S45 1/2

Ambassador Ekard comms me in the early morning, agreeing to a meetup. I walk out on the Waterfall Trail. He’s sitting on the footbridge rail.

“Why do we always meet here?” I ask.

Drake gives me a thin smile. “Because no-one can overhear us over the waterfall. Also, I have a transmission blocker under the footbridge. No spying devices will work here.”

“You take your privacy seriously,” I say.

“Comes with my job. Let’s talk about Genni first.”

“Okay.”

“You remember what I told you about her earlier?”

I assume he means about killing someone when she was thirteen. “Yes.”

“She’s a big girl, Coach. If she says she’s fine, she is.”

“She’s naive around men, Drake. Did you shelter her too much?”

Drake laughs humorlessly. “No. You’re wrong, but only partially. She’s not naive about men. She’s spent half her life around crewmen of all stripes, shut up in one of my spacecraft. No, I’m afraid I made her naive about the consequences of men. She knew the crew had to keep their hands off her, so she became too comfortable in her flirtations.”