"It's still strange knowing...well, knowing that I'm dead." You'll adapt...I did," he replied. "What do you mean?" she asked. "When I left the CIA the...y arranged for me to be 'killed' so that Icould start fresh," he replied. "It's a long story." "I'd like to hear it sometime, I bet it's a real interesting story,"she replied.He smiled back at her. "Okay, it's a long cruise to Curacao. Anythingelse on your mind?" This is going to be expensive...I don't want to be a burden," shesaid. "You're not. "I need you toguide me!" He bounded over to the shelf against the wall. In a jarsomeone, Sally probably, had placed some brightly painted stones so thatthey filled the glass in a layered pattern. Mark spun the lid and whenit came free he dropped it. His eyes glowed faintly as he summoned asmuch of his connection with the earth as he could and hoped it would beenough. A full dozen of the stones managed to rise out of the glass andhovered there just in front of his eyes."Where is he?" he. "I just finished my tour in the Canadian military and applied for my Captains papers, I received them and got a call from the ship builder that this vessel was going to be built and they were looking for a Captain, I had taken quite a few of their ships through sea trials and they told me to come down and meet the owners wife. I went down and met Shannon and she hired me on the spot, she had me look after the building of the vessel and here I am three months later with a crew and on the maiden. "Let's go down this way," Reg said, turning down a narrow trail Kathy didn't recognize. 'That was close,' he thought. He's seen a couple of friends from school up ahead. The last thing that he wanted was to be seen with "Stick" Thomason. She wasn't really a bad kid, but he didn't want anybody to think he was desperate enough to actually be interested in her."Sticks" was a skinny runt, with the figure of a twelve-year old. She still wore her hair in braids for Pete's sake, and she dressed like.