Have a seat. Would you care for a drink?” Rod said kindly.He was dressed in a satin smoking jacket and slippers. Sitting in the large couch by the f...ront window, legs crossed and arms stretched out on the back cushions. With Jessica roaming around I felt like a quest at the Playboy mansion. I nodded and said beer. Rod smiled and nodded back.“Two beers, servant.” he said looking directly at me.But I knew he wasn't talking to me. Jessica dropped what she was doing and went to the wet bar and came. Instead they told her to study. Her abilities were a gift from God, they told her, and it was her responsibility to make the most of them. The young Fran asked for nothing better, and thus encouraged she cultivated a deep love of learning, together with an instinctive aversion to anything remotely domestic. In short Fran, so far as she was concerned, had an idyllic childhood. Not until she arrived at university — incidentally the first person from her village ever to do so — and saw the. The vast percentage of soldiers in the north were Republican or sympathizers for the coloreds as you were called back then. They fought the bloodiest war in American history to give you your freedom. You see, slavery is evil. No race has any right to put another in chains. And they didn't treat you well at all. The food was bad, the living quarters were small and cramped, they healed your wounds or illness because you were valuable to them. Valuable because they never gave you any wages. Not. "Let's get the knives and other stuff and head back. You can talk to the boy when we get back to the base." Base?" Dana asked, "What base?" Our base of operations, your house," Denny answered. "Today is free time. But tomorrow we must be prepared for anything, no matter what. I have some special stuff coming in with the bunch waiting for us. We better get there before they run out of beer." He laughed, "War, wine and women, the three necessities of life for a seal." Then he added "Plus copious.