"My wineglass was halfway to my mouth before what Nan had said registered on me. I put the glass down on the table and stared at her not believing wha...t I had heard and not knowing what to say. I just sat there and stared at her."Aren't you going to say anything?" Say what? Start where? The sudden news that you had a boyfriend would have floored me, but boyfriends plural? I don't know what to say. When, why, how long, how many, why are you telling me this, what do you expect me to say? If you. The most universal building among every culture he’d come across with a bifurcated bottom stood in all its glory.It was bright enough to open the lantern and tap the oscillator circuit. After cleaving a piece of chert large enough to support the circuit he had in mind. He had no glue so he used TK to bore tiny holes in the stone to hold his coils in place. Exquisitely thin layers of more chert were stacked together, interleaved with almost a plating of copper to form capacitors. A helical coil. “D’you think you could boot it open?”No sooner had he moved aside than the trooper raised his boot and the door exploded into the room beyond. There were two men who had been looking through an open doorway at the sea beyond. As they turned one started to reach for the pistol in his waistband. He was discouraged by a sabre poking him in the side of his neck. The other man put his hands up. The other trooper removed weapons from both men, leaned out of the door and called in a loud voice,. We’ll see if it comes to anything.”Franco had finished talking and was ready to catch for another inning. He told me to turn around while she threw a half dozen practice pitches. Satisfied, he called for me to step into the box.“One more inning,” he said. “She wants to try something and that’s all the time they have anyway.”“One more inning.”I stepped into the box, not feeling particularly optimistic. Franco had given her a pointer or two and he’d spotted her sinker tell so she wouldn’t give.