KES CHECKED THE TIME. It was nearly four o’clock and he’d promised Isobel he wouldn’t be home late that evening. He was determined to keep that promise. Things had been tense between them since the last time she had confronted him about putting his work before his family.
Since then, he’d been better about making it home before Miki’s bedtime, but not perfect. Working with Meredith on relations with the Parvus had eaten into his time, and he couldn’t easily refuse a request from the Leader. The visitors hadn’t returned for another meeting yet, and Meredith was keen to encourage them to enter into more discussions. The small aliens clearly possessed plenty of information that wasn’t available in the files the Assembly had sent—potentially extremely useful information. So, as well as deepen
