shuffling the pads on Lily's desk. Lily lifted her eyes from the

mound of packages, reminders, and party decorations that had been

slowly accumulating around her ever since they got the blessed news

the Bonding Ceremony was going to be celebrated on Terra Two.

Her maternal desire to be of assistance to

her eldest daughter was fighting an older, more personality

specific urge to dump everything at once and take a trip to a

region of space she hadn't visited before. She realized, while

thinking this, that there were no regions she'd never seen, and

strained her overwhelmed mind to figure out if and where she saw

Humon's work. She jerked, aggravated.”