GROUND / CH. 31:EPILOGUE 1
GROUND, TWO YEARS LATER
Jessica, Theo and Vivian walked around the chosen campsite with their equipment, checking the ground for cracks and holes and places big enough to put tents. Seth, the fourth late-teen, wasn't with them, as he'd fractured his leg a few weeks ago and needed to rest it. The adults were busily getting the anti-pred forcefield poles out of the transport, and soon would start to erect them. Eventually they'd make a complete military-grade dome.
The teens, now seventeen, (except for Seth who was eighteen) had the task of first working out where tents were going to be, and then using an earth-mover to clear them of stones, and if necessary, making enough flat ground to actually set the tents on. That had happened last time: the site had looked good from the aerial survey, but close up it had been a series of gently undulating ridges, each one just too narrow for even the smallest tent. The adults had decided the cause was eons of the prevailing wind whipping over the nearby hillside in the same process that makes sand-dunes, only in the rocky soil. This site was better, it was fifty kilometers further up the hill, an almost ideal clearing in the brush that just some had odd-looking lumps in the ground at the edges. They were noticeably higher than they'd been before, with good views over the valley. The air was chillier too, but they knew the routine now; this was the seventh site they'd be taking core samples on this trip, and their second trip this year.
“Jess, stop!” Theo said, noticing something in front of the girls. He had been off to the side, about to measure the distance. “Walk backwards and get your knife out. Viv, keep the earth-mover between you and that lumpy bit in front of you. Head back to the grown-ups, fast.”
“What have you seen, Theo?” Vivian asked.
“Feces on the ground. And close-to, these mounds look like the ones in the bone-eater video.”
“Why aren't you moving?” Jessica asked.
“First, because I can see what looks like a hole in the side of the mound and you can't, so that might let me give you the warning you need. Second, you're nearer, and thirdly... urm, because I want to know you're safe before I make a mad, selfish, terror-inspired sprint for the transport screaming at the top of my voice. It feels like a binary choice, sorry. And I don't want to wake them up if they're asleep.”
“Thanks for staying then,” Jessica said. “You've got your wrist unit, haven't you? Unlike me and Viv.”
“Yes.”
“Isn't this the time for a panic button?”
“Jessica, just so you know, your hair hasn't really bothered me of for a long time, so thank you for letting it grow. You're a wonderful clever person and I'm going to really fall in love with you some time it's more convenient. But pushing my panic button sets of the sort of alarms I don't want until you're safe. But I'm calling your mum, good idea. Hello? Please don't make a big noise or anything, but the lumps at one the edge of the clearing are all the way around it, look really like bone-eater burrows, and I've seen some faeces on the ground. The girls are coming back to the camp nice and quietly, and I'm watching the hole I can see.”
“And none of you have personal force-fields, do you?”
“No.”
“And how are you feeling, Theo?”
“Urm, so scared I've just told Jess I'm going to really fall in love with her sometime. I mean, I know it's been obvious we were starting to fall in love for years, but I told her, that's how scared I am. Urm otherwise, it feels like if I take a step I'm not going to be able to stop until I'm in the transport, and I'd really like Jess to be there when I do, so I can hug her.”
“When they're at twenty metres from the burrow, tell them to break and run, and you do too, OK? We don't have any footage of them attacking from more than five, or jumping more than three metres, so that'll be a good safety margin, and they're not sprinters. When you've taken ten steps I'll sound the klaxon.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for taking risks for Jess and Viv, Theo.”
“Jess, Viv, you're about fifteen meters from there now, it looks like. When it's twenty, break and run. Leave the rock-mover.”
“Vivian's not that dumb, Theo.” Jess retorted.
“Well I'd been thinking it'd be good to not leave it for a bone-eater to chew on, before I remembered the probe could make a hook these days.” Theo said, “So I thought that maybe I'd give you something to shout at me for, just for old-time's sake.”
“Jess, thanks for the defence,” Vivian said, “but Vivian is that dumb. I was about to say we don't want bun-bun chewing on it's igniter. You realise this must be their killing ground or something?”
“But they're territorial, aren't they, I thought Lana said?” Jess asked.
“Territorial but not as individuals; it's more tribal.” Vivian said, “But they're more ambush hunters, so it doesn't seem very likely they'd set up something like this for hunting. Mating, maybe?”
“Discuss later, klaxon comes after we've taken about ten steps. Let's run!”
Despite what he'd planned, Theo ran to intercept the girls, not straight to the transport. He was glad he did. Jess stumbled over a rock and would have fallen if he'd not been half a step behind her and able to grab her flailing arm to steady her. Her next step faltered too, and he instinctively picked her up. She didn't weigh much, he decided, as they got to the transport.
“Go in the back please kids,” Jessica's foster-father said. “Twisted ankle, Jess?”
“I'm not sure. I twisted it a bit, and then I got a sharp pain when I trod on it afterwards.”
“OK, well there's space in the boxes at the back, and some drink too. We'll check your ankle as soon as we can. Thank you for carrying Jess back, Theo.”
“She's not heavy. I think I could carry her all day in this gravity.”
“You can put me down now, Theo. I'll try standing on it again.” Jessica said when they got there. Theo thought it was an unusual voice.
He looked at her and grinned, “But I've just been telling your mum I want to hug you, and your dad you're not heavy here! And anyway, you might have hurt your ankle really badly.”
“Do I get any say at all about you falling in love with me?” she asked.
“No, but it'll be much more fun if you fall in love with me too.”
“Vivian's pretty.”
“She is, but you've been making me how you want me for years, and I've known you'd grow to be this beautiful for years. Since before we came.”
“What do you mean?”
“About two hours before I phoned you saying you were coming, I told Rachel Ngbilla about a dream I'd had. I'm pretty sure it was this trip. Last night was quite close, when we were all getting the last few cores in the dark from the thing that goes ping. But last night it wasn't just us, and it was cloudy, and we weren't holding hands or watching the sunset and talking about the future.”
“So, nothing like it at all, you mean?”
“Similar. It might be of tonight, for all I know.”
“I've been trying really really hard to not treat you like my exclusive possession.” Jessica said, “I didn't think it was fair to not let Viv have a chance at winning you from me just because she didn't start off a Christian.”
“Sorry to interrupt the much anticipated heart-to-heart, but I told you that was silly.” Vivian said. “I've got eyes, and Rachel said you were pretty much a couple already before we ever met. That's fine by me. I'm going to go to Mars for my doctoral work, gather myself an array of star-struck admirers from the potsgrads of the C.U. to pick from, and if I really can't find someone there then I'll come back older and wiser and shock the life out of Seth. He knows this by the way. He said he night join me and look for a nice shy girl doing a bachelors in botany to take under his wing, since he doesn't want anyone older than him.” Their formal education was going as fast or faster than anyone had predicted, and they were due to finish their relevant degrees at the time most people were starting theirs.
“All planned out, eh?” Jessica asked.
“Yep,” Vivian replied, “We talked about it just before I told you to stop ruining your looks because you weren't fooling anyone.”
“There's just one flaw with the grand plan.” Theo said.
“What's that?”
“The university of Ground will finally be opening in nine month's time, I've heard Dad talking about when the best time is it make a big splash about it. So, firstly, I bet they're going to be begging you both to stay on and teach survival and dangerous plants or something, so you don't need to run away to find new faces to swoon at your feet, and secondly you're going to be comparing everyone to Seth and eventually realise that going away was a total waste of time. I'm pretty sure all your arguments with him are you staking a claim to him like Jess did with me."
“No way, he's so infuriating! He deliberately needles me! Jess, defend me!”
Jess grinned and said, “If your arms get tired, Theo, you could sit down on that crate and take my weight on your lap.”
“You could sit on the crate,” Theo said quite reasonably. “And in my role of junior-assistant emergency medic I could check your ankle.”
“Don't be ridiculous, Theo. I'll be much too embarrassed to let you hug me in front of everyone if you put me down and we find out there's just a rock in my boot. But sit down and I'll check, and I can always stay where I am when I find out, can't I?”
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“Bone-eaters making a clearing in scrub-ground?” Academician and Frontier-biologist Lana asked, of her wrist unit. “It doesn't seem very likely. But of course I'll come and verify it.”
“We were surprised,” Tsarevna Anastasia, who was leading this survey expedition, replied on the other end, “but they look like the mounds around the burrows of bone-eaters, the feces looked about right too. But maybe it's a false-alarm and they're another, perfectly harmless species. We haven't actually seen any yet, just the clearing and the ring of burrows.”
“Ring of burrows? Around edge of the clearing?” Lana asked.
“Yes.” Anastasia replied.
“I'll come, but I'll have to go via the Academy to drag someone specific with me, assuming they'll come. It might well be another species entirely. How high up are you there?”
“Not very, we're maybe five hundred meters above sea-level. Hold on... Make that six hundred and fifty.”
“While I'm travelling, can you see what your models show about frost there?”
“Certainly, Academician.”
“And for the moment, keep everyone inside the transport. Have you got the probe out?”
“Yes. We launched it when we got here. It's not seen anything yet though.”
“Make sure it's looking for all motion, please, preferably from quite high up. It's not my field at all, but if I'm right then you might be about to meet a new species indeed, and the faeces are probably just rodent types, and nothing to do with the mounds at all. I'll bring Takan too, since he's looking insatiably curious. Have you unloaded anything? Of course you had, sorry.”
“We'd unloaded most of the pred-forcefield poles, but hadn't started to set them up yet.”
“Well, for now, let's leave it that way.”
“We shouldn't pick them up?”
“Hmm. Is anyone still outside?”
“A few of us.”
“What do you call it, a bucket line? Try to get them back on-board without anyone inside coming out. And try to not make too much noise. Make sure the probe's listening too.”
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The watcher observed. Something had obviously startled the smaller intruders, and they'd run back to the bigger ones. There was cooperation, so they must be somewhat intelligent. Surely they'd not been so unobservant as to not see the claim-markers? Maybe they had bad eyes. Also they did not fight among themselves, even when one seemed injured, it was carried. He churlled his message of strangeness to the others. Perhaps they were not dangerous. It would make a good story when the snows came.
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A little time later, the intruders who had been watching started to tidy up the sticks they'd taken out of their moving nest. There was a word for that. A card? That didn't seem right, but it would do. Why take out sticks and put the sticks back? That was strange too. None of them approached the strange thing the small invaders had taken with them to a marker. It was a very strange day. He couldn't help the churl of puzzlement that escaped him. He regretted it immediately, as his churl was followed by a deep booming noise from one of the invaders, who looked his way as fast as a predator. He noticed that one had belt and a knife. Why hadn't he noticed that? Yes, these predator-fast strangers must be intelligent; even if they had stolen the knife from the mouldy-ones, it had a belt. Was their varied colour not natural? More strangeness! Fear kept the observer quiet then. It wasn't good to be seen, not by ones that moved predator-fast and carried knives. How had he forgotten how fast the younglings had moved when startled? Younglings? Yes, the smaller invaders had been younglings, that made sense. He longed to see what had startled them. Had they really not noticed the marker stones? It didn't make sense. If they were younglings, was that some toy? Or was it a trap. Sometimes the games younglings played were dangerous if you didn't know what they were inventing, so perhaps it was a dangerous toy. He continued watching, as they cooperated to remove their sticks. But he made no movement other than his eyes, and no sound. No sound was hardest, of course.
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“You're sure you heard something? There's nothing from the probe in the normal audio range.”
“It came from the shrub. Like dolphin clicks,” the Mer-warrior whispered back. “And whose ears do you mean when you say normal audio range?”
“OK, my mistake, landfolk audio range. Sorry, it's there, all right, at about thirty kilohertz. It's modulated, And looking back at the recording there were a lot more of them when we were being loud and ignorant.”
“And Lana sounded excited, did you say?”
“Takan's coming with her.” Since Takan was a bit of a recluse that it very clear to all how unusual this all was.
“Mum? I see eyes, in the scrub. Not pred-eyes.” Vivian said, from where she was looking out of a window.
“Well, let's wait for Lana.”
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All the invaders were back in their strange cart, and the watcher's mind was starting to hurt. All these new thoughts, and now, what was this? Another cart, with wings? How could a cart have wings? It was not expected! At least this one did not invade, but landed outside. Ah! This cart seemed to have mouldy-ones. Mouldy-ones might be annoying sometimes, but would not kill. But what would happen? His head hurt, he could not keep all this to himself without telling, but he had seen one of the predator-fast invaders looking straight at him! But... it had not moved, it had been transfixed, as he, fearing a predator and it had been one of the younglings. Had it been scared of him? He burst from concealment, chirring his distress, his confusion, his news; so much news, it was a long song, the longest he had ever sung, of startled and scared youngling invaders who helped one another like real people, and sticks put down and picked up and their speed and the mouldy-ones coming in a flying cart. It was not very coherent, but it was relief; relief to soar on outspread wings cramped up, to empty his mind; relief not to be the watcher anymore. Better to fall prey to this stranger than to stuff his mind so full of unsong songs. And then one of the mouldy ones chirred back, reassurance, friend-greetings, of apology and accident and youngling-ignorance of new-friends from far away. New friends who did not know of the marker stones, of younglings who thought they saw bone-eater dung.
He trilled back that there were no bone-eaters here, they would not be so foolish. They were so slow when it was cold! Bone-eaters were good for soup, but not as good as bug-eaters. The real-people kept bug-eaters. Foolish younglings to make the mistake! But... wise younglings to know caution. Then curiosity emerged once more, a question that had always bothered him as a chick. Why mouldy-ones not visit for so long?
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“OK, well, the sentry was a real bundle of nerves, I've never seen one burst with such a long message! I hope you were recording that with your wonderful machine? I've never heard of such a long song from one of them. Could you move the transport out of the ring? You've parked in their village-hall, so-to-speak.” The researcher, (who would later remember to introduce himself as Yif, the budling of Takan's previous informant) was obviously excited.
“Certainly! Should we just back out the way we came?” Anastasia asked.
“Urm, yes, but don't squash any of the bushes.” Yif said, “There might be nests.”
“Don't they live underground?” Takan asked.
“Not this time of year. Oh, they say there aren't any bone-eaters, just bug-eaters. Bone-eaters make good soup, but bug-eater soup is better, apparently. It sounded like they actually farm the bug-eaters, which is new knowledge! And somehow he recognised us for what we are — we're mouldy-ones, by the way, Lana. And he asked why we didn't visit for so long! They must have some kind of folk-history, this is amazing!”
“What have you replied?”
“I haven't, yet.”
“Tell him,” Takan said, “we didn't know we ever had, but we forgot a lot of things two hundred years ago, and even before then we had forgotten how we have known his people are up here where it is so cold, and your father was the first one of us who learned how to speak their language for as long as we remember. I don't know you need to say he was a bit confused when he got home — but I presume you know of that and I do not need to tell you the dangers of cold he shared with me.”
“You met my father before he died?” Yif asked with incredulity. Lana had just introduced Takan as her husband, trying to avoid the inevitable problems.
“I have always been driven by intense curiosity, and have said goodbye to far more generations of my organisms than anyone else I've heard of. I met him before he went, and when he came back, young Yif — I mean no disrespect, just it seems everyone is younger than me — and called him rather foolish when he froze rather than grow fur because people would think him barbaric. But they must have more knowledge of the past than us, even if it is fragmentary. Explore it, man! I'm curious!”
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While the mouldy one who could churl began his song of passing seasons and passing knowledge, the strange cart of the invaders moved out of the claim-markers. But it did not follow it's old path, when it had brushed past nest-trees as if ignorant they might have real-people in them. This time it picked a winding course, missing even the thorn shrubs. They had been ignorant! They had come like younglings charging into a meeting of the elders. In the days of old it would not have been so, he remembered. He remembered the song of the guards who stood on the marker mounds, so that the big grazers would not enter the claim-circle. But there were no grazers, so there were no guards, no guards to warn off these new people didn't know more than hatchlings! From his place in the sky, he churlled the song of welcome to new visitors, and then he churlled the sad song of the missing guards whose wife-eggs had been lost because they were not at their posts when the grazers came. And he churlled the song of visitors who must be greeted, because still no one had come out of hiding. Finally some did, and as they circled and joined the song of greeting, the strange visitors left their cart and greeted the mouldy-ones. He saw that different greetings were given, some as friends and others were introduced as new-friends. The youngling who had been wounded still was by the one who'd carried her, but was using her foot, he saw. And he saw that her hand reached for his an they stood. And he saw two some of the older ones noticing this thing that looked like an act of courtship, and nudging one another they stood together in their mated pairs, and embraced one another more closely. So these younglings had started courting and the parents approved. That was good. All these things he noticed, and understood and churlled. These visitors had come as family-groups. He churlled a question to the mouldy one. Did these ones mate for life?
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“This is amazing! He's watching the aliens' social groupings and interactions. He sings that it seems two younglings are starting to court and the parents seem to approve, and asks if they mate for life. All the others as singing the same greeting song.”
“Yes, they mate for life.” Lara said, settling beside Takan and wrapping a wing around him. “As do we.”
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He saw this and heard, and rejoiced. The mouldy-ones formed mouldy-couples! This was new! There must be a new song to be crafted, and it was not all his task, not at all. He churlled the song of gathering, gliding to the ground, and throomed the song of teaching time, which brought the younglings boiling out. He churlled that mouldy-ones were mouldy-people, not just ones, and a song must be written when the sun set, but now the mouldy-ones wanted to know the old songs, it was teaching time, he throommed, teaching time for all. It was a bit presumptuous of him, but he was excited. Hopefully the elders would not be too cross for his throom. He heard the teacher join the throom, and was reassured. And then the elders also joined the throom, and then one of the elders bugled the meeting call. Another joined her, but churlling a variation. The variation was confirmed and the bugle changed, doubled. Younglings churlled questions to one another, one to him, what did it mean. He answered: a grand meeting. Those who'd been about to land pumped their wings and climbed into the sky, passing on the bugle. Still the teacher throomed that it was teaching time, but the throom had changed, it was grand-teaching time.
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“I can't translate all of this, sorry.” Yif said, “But the first sort of bugles meant a meeting, I guess they way they're bugling into the sky mean they're inviting others too. The deep notes that brought the kids mean teaching time, they're going to tell stories, or rather sing songs. Apparently it's big news that we mate for life.”
“So they don't know much about us.” Lana said.
“No. But... before everyone arrived, he sang a song about when guards hadn't been on their guard-mounds, and — I don't know what — had come and clumsily trodden on their eggs, and said maybe you wouldn't have been so clumsy if there had still been — same word again — alive on the mountains and there'd still been guards. So it fits the extinction theory, academician, don't you see?”
“Keep listening, Academician Yif. The alien probe is recording, but keep listening.”
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Message to Seth, from Vivian
Hey, Seth! Contact with the bird-people has been made! If only I understood Groundian better, I'd be able to follow along, but as it is, I'm on pred-watch looking at the probe-screens — don't be worried, they're set to bleep if there's any changes. Talking about changes... Theo says his dad says the bubble-Celestia is good to fly and so its only a few months before we get invaded by teaching staff, and apparently Rachel's been dropping hints to mum about 'sending the youngsters more choice of friends' whatever that means. Does she really think I'd dump the friends I've got just because some new jits turn up?
The bird people make marker-mounds that look exactly like bone-eater burrows, and keep bug-eaters, and their dung is like, 5% smaller than bone-eater dung. Theo didn't have his micrometer with him, so we got the full-on terror experience (Jess and me were closest to the mound, Theo was off to one side and saw a dark stone he thought was a hole).
Anyway, Theo had a fear-inspired talkative moment, and then Jess twisted her ankle as we were sprinting away and Theo stepped right up to provide an emergency lift. They are most definitely walking together, once he put her down (maybe half an hour later). Theoretically, they're digging cores together under a dinky 5m. forcefield dome, but I expect they'll be doing some star-gazing too when they're not breathing each other's hair. So, 'that's them safely paired off', as they say. Did Theo tell you anything? Apparently he had a dream before they ever spoke to Rachel that he and Jess would end up watching the stars together while pulling cores with the thing that goes ping. Remember him saying 'Now that sounds right', when Susanna made version two, and then blushing? He's admitted that version one had the wrong ping from his dream.
If you have any dreams about me, then don't keep them to yourself, OK? Dumb! That's what I call it! An utter waste of valuable hugging time. Why keep secrets about how you feel about people? They really didn't think we knew they were going to turn into a couple, and I told them not to worry about me, and mentioned we'd both been thinking about that 'recruiting' trip to Mars. But with uni actually coming to town before we even graduate, Theo recommends I forget the Mars trip. I'm not going to tell you what he also said, that's way too embarassing.
Hope your foot's better soon, it looks like I'm going to be exclusively your dance-partner unless I wanted to steal dances with Theo (no way, he's officially Jess's territory now) or stoop ( + literally!) to dance with one of the little kids. I will not dance with Rodger.
love,
Vivian
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Message to Vivian from Seth
Wow, you wrote to me! Is that a first? It brightened up my evening no end, except the scary bit. I'm very glad you weren't in real danger. Personally, I was never that set on Mars anyway, just on being available in case you accidentally turned over a rock and found a bun-bun / shark. OK, I won't ask you about what Theo said. Shall I ask him? (joke). But I'm very glad you want to talk about how you feel. No dreams, except the 'slow-burning hope/optimism' sort.
love,
Seth.
P.S. Some kinds of dancing count as gentle-moderate exercise, don't they?
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Message to Seth, from Vivian
My feelings right now? I feel happy and a little optimisitic myself, and strangely impatient for the trip to end.
Should I look up how to waltz? That's got to be allowed. Scary question: how many of your messages do you sign off 'love'?
You don't do it all the time do you?
love,
Vivian
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Message to Vivian, from Seth
I didn't explicitly ask about slow waltzes, but I'm sure they're OK in the right company. What do you think of us practising together? Not to mention walking with me? I think I've only ever signed off 'love' to you, and notes to mum/dad. Scary question back to you? And if you're in favour of saying what you feel, why didn't you say anything?
with love, hope, and optimism, and a big grin on my face,
Seth
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Message to Seth, from Vivian
I thought I scared you, and didn't want to turn it into abject terror. I only message my parents & Rodger. Now you. R. gets 'take care'. I will very happily walk with you, Seth.
Yes, let's get in lots of Waltz practice (grin).
Wow wow wow! Can I tell folk why I'm grinning?
Grr, pred on scopes, can't write more now.
love, V.
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Message to Vivian, from Seth
Dearest Vivian,
You'd better tell people there, or they'll hear from people here, Mum's just come in wondering why I'm singing the 'Halelulia chorus', and peered over my shoulder.
She said 'Praise God indeed, I thought you would let some Martian risk-taker hurt her before you realised what a gem she is.' I said 'I knew she's a gem, mum, I was just sure she'd drop a rock-sized hint if she was interested.'
love,
Seth.
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“Well, I hope you found the half-hour summary informative,” Lana said at midnight to almost all of those who'd not been able to follow the meeting. Jess and Theo had elected to get another thirty cores from their bore-hole, in the hope that they'd hit bedrock and could claim the hole as entirely theirs.
“There's a lot more detail of course.” She continued “And I hope Jess and Theo have got some informative cores, too, and they're not just trying to do some catch up?”
“They have a lovely big stack,” Anastasia replied. “I went to check on them part way through. They were doing a lot of talking, unsurprisingly; but they were certainly getting the job done. They've actually been doing such a good job out there on their own with less distractions than usual that I'm thinking we could use much smaller survey teams. It's not like everyone is learning how to do stuff now.”
There were numerous comments, pro and against, and Anastasia paused for a little longer, and asked for anyone else's comments.
“As long as there are no problems, maybe.” Vivian said, pulling a face. “I mean, It's always been that more than most of the team are logistics and botanists and so on. Not to mention predator-watch. It's not that we're out of that danger; there was one sniffing around the edge the mini-dome quite persistently until I gave it some micro-zaps on the nose every time it got near and chased it off. But what we might do, if we had a Boris-drive mini-transport and more things that go ping, is drop off several core-drilling teams with mini-domes, and have a logistics base in the middle.”
“That's a good thought, Vivian, thank you.” Anastasia said. “Sorry, did you want to say more?”
She nodded; “But since a mini-dome is defenceless against tunneling threats, that's a risk.” Vivian added, “because unless everyone has a personal forcefield, you're waiting maybe ten or fifteen minutes for evacuation and you might not have that long.”
“I need to talk to our fabricators,” Anastasia said, shaking her head at forgetting that key point. “I forget that not everyone has one still. And in terms of logistics we're still thinking lots about predator attacks and slime-creatures, but not enough about bone-eaters and other underground threats. Those snake-things sound quite nasty too. The fact that local knowledge says there are them and bone-eaters around, all the way up to permafrost means that everyone should on these trips should have personal forcefields.” She drew a breath. She was responsible for the expedition, and that included everyone's safety. “Vivian, I know you and the others like getting out of the school-room, but... would you be terribly disappointed if I decided to try doing survey with just those of us who do have personal fields? I think it's about half of us. It's not that we don't value your contribution, it's just I'd hate to think what might have happened this afternoon.”
Vivian grinned, “Personally, since Seth's just asked me to walk with him, I'd be absolutely delighted to go home to the cave! I don't think Jess and Theo will mind much, either. ”