Dr. Samantha Dulcinea Beckett would answer to half a dozen different
names, depending on who was talking.  Everyone at school called her Anna.
Her 'family' at the Project called her 'Dulci,' except for Al and Alan, who
called her 'kid', or 'minorenne.'  In her real family, she was known as
Samantha, except to Tom, who called her 'Little Sam.'  He was the only one
she let call her by her father's name.  Then there was Puck.
        "Doctor?" the voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
        "Yes, Puck," she answered.  She never got used to being addressed by
her professional title, even though she had already matched her father in
accumulatd degrees.
        "Why are you home so early?"
        She looked up, as she always did when she talked to Puck.  "I told
them that I had a hybrid computer at home who would be worried, so they let
me go early."
        "Be serious."
        "Admiral Calavicci came today, and he made an offer that I'm
_seriously_ considering."
        "They want you back at the Project?"
        "Yes."
        "And your response was?"
        "I'll think about it."
        "And?"
        "I don't know, Puck, I'm going nowhere, and I'm getting there fast."
        "So go."
        *Minorenne, you do what you have to.*
        "They're not my family anymore."
Why does the moon set slowly?
Why does the sun fly past?
We'd better do now what we can do,
These lives we have don't last.