(no subject)
When Simon and Kaylee step through the door into his parents' house, it's just after sunset. There's enough time to bring their overnight bag up to the guest room, and to exchange a few quiet words with his mother, before the aircar arrives. Kaylee gives him a quick, tight hug on the doorstep, and murmurs I'll be right here when you get back. It'll be hours past midnight before he gets back, too late to wake either of his parents to walk them home.
Even by private semiballistic, it takes the better part of two hours to get from New Mayfair to Cortez. Simon spends the time trying to read, but keeps finding himself staring unseeing at a page of the medical journal or at the curvature of the planet below, his mind worlds away. Years away.
When the car lands in Cortez, pulling up outside the gates of the Whitakers' lakeside house, it's a few minutes to noon.
* * *
People sit in rows of folding chairs on the lakeshore, quiet and somber in the formal black or white of mourning, facing the small podium that's been set up under a tree. Dunash and Ksenya are seated four rows back, and there's an empty seat next to Dunash that they've been saving for him.
It's a short service: a few short speeches, a ritual scattering of the ashes, a long moment of silence. A handful of mourners come forward to place stones or flowers on the podium, or to light incense sticks in the sand in front of it.
Afterwards, in the Whitakers' parlor, there's time to talk. And to exchange condolences.
Even by private semiballistic, it takes the better part of two hours to get from New Mayfair to Cortez. Simon spends the time trying to read, but keeps finding himself staring unseeing at a page of the medical journal or at the curvature of the planet below, his mind worlds away. Years away.
When the car lands in Cortez, pulling up outside the gates of the Whitakers' lakeside house, it's a few minutes to noon.
* * *
People sit in rows of folding chairs on the lakeshore, quiet and somber in the formal black or white of mourning, facing the small podium that's been set up under a tree. Dunash and Ksenya are seated four rows back, and there's an empty seat next to Dunash that they've been saving for him.
It's a short service: a few short speeches, a ritual scattering of the ashes, a long moment of silence. A handful of mourners come forward to place stones or flowers on the podium, or to light incense sticks in the sand in front of it.
Afterwards, in the Whitakers' parlor, there's time to talk. And to exchange condolences.