Wow! Short chapter alert! I'll say, Terry, the amazing variety of alerts they have on space staion Prometheus is impressive!
Apart from being short, this chapter was - well, not exactly sweet, but satisfying. You didn't kill Lois, and I liked Matt Walker's way of saving her. The taser stun worked particularly well, too, because the fact that Lois was stunned and unable to move made it possible for you to suggest that she might be dead. And that sort of teasing is certainly all right, as long as you tell us later in the same chapter that Lois is alive and well!
But.... I'm a bit disappointed in Carrie. And Arnost, let me tell you, is completely disgusted with her! She
was a crackpot after all! She
wasn't listening to her genes! She didn't want her child to be born in prison... well, what a load of baloney. Carrie, they couldn't have kept your son in prison just because he was born there. (Yes, it was a boy: You see, Arnost tells me that a disproportionate number of children fathered by promiscuous men during short affairs are indeed boys.) They would have had to let your son go, and as soon as they did, he would have gone out and made you a grandmother many times over. And you
killed him? And yourself, too? Okay, it probably wasn't such a big loss to society (if indeed it was any real loss at all), but still, Carrie. You were indeed a real nutcase!
But before Carrie died, she showed us a glimpse of sanity, maybe something even better than that. This is what she told Lois:
"You tried to help me. Even after I tried to kill you, you tried to help me. I'll remember that."
Wow. What kind of a promise is that? Is it some kind of blessing? Or is it, by any chance, a hint that Carrie really
isn't going to kill herself, that she knows of some way to get herself out of her deadly plunge, and that she is going to escape from the space station but make sure that everyone else on board is killed before she leaves? Everyone but Lois, because Lois tried to help her?
Ouch. Wow, what a terrifying possibility - a Terry-fying possibility, Terry! Well, we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I'm haunted by your description of Carrie Hillman's serene smile before her famous last(?) words:
She floated in the doorway, her face almost angelic. "I told you I wouldn't let my baby be born in prison."
Well, shudder, Terry - the self-satisfied serenity of the really dangerous kooks of the world. Ah, well. This chapter was short like you said, so I guess we are going to need a new Terry-snack really soon. But there are only two chapters to go now! Really, Terry, I will miss your story so badly when it is wrapped up.
Ann
