Another installment of this very interesting
and compelling series.

I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"

The quote seemed odd the first time through, but
the second time it is VERY apropos.

     At 6:47:06, Lara Kulenkov's eyes slide open as 
consciousness returns to her.

For some reason, this name said "Jupiter" to me, rather
than "Mercury".  I'm not sure why.

     For half an hour, she soaks in the tub, trying to 
recapture the warmth of last night's dream. Mommy and
Daddy had both been there, and it had been wonderful.
But reality is cold to her, and it is all the 
fault of That Bitch.

This whole paragraph means something _vastly_ different
the second time through than it did the first.  Nice
work.

two sapphire earrings that Daddy gave her when she was 
twelve.

And this detail, which I hardly noticed the first time
through.  Daddy gave his little girl grown-up jewelry?

     After a moment, a voice replies. "Yes Ma'am?"
     "Bring the car around, Chou," she says calmly.
     "Yes Ma'am."
     She becomes aware that The Bitch is standing several 
feet behind her, and therefore opens the door and walks
out beneath the pillar-supported roof of the entrance to
the mansion to wait.

It was roughly here I realized that Lara was most likely
Mercury:  rich, single-parent (mother) family.

passing by that pair of a blonde and a rouge who are usually
joined at the hip whenever she sees them.

Nice way to characterize Lara, that she thinks of these
other women in slang terms for their hair-colors.  Also,
the "joined at the hip" implies that Lara is either making
some assumptions about Sam and Mary, or doesn't mind the
casting of groundless aspersions (or both).

the tall form of Dieter Marcinko, one of the school football 
team's second string. For some reason, he seems nervous.
     "Yes?" she asks calmly.
     "Uh," he replies. "Um. Well ... I heard from ... some of 
the guys on the team that you were ... available, I mean,
not seeing anyone right now. So ... are you doing anything?

I read this, too, differently the second time through.  The
first time, I took the "available" at face value, and thought
Dieter really was asking for a date.  Now it seems like
he was thinking "easy" when he paused to change it to "available",
which, coupled with the "second string" and his nervousness,
could be taken to indicate she's already been with the
entire first string and half of the second.

Meet me there in sixth period, and I'll give you what
you really want."

She IS cold, isn't she...

     "Everyone on the team will know within minutes if you 
chicken out."

<clip>

     She'll see him again. It should make for a relaxing
sixth period.

And this, too, means something different this time through.
Now it reads like she knows quite well that this is an
initiation rite for the football team; that "everyone... will
know" is NOT hyperbole, or an assumption on her part.

     She yawns discreetly while listening to Abrabanel's 
algebra lecture.

An interesting name... a quick web search says it belonged
to several Jewish savants of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.  This would appear to mean that this America is
not terribly prejudiced against Jews, whatever the prevalent
mood might be against certain other minorities.

the moment the enemy starts sending multiple possessors,
it will turn into a rout.

Sam DEFINITELY is brighter than the Usagi we know... :)

     Icicles tremble down Sam's spine as she turns around to 
look at the pale, blue-eyed brunette behind her. And for
the life of her, she can't figure out why.

Nice fake-out here.  On second reading I take this as only
half-figurative.

     Sam is too amazed to reply. "Ten exemptions?"

Definitely Mercury. :)

     "Well, yeah! I can't imagine what kind of studying, or 
tutoring, you'd need to get those kind of marks."

To me, this says something about Heinlein Academy.  That it
does not even occur to Sam to attribute such high marks to simply
"she's smart" says to me that Heinlein has EXTREMELY high
academic standards, such that even the very brightest need to
work very hard.

     "So I've heard that she does it the older-fashioned way."

Heh.

But Lara is used to uncomfortable positions. Life
could be considered an uncomfortable position. She is more 
than willing to do what she has to in order to --

Hmm... I don't think this chapter ever did finish this
sentence.  Lara is not simply without emotion; she is driven
to do SOMETHING, but we don't know what.

off his, and asks, breathily, "Would you like me to call you 
Daddy, too?"
     "Wha --?" her teacher asks in the first second after
the question registers. Then his senses clear even further,
very suddenly. "No! Don't be disgusting!"
     "Disgusting?" she asks, as she caresses his face with 
her nose. "Who do you think taught me everything I know?"

Heh.  You do know how to get to your readers, don't you?

on. "Your father -- my God, does your mother know about --"

The first time through, it was not clear how to take this.
At the end, though, it is:  and I must admit to being
quite unsettled.

"You weren't as good as he was. Or her." And then she's gone.
     For a moment, the teacher wonders what sort of sick girl 
would make that comparison. Then he wonders what sort of sick
man would be hurt by it, like he is. And then he starts to gag.

Very effective.  Congrats.

     Sam frowns, and starts to speak slowly. "Well, it's a 
Russian name, so she's probably descended from the Whites ...
from that I can probably safely conclude that her family's
pretty wealthy

Ah, more details on the alternate history.  Let's see...
White Russians in Japan... most probably, the Reds were
still successful in the revolution, then, but why is it
"safe" to conclude that White Russians must be wealthy?
I'm drawing a blank on any scenario where nearly ALL
noblemen fleeing in 1917 would have successfully taken
their wealth with them, or still have it.  I hope you'll
expand.

     "From what I heard, her great-grandfather came over
here in '21,

Checks so far...

her grandfather got rich reconstructing after the Burn,

But this?  One generation later... Oh.  "Burn".  More
than two bombs were built, then.  And they were used.
Ugh.

"Do you remember about two, maybe two and a half
years ago, when I ... when people were saying that I had ... 
I was ..."
     "A tribade?" Mary supplies.

The old term?  Hmm.  Nice touch, in one way, though I'm
not quite sure Sam and Mary should know any word at all
for it, given the way you've portrayed this society and
their age.  But then you couldn't have them talk about
it at all, could you?

After all, I didn't know that Darren was ... that he
was just using me as ..."
     "His beard?"
     "Right." Her teeth were clenched on that one, folks. 

Interesting way to introduce new slang; "beard" presumably
meaning "badge of manliness".

and "Darren"?  Red herring or real clue?

     It is at that moment that a very startled, almost 
poleaxed-looking Dieter Marcinko

Meanwhile, we can now interpret this guy's name as raising
a new possibility:  he may be a completely incompetent
football player whose father bought his way onto the team.

She is staring at them, and once again Sam feels the
terrible cold.

Interesting:  this is actually doing double-duty here:
as pure metaphor, and as a half-literal/half-figurative
description of what Sam feels.

     "Especially since she's supposed to be one of your 
allies," says Rune.

Heh.  Rune is more perceptive than Luna, too:  she got it
right the first time.

     "A number of sources that I'm not prepared to disclose."
     "Not ready to disclose," Sam repeats.
     Rune nods simply.
     "What are you, a journalist?"

...and this America still has freedom of the press (to conceal
their sources), it would appear...

"Someone else told you to contact me," she states. "Someone,
who frightens you more than the possibility of my killing
you, told you to do it."
     Rune just stares. "Very good."
     "I suppose this person's identity is also on the list of 
questions you won't answer."
     "You suppose right."

Oooohhh.  I like it.  More mysteries.

     "Why did this person choose you, and not someone else?"
     The confusion finally appears in Rune's expression. "How 
in the world should I know what she was thinking? I ... I
suppose that she had some way of finding out those who had
doubts about the Cru--" She stops in mid-word,

Well, the obvious continuation is "-sade", so I suppose
that it's probably not the real answer, despite how well
it seems to fit.  Crucible?  As in, something humanity
might be forced into?

     The girl in the Heinlein uniform, who just asked for an 
obscene native publication,

Heh.  Use of "native" for, presumably, "Japanese".

it. Why would people think he had that stuff on sale?
     He passes, doesn't he?

Nice touch.  THAT level of prejudice against Japanese, on
Japan.  But, OTOH, a level of openness in the society so
that he CAN pass; he's not registered or forced to carry
an ID whereever he goes.  Reminiscient of the way very
light-skinned blacks used to be able to 'pass' in America;
not that similar to, say, South Africa under apartheid.

And suppose the metropolitan guards are right outside?

This term for "police" pushes at least some of the
historical deviations back quite a ways, I would think:
maybe 200 years or more.

Then she notices the skirt. *She* wouldn't wear something as
daring as that.

;) But would she want to?  Seriously, that's a VERY pointed
comment on the society you're describing.

I would make your name a half-forgotten memory.

By its setting, and given the earlier explanation, this must
be something Venus can do.  It hardly seems so on its face.
(Pluto, maybe, but this is hardly the most obvious way to
describe a punishment Pluto might administer either.)
Should be VERY interesting when we get to Venus' chapter.

Furthermore, she knows why she has been ill-at-ease when Sam
Hazzard was present, though not so much as now. Sam had been 
*warm*. This girl is even *more* warm, and the places inside
Lara that she has made cold scream in agony whenever she is
near to either of them.

VERY vivid imagery.  Nice job.

"Dame," he says. "Dame."
     "Dame you!" the girl snaps, and slams her elbow into

Given that everything else is in English, if Ken is saying
"bad" in Japanese here, suggest spelling it "da-may", as
neither Sam nor Lara should understand it.

She knows this much is true, however: it is
wonderful.
     And even when the changes stop, the wonder continues. 
She can see and hear and even smell, but there is no feeling,
except for a sense of gravity. Instead of any sensation on
her skin, she has only the cold.

<clip>

"My heart is colder than the northern night.  Know this cold,
you who brought it forth!"

Eewww!  Poor Mercury.  I find I definitely feel enough for
Lara that I do NOT want her to be like this at the end of
the story.  (Which means, of course, that it might be even
more effective if she still is, given good reason.)

     By the time the guards are finished questioning them,

"Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three times..."
One hopes that Sam doesn't get into this more than one
more time with the guards.

"You can't just go through something like this and then 
go on giving me the same silent treatment that you've
been giving me for the last three --"

Given what we learn below, I am inclined to supply "years"
here:  an extremely scary thought.

     "Lara, how can you do this to me?" someone asks. "Do you 
not realize how much I love you? How hard I've had to fight
to keep you? I'm your mother, for God's sake -- how can you
treat me like this?"

<clip>

     On the other side of the door, someone continues to 
babble. "I know that I haven't been a good mother. I know
I should have known what he was doing! But Lara, I stopped
him! Doesn't that count? I made him go away,

<clip>

...her father and her true mother, that morning. Reality
without them is cold; to endure it, one must be colder.

<clip>

     Let us leave these people now, in the hell that fate
and their own actions have made for them.

Yeesh!  Turn that screw.

I find I care more about what happens to Lara than I do
about what happens to Sam at this point, which strikes me
as odd in some ways.  Lara, after all, hasn't really done
anything to make me sympathize with her; so why do I care?
Because I see her as a victim.  Well, she is, of course,
but you are also correct in that it is her OWN actions
(or, rather, lack thereof) which have placed her in this
hell.  For three years she has been free to assign different
meanings to her life and relationships; she has chosen,
consciously or not, to assign the horrible ones she has.

I hope you see fit to have her change her mind before this
series ends.

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