Back in the chaise lounges again, the conversation became, "Josh, tell me about your life now." We talked at length about how it was so different livi...ng in a small town compared to her big city, and going to a small school where each kid knew every other one. My high school had about a thousand kids in it. Hers had almost four times that many. She barely knew the names of all of her classmates. I knew the names of all the boys in my class, and all of the girls in the entire school. (And I made. We reduce speed when crossing the meadow to minimize damage to the grassland.” Alice kept our speed to a crawl.It was all rather clever. The colony’s survival strategy was to do nothing to alter the visual footprint of the valley. The likelihood of someone accidentally entering the valley at Liberty Mountain was modestly remote. However, it was a virtual certainty on any given day dozens of Google Earth’s armchair explorers loaded images of the valley into their computers. Dirt trails left by. ‘I thought a cool drink would help to settle your stomach,’ the nurse said, appearing from nowhere with a glass of ice water with a bent straw sticking out the top. She held the glass in front of him and put the straw between his lips. He sipped at it slowly and sighed as the chilled water hit his stomach. ‘Better?’ she asked, once more the attentive nurse. He nodded and took another sip and she put her hand behind his head to help steady him. She cradled his head against her chest and he gave. It’s the same as my old car used to be, isn’t it?”“Yeah,” I nodded.“So, this is some kind of tribute, is it?”“Yeah,” I said again.She stepped to me, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me the way she had when we were making love. Out of the corner of my eye, I could just see Mike grinning.“You never forgot, did you?”“Not for a second,” I said.“I’m going to marry this guy, Mike. He got away from me once, but never again. He’s mine now,” she said, turning back to me and renewing her kiss.“Good.