Page 78 (1/2)

Show me

Ceno Susuostino took her mother’s hand—bare and warth of translucent cable and connected the base of her skull to the base of her lass doreenhouse and ether, connected by a warostino entered her daughter

We had planned this for months How to dress ourselves in our very best Which fraht What to say I could speak by then, but neither of us thought it es with Ceno went so like:

Sing , Elefsis

The terees Celsius and the stock of rice is low (Long pause) Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh

Ceno felt it was not worth the risk So this is what Cassian sahen she ported in:

An exquisite boardroolowed softly with quality, the plush leather chairs invitingly lit by a low-hangingon a platinuh rise looked out on a pristine landscape, a perfect combination of the Japanese countryside and the Italian, with rice terraces and vineyards and cherry groves and cypresses glowing in a perpetual twilight, stars winking on around Fuji on one side and Vesuvius on the other Snow-colored tatami divided by stripes of black brocade covered the floor

Ceno stood at the head of the table, in hershe had endlessly questioned over the weeks leading up to her inevitable interrogation She wore a charcoal suit she remembered froon to scoop her up out of the friendly but utterly chaotic house of her ever-sleeping father The blazer only a shade or two off of true black, the skirt unforgiving, plunging past the knee, the blouse the color of a heart

When she showed me the frame I had understood, because three years is forever inour language to speak to her : respect me Be proud and, if you love me, a little afraid, because love so often looks like fear We are alike We are alike

Cassian shtly She still wore her yukata, for she had no one to impress

Show me

Ceno’s hand shook as she pressed a pearly button in the boardrooht a red curtain too dramatic, but the effect we had chosen turned out to be hardly less so A gentle, silver light brightened slowly in an alcove hidden by a trick of angles and the sunset, co on like daybreak

And I stepped out

We thought it would be funny Ceno had e of the robots from old films and fra, grasping e and lit fro every tihts, a mouth that could blink off and on, pupils points of cool blue My torso curved prettily, etched in swirling das perched on tripod-toes Ceno had laughed and laughed—this was a panto,a cartoon froe

“Mother, meet Elefsis Elefsis, this is my mother Her name is Cassian”