Jeet took a deep breath and pressed the door chime. Slicey-Dicey's voice sounded strange as she said,"What? Why didn't you just ring me back? ...never mind...come in." Jeet came into the dark room. The only lights were the lights from the promenade deck below. Slicey's single eye glowed violet in the darkness. Jeet said strongly,"As I thought. Slicey-- I got your message and got down here as fast as possible. I brought you a chilled nutrient shake. I figured you weren't eating again." "These lights won't cut it. LIGHTS: Normal lighting level!" Seeing Slicey sitting there, holding her dead daughter's stuffed toy broke Jeet's heart. Slicey said, "I detected a 'spatial anomaly' in front of us. It might have been six to twelve light minutes away. I'm not calibrated for distance with the SDD array I added to my senses." Jeet whispered, "You KNOW? Aw shit. It was 24 light minutes distance. It was an Asuran Battle-cruiser. It attacked the Mauler." Slicey's knees drew up so she in more of a fetal position. She muttered in a shaky voice, "Perro's ship. Perro's Ship! Perro's ship!" He snapped at her, "YES, DAMMIT, PERRO'S SHIP! DAMMIT, we don't know if there were survivors, but if there were ANY, PERRO WAS ONE OF THEM. He's a survivor." She started rocking and said in a sad voice, "I was a bad mother to his child. I couldn't save her. I went with my mother and Captain Dokka to save her and Prince Kugar from City 32, but I was too late. I should have been with Perro, but I hated humans so much after they DISSECTED MY BABY! They KILLED HER! Now they KILLED my Perro." Jeet thought for a moment and then acted in a way that might get him killed. He threw the frozen shake in her face, and screamed,"BOO-HOO! GET OVER IT! HUMANS DID NOT KILL PERRO! ASURANS DID, you stupid, crazy BITCH...IF he's dead. Which he might no be." Slicy was on her feet in a flash, shattering the expensive marble table with flicker of one arm-blade. She stood there ready to fight to the death. Jeet smiled, and tried not to shake. He forced a laugh, and said,"You want to shout about how I don't know shit about your pain, and how you're going to carve me, and so on. You are wrong." "Explain." The sound of Slicy's voice was like steel over frozen CO2. Jeet said evenly as he could," I was orphaned at age six, you were at age three. Narchi adopted me, and so did Perro. Your aunt, Rose did the same for you. My family is ALL dead, and your older sister and your child are dead. Jongwe killed your sister. Humans Killed your baby, and shot off your face after you carved up the ENTIRE Royal family of City 32, INCLUDING all the body-guards and advisers!" "They called it the 'Night of Ten Million Knives'. There is one thing you left out. The death of even ONE person can leave a big impression on the world. Humans in this system will NEVER violate a Cyclops child again. After you had your face shot off, you killed another twelve men before you mother showed up to rescue you. You are not a helpless victim. It took a year for them to make you another face. You've been feeling sorry for yourself every minute since then." Slicy dropped her head and clenched her fists and shook. she finally said, "I don't have the ability to cry any more." Jeet's voice broke as he said,"That's alright." Slicey looked up at him, weeping. He said,"All your friends wept for you." "Now live with all your might! Tall White Lady is there ,too, and Upsilon. We do NOT have the ability to contact them with the ancient comm array we have. If you feel like doing something useful, we need someone with your skills to fix that. Feel like doing something OTHER than slicing me up?" The pause was longer than he liked. She said "Yes. Thank you, Jeet. You sounded like my Perro." He wilted slightly and headed for the bathroom, shouting over his shoulder,"YEARS of practice!" -- To be continued!--