The descending tone made him wince, and he saw another red flag appear in the upper left corner of his screen. A flash of blue off to his right made him spin his ship around, racing across the simulated stone and slapping the "spring" command to avoid a force trap. A green ship appeared in his mirror, but when he tried to turn invisible nothing happened.

"Damn," Jeff muttered, pouring on the speed and hoping he could beat Zeke to her flag. A cloak bubble sped by overhead, but he didn't have time to pick up more invisibility right now. She knew where he was going, anyway.

A chime from the taskbar distracted him, and he glanced down long enough to see the message "new e-mail from [unknown sender]" pop up. The crunch as Zeke's ship slammed into him from behind brought his attention back to the game, and his ship fishtailed right into a no-cargo zone. All three of the flags he'd captured vanished, and he swore again. He really needed to turn off the e-mail notification when he was playing Hover.

Another descending tone made the whole screen freeze, and a banner appeared on his forward windshield. Windsplitter advances to level 3, it informed him. New player "Sulfur" enters level 2. Continue to compete against Zeke and Sulfur?

The university mail server always identified Ashley's source as "unknown sender", so he left the Hover simulation to see what was up. He had beaten Zeke twice before, and she would probably leave a nasty message about the forfeit in his gaming profile. Someday he would have to find out something about the other habitual three am gamers.

The subject line was "Since I know you're up," and he smiled to himself. The Kerovan time difference was impossible to keep up with, but Ashley had been wearing her watch when she left the night before. It couldn't be set for Keyota time for more than a day, but it made it easy for her, at least, to know what time it was on Earth.

I thought I'd say good morning, the e-mail began. Thanks for the moral support Saturday night. And thanks for not saying anything about Andros and Zhane to the parents. I just don't know what to tell them, you know?

"At least you're easy to buy for," Jeff told the screen. The rest of the message wasn't so easily dismissed, though, and he sat there wondering about it for several minutes. How *did* he feel about his little sister having two boyfriends?

Could be worse, he decided after a moment. Some girls had five boyfriends. In a week.

So was it better or worse that Ashley had to deal with that in a committed relationship? Could you be committed to two people? He supposed that anyone who remarried believed that they could love more than one person--just not necessarily at the same time.

The front door slammed, and he debated going downstairs to ask Val what she thought. As an Alliance member, she had a different perspective on what was or wasn't acceptable in a relationship. On the other hand, she would probably tease him mercilessly for asking.

He sighed, pushing his keyboard in and standing up. The things he did for his family.

Val was fussing with the coffee maker when he wandered into the kitchen, and she nodded in greeting as he pulled the refrigerator door open ostensibly to peruse its contents. Val literally sparkled in the bright fluorescent lights. She was in full changeling mode, and he wondered what goth club she and her friends had been terrorizing tonight.

"Hey, Val," he said, pulling a soda out of the fridge and retreating to the table. Hooking one hip over the edge, he put his foot on a chair and popped the tab on his soda with as much nonchalance as he could muster. "I've got a question for you."

She flipped the switch on the coffee maker and opened one of the overhead cupboards. "Shoot," she said, not bothering to turn around.

"How do you feel about multiple people in a committed relationship?"

"Hard to have a committed relationship with just yourself," she replied, sticking a twizzler in her mouth as she continued to poke through the cupboard.

He rolled his eyes. "I mean more than two people." He'd barely asked the question and she was already giving him a hard time. "Say you're going out with someone and one night they tell you they're in love with someone else. They still love you, they just love this other person too."

Val shrugged, turning around with a bag of goldfish in her hand. Reaching up to take the twizzler out of her mouth, she answered, "I say, more power to them. Especially if they're committed. Why, did your girlfriend drop a bombshell on you?"

"It's not about me," he informed her. "It's about a friend of mine."

"It always is," she said, the corner of her mouth quirking. "How does your friend feel about it, then?"

"She's not sure." He frowned, aware that he wasn't convincing her in the slightest. "That's why I'm asking--I don't know what advice to give her. How can you be in love with two people at the same time?"

"Happens all the time," Val answered, popping a handful of goldfish into her mouth. "Most people just don't admit it because our society frowns on polyamory. But hey, our society used to frown on black kids drinking from the same water fountain as white kids. We got over it."

Jeff watched her chew on the twizzler stick again, idly wondering if the combination of sugar and salt canceled each other out. "You think we'll get over this, too?"

"Hope so. But the government still thinks nuclear power is the answer to all our problems, so obviously society isn't advancing as fast as I'd like."

He smiled a little in acknowledgement, sliding off the table to take some goldfish when she offered the bag to him. It was strange, he thought, retrieving the peanut butter from the counter behind her for his crackers. Some of the most radical philosophies came from his peers here in Angel Grove--not from aliens at all.