Samantha told me the same thing years ago. "Edward, if you ever do something really awful, you’d better stay put after that. Don’t go running off into space, thinking you can just sneak away without anyone knowing; because the League always knows. Always." I’d followed my sister’s advice ever since… till now.
Now I was headed for a party to celebrate leaving the Troyen system. If it weren’t for the admiral pulling me along with her, I might have gone back to my cabin and tried not to cry.
The lounge was decked out like one of those old masquerade carnivals in Venice or Rome — all the walls set to starry night, with fountains and cobblestones and fancy bridges over canals that stretched far back into the distance. Now and then, the moving pictures showed people in masks and patchwork costumes, running through the streets with torches or gathering in courtyards for medieval dances.
Very pretty and classical. Unlike the real party.
Nearly everybody in Willow’s crew was there… and they sure weren’t acting like sober navy personnel. Only the woman and I were in uniform, her in admiral’s gray, me in Explorer Corps black. The rest were all costumed up, either in strange clothes or body paints or holo-surrounds. I couldn’t tell what half of them were supposed to be — like the man just inside the door, wearing pink-silk pajamas and a big putty nose. He gave me a sloppy wet kiss on the cheek, and said, "Ooo, aren’t you the fetching whelp!"… in a high voice with an odd accent, like he was imitating a character on some broadcast. The woman on my arm laughed, and glanced to see if I’d laugh too; but it’d been so long since I’d seen any shows, I didn’t know why this was supposed to be funny.