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DAY 42
Harry knocked on the front door of a little, round house that was so very like the one he had left behind on Leyria. Della answered a moment later, stepping out onto the porch with a disapproving frown. “No Melissa?”
Standing on the step, Harry hung his head and clamped a hand onto the back of his neck. “She wouldn’t come,” he explained. “Said the people of Salus Prime needed her.”
Claire was at his side with her hands shoved into the pockets of her windbreaker, staring down at her feet. “You should have told her to come,” she mumbled. “Can’t you be all paternal or something?”
“I couldn’t even convince you not to come down to the planet’s surface. Why do you think I can convince Melissa of anything?”
His words were a mistake, and he knew it as soon as they were out of his m
