So he made it early, and he made it personal. They, too, went back together a long way, Feeney thought as he pulled up in front of the neat two-level home in the ‘burbs. He’d been here socially over the years. The commander’s wife loved to throw parties. His mood wasn’t sociable now as he strode up the pebbled walk toward the quiet house in the wakening neighborhood. A few yards down, a dog was barking in high, monotonous yips. The bark had none of the faintly metallic ring that said droid, but held a vibrancy of flesh and blood. The kind of dog that shit in the yard, Feeney thought with a shake of his head, and scratched at fleas. Leaves skittered playfully along the street, most of them making beelines for lawns. Lawns that were, in a neighborhood like this, tended like a religion. Feeney, himself, didn’t get ‘burb life, where you had to rake and mow and water or hire someone to rake and mow and water.
