Lunacy II

          Valeron pushed the sandy-blond hair from his eyes. He tasted the soup, made a face, and then put it aside for the microwave. “When am I going to learn to actually let the water boil before pouring it?”
          Dariin snickered. “When you’re not preoccupied with what whack scheme your girlfriend’s going to pull, next. Anyway, she doesn’t plan to go till next year.”
          “They don’t even have Holiday Inn TM on Phobos!” Valeron said, wailing.
          Dariin put the soup in the microwave. “You do have a tendency to forget what you’re doing when Josaaph’s involved, don’t you?” Her long-suffering query ended with a tortured sigh. “Phobos isn’t the end of the universe, is it?”
          Valeron stuck out his lower lip. “It might as well be, for all that I’ll get to see her for close to a year.”
          “Well, you know what they say,” Dariin chided him. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Then she seemed to think better of it. She scratched her head. “Or was that ‘Abscess makes your tooth grow weaker’? Dan it, I can’t remember, now.”
          “Either way, it’s foul.”
          “Speaking of fowl, I wonder how the chicken’s coming along?” Dariin went over to the cooker