one, since Lydia Maalouf was the name he’d always known her by Not an alias then A

SHE IS SURVIVED BY HER HUSBAND OF ELEVEN YEARS, CHARLES JACOB ALLEN…

Over a decade after he’d left, Lydia had married aa finger into a wound to see if it was infected To see if it hurt The only reaction he found was curiosity

SHE PASSED QUIETLY IN HER PHILADELPHIA HOME, WITH CHARLES AT HER SIDE…

Charles was the last one to see her alive, so he was the first one A the rest of the obituary several tied on to the public ht on the high-speed rail to Philadelphia Then he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes He was oddly excited by the idea ofLydia’s husband As if her family was his, and Charles was a person he should always have known, but was only now getting to meet Sleep eluded hi in his back, and the last of the nausea from the shuttle ride faded The path ahead was clear

If Lydia had, indeed, died quietly in her own bed with a loving husband at her side, then he would meet this rave and say his last goodbye If not, he’d kill some people Neither possibility excited him more than the other Either one was fine

He slept

Chapter Eight: Holden

Holden ran the video back and watched it again The ship, an ugly box of e containers strapped to its flanks, ons in old westerns It wasn’t far froistered to Captain Eric Khan out of Pallas, was still just goods and people heading into the frontier to stake a claim Fewer horses, maybe, but more fusion reactors

Again, the ship passed through the gate, the ione

“So?” Monica asked, her voice rich with anticipation “What do you think?”

He scratched his ar what the ansas