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Narrative

Whispers and Rumors

Cindy Margrave knew she shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. However, Sprue and Quinn weren’t exactly making it easy to avoid doing so. They might be keeping their voices low, but they had managed to be just loud enough to be right there at the threshold of her awareness, neither so soft she couldn’t hear, nor so loud that she could hear clearly enough to put their conversation in the background. No, it was right at that volume where it drew attention no matter how hard you tried to ignore it.

Something about trouble back on Earth, and not just President Flannigan beating the drum of moral panic. She was far too familiar with that, ever since she and her sister Kitty had gotten swept up in the Expulsions just because Aunt Betty took them in.

No, this sounded like some kind of slow-motion disaster. People sick and dying in widely separated places, the authorities struggling to trace the connections between them.

Had it been only a few days ago when Autumn Belfontaine had hurried into the DJ booth to announce the breaking news about a cruise ship that had been stricken with illness and rescued by the US Navy? If there was a lot more things like it happening, why wasn’t she reporting on them?

It would’ve been so much easier if Cindy could just ask someone. But that would require admitting that she’d been guilty of listening in on a conversation to which she was not a party, even if she hadn’t meant to.

What was the saying? Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut.