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Arlene had been informed the body would arrive that afternoon. A high-profile case, it would be viewed by hundreds of people over several hours. There would be a full, open-casket service, requiring more space than she could provide in her tiny—although intimate—establishment. The examiner had only released the body that morning and the family wanted the service the next day. It would need to be done quickly and done well.

Normally, that sort of attention and speed would not have been done cheaply, but it was family.

( So, of course, it's free, right? )

The room was dark, but not dark enough.

Even in the pitch-black, Dana saw the warmth off her own body reflecting off objects in the room. She had stepped out of her slippers an hour ago, trying to get some cool from the floor, but the footprints were ghostly reminders of where she had been. The axolotl tank was vivid red, so many more degrees warmer than the rest of the room.

( Oh yeah, she's got wonky eyes.... )

I was talking to Dan about it earlier and I'm thinking about it still.

The biggest problem I've been having with the second book is juggling all these characters. I need to have them in there (or I just WANT them there), but moving from one to the other is getting awful. I have to admit defeat and say I'm just not skilled enough to move from one to the other smoothly.

What's going to be better in this case, I think, is to concentrate on one character at a time. I can start with Belinda and tell most of her story, then go to Daisy and tell her story, then iDana, then Acadia, so forth.

Now, this makes me wonder about two sequences I'd written that take place in the Library: the characters there are Evie and Ulan (both of whom I'd decided I wasn't going to get into their heads) and Becca. I'm thinking about telling that from Becca's point of view, which should be interesting, as she's dead.

Trying to tell things in a chronological way hasn't worked out for me. Yes, I know this means that the clock will restart with each character. I'm okay with this. Because we're talking about people spread out through the galaxy and on different planets, I just think it's a better way of dealing with it.

Belinda is a bit of a worry. I think I need to break her story into three parts. She'll open and close the book, but she'll also have a major role in the middle. I figure the opening is Belinda in the city and during the memorial, her middle section is everything that happens at the lodge, and her end is everything that happens afterwards. Her coming to peace with her family and finding her place in it is a major theme with everyone involved.

Acadia's narrative also needs to be broken into two parts: before and after her decision to head the revolution. I don't think that's going to effect iDana or iLyssa and what they do or why.

It does mean, however, I have to find the right order for these characters. Each one of them is going to come to the end of the story on their own. I just have to decide how each one does it.

The building was in the old colonial style, with all the doors and windows on the pole side, and a corrugated steel roof running down to the ground on the equator side. The black and white horizontal stripes on the roof were visible from the city square: black to absorb the heat from morning and evening sun, white to reflect the noon's harsh rays.

Just a thing that came to mind on the drive to Target tonight.

I had been debating on which would happen first: the revolution on Ursus Major-47 or Evie's death. I think, the conflict needs to happen first. Here's why:

Belinda has to travel to the funeral in a way she's never traveled before. I'm pretty sure that once things go to hell on Big Bear, there will be new security measures and processes in place.

But, Belinda has never traveled before. She does not see it as a new inconvenience and doesn't understand why everyone older than her is complaining. She has never known anything else.

Her concern is her grandmother and her future. She's coming up on the end of her fallow year and needs to decide what it is she wants to do with herself. She is growing up and becoming an adult during a great time of flux. And, because she's young, she's better equipped to change with her world as it changes. She has no set expectations on how things are supposed to be.

So the main story is Belinda growing up, but at a time of great upheaval. She's maturing at the same time as her universe is.

Annora had to break the news.

It was late afternoon, when the older children handled farm duties and the youngest played simple games with sticks and rocks.

Belinda was coming back to the lodge after the second feeding of the pigs. She held her head high, swinging the empty sop bucket and singing to herself.

I don't want to destroy her, Annora thought. But she has to know.

One of the older girls took the slop-bucket from her. That was Belinda's first warning.

Peter, who had been so strange and cruel during her stay, asked if she needed a hug. That was her second warning.

Annora invited Belinda to the office for a personal visit. That was her third.

( Three strikes, kiddo. You're out. )

Ulan took a dirigible to the Independent Republic the next day.

While she was settling in her private cabin, uRsula appeared in one of the chairs. “Where are you off to, now?”

“The Patriarch has died,” Ulan said. “That only leaves two people on the cleared list for Becca's headstone.”

“You should leave that to Huri Cemal,” uRsula said. “It's her mother.”

Ulan leaned back in her seat and looked out the portal. “I was put on the list for reason. With things as they are now, I have to make sure that there will be a proper line of succession. We don't know what Huri will do.”

“If there's any threat, we sgian dubh,” uRsula hissed. “You know the drill. We're not taking any chances. The Dana said.”

“I'm aware of Dana's concerns,” Ulan said, and delicately fingered the blinker-belt activation button in her left palm. “She does not need to be concerned. I have more at stake than she does. You and your sisters are protected by the Shipping Authority.”

uRsula frowned. “It not just sisters. We have more at stake than you could understand.”

Ulan smiled and nodded.

( I suppose they do, considering. Now, what was that about a headstone? )

They started early the next morning.

Ulan took the north wall and Katherine the south. First things first: all the electronic devices, gadgets, tools, were to be packed in boxes. These were plastic and clear and easily labeled. Ulan had already set aside a separate box for data-balls.

( It's a mess when someone dies. )

I ran with my kindred: fleet-footed, fleet-footed
The moon trembled overhead
See my teeth now, so dull and unused
How much sharper was the past!

--“Love Defanged” by Swann and Leon.

Octavia was able to sleep through the first of the explosions. Once they came within three kilometers of the house, she woke up.

( It's not a cat wanting out. )

iMala had left nothing to chance.

( She's creepy like that. )