. . .

“What’s the footnote?” Linus asks.

“Huh?” says Tom, powering down his marvelous handheld computing device. Its screen becomes a mirror.

“You said ‘(footnote.)’”

“Oh,” says Tom. He reflects. “Probably just something about how deadly she is. I don’t know. I can’t get the footnotes to work on a touchscreen properly.”

“It’s weird,” says Linus, after a while.

“What is?”

“To have loved the one who will kill us. To have laughed with her; sung with her; danced with her; played with her. To have thought: here is a space woman, a princess-assassin who of all the princess-assassins in the world will look at me and will not judge. And then —”

Linus trails off.

“And then this.”

There is a crunch of an alien footstep on the lawn below.

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