I feel as though I've gained ten pounds."I looked down at his belly. Sure enough, it was straining at his belt with all that food inside it."Why don't... you loosen your pants," I cunningly suggested. "I'll understand."Ordinarily I suppose he would have looked at me askance. However, Hank had a half a bottle of wine and most of his after-dinner drink inside him, so his inhibitions were considerably diminished. He didn't even mind when I undid his belt for him and unsnapped his trousers."There," I. If you’re thinking about it, that’s good enough. Jess ... Chats ... I appreciate you following as your Mistress leads, but if politically it would be better for you to marry us?”“Are you sure we’re not repeating the very mistakes that have made Chorale leadership the mess it seems to be?” Chats said.“We might be,” Donna said. “We’ve got two months to figure it out.”“Marry Jason...” Jess said. “Don’t take this personally, but I really wasn’t planning on marrying anyone. But if it helps. She vaguely heard the door behind her open and then her arms were seized. Shafiq was aware enough to feel something prick her sharply on the inside of her right forearm and she cursed herself inwardly."Fool! She screamed silently to herself, "you allowed yourself to become complacent! Now they are going to use drugs to try and loosen your tongue."She felt as if she awakening from a dream, listening to a soft, sweet voice, a voice she vaguely remembered from somewhere in her past."Ah, Bird Song,. Four more tests were conducted with less power and we deduced the power curve. The minimum power where external power was used to fight the crystals properties was 3,950 lights. The family had been monitoring our progress and congratulations came in from much of the Alliance that had seen the tests.The other smaller crystals were left and I started on the cylindrical shape. Full power to this crystal was beyond what the destroyer could produce but I wanted to see what its passive distance would.