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imagine ever closing her eyes again without seeing his poor face disfigured by those countless holes.

    A hideous death. More horrible for her than for him, perhaps. He would have been, should have been, unconscious when the thing happened to him.

    She prayed he’d been unconscious.

    So many dead. A world dead. And now, new death, murder even, perhaps. Some said the Marine sergeant, Tamara Hoyle, had struck blindly, a panic reaction in part caused by the confusion of waking from a five-century nap. Mo’Steel said no, it hadbeen deliberate. The woman herself, the sergeant, said nothing and no one had yet questioned her.

    What would Violet say to her mother when she awoke? How could she console her? She had never been close to her mother. Wylson Lefkowitz-Blake was her daughter’s polar opposite. An entrepreneur, a businesswoman who had built the software giant Wyllco Inc. from scratch, starting with three employees and some aging tablet computers. Her signature software RemSleep 009 had made Wylson Lefkowitz-Blake a billionaire. And it had made her indispensable to NASA.

    It would have been easier for Violet Blake if her father had been the one to survive. She’d always been her daddy’s little girl. It was her father who had first introduced her to art, to serious music, to literature. It was her father who had given her Pride and Prejudice, and it was there, in the mannerly, elegant, understated, and unhurried world of Jane Austen that Violet had found her place in the world.

    Violet was a freak in the world of school, because to reject a world dominated by soulless technology, a world where no thought ever seemed to go unspoken, where no feeling went unexpressed, a world devoid of politesse , a world without delicacy or tact, to reject that world was seen as unnatural, perhapseven dangerous. When she refused to wear a link even her teachers turned on her, demanding to know how she could stand being so “out of touch.”

    Violet had felt wrong growing up, wrong deep down in her soul. And she’d gone on feeling wrong till she found other girls like herself, girls who wanted to be girls . The frilly dresses and carefully piled hair were just the outward signs of a much deeper sense that the world had conspired to deprive girls of a unique girlness , and to deprive everyone of privacy, peace, contemplation.

    It wasn’t about playacting. Miss Blake knew she was not living in early-nineteenth-century England. Unlike some Janes, she did not attempt to copy the speech patterns of Austen characters. And it was not about being passive or witless. On the contrary, Austen’s heroines were strong, determined, unafraid to make judgments or to express opinions.

    Violet loved art. She enjoyed simple rituals. She enjoyed conversation. She enjoyed silence. And none of that found a place in the world of 2011.

    Her father had understood immediately. Her mother had laughed at her, first in disbelief, then with outright contempt.

    “Well, congratulations, Dallas,” her mother told her once, “you’ve finally found the way to take ashot at me. I guess every teenager has to go through a phase like this.”

    “Mom, I am just trying to live my own life,” Violet had responded. “And I would consider it a kindness if you would call me by my chosen name: Miss Blake.”

    “Miss Blake? Good lord. What’s that? First name ‘Miss’?”

    “Dallas is not a name that pleases me. And the one great advantage of this day and age is that everyone feels free to change their name. I’ve chosen Violet as my first name. Violet Blake. You can call me Violet, but I’d prefer Miss Blake.”

    “Violet? Your name is Dallas. It has meaning. It’s the city where you were born.”

    “And with each use of that name I am reminded of an event that I don’t even remember!”

    “That’s not the point. I remember, and it’s an important memory. You’re my only daughter. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

    “Yes, Mother, I