’ The words spilled out of Stan, he wasn’t even truly aware of what he’d said. Just then Stan realized someone was behind him in the canteen. He... turned to look, and saw that it was Anne. She had a very serious look on her face! ‘Stan?’ she asked, ‘What are you doing with Denise?’ Stan stood, feeling slightly guilty. It must have shown in his face, because Anne’s face and posture returned to it’s more customary forbidding nature. Stan’s instinctive ‘It’s not what you think…’ didn’t make matters. .. interesting,” Crnnch replied. “The sword they gave me gives off an interesting signature in the realm of quantum and they said it would be effective against the Vultoqi ... as well as the Beoghra.”“You may well need it, my son. You have a grave enemy in the shape of Folar, whom once again you humiliated in public, or rather he engineered his own humiliation,” Brnnt nodded. “Your popularity, combined with our status, has several unfriendly eyes upon us, including those of the Most High,. Then they clone the 20-year old me,and by the time the clone turns 20, I'm 40, so I scan and die again, andwake up 20. I'd be in my 20s and 30s forever. The way I figured it, thatwas a pretty good deal. I wouldn't be getting a big house any time soon onmy salary, but I'd get immortality, and that seemed like a pretty fairtrade."So anyway, I died the first time as soon as my clone hit 20. Don't knowhow I did it. They told me they had the info available, but I didn't wantto know. I'd had my scan. He didn't care.By the Tuesday following the confrontation, Barbara's parents had apparently recovered from the shock of seeing visual evidence of their daughter's infidelity. Steve guessed this was so because the phone calls started back up. There were three calls from Barbara Tuesday afternoon and one each from her parents. Steve didn't take any from Barbara but he returned the ones from Lloyd and Diane.Wednesday saw twice as many calls, and when Steve got home Thursday, there were eighteen.