Been There, Done That (April Book 10)

by Mackey Chandler

  “They only reason the supervisor there hasn’t kicked me out is I’m naturally short. I’ve been right at the limit for the last couple months and cheat slouching down when they measure me. She has two beds empty and doesn’t need three slots not paying anything, when she knows I want to sleep there.”

  “Nevertheless, I can’t risk it. If you do get in trouble when I am completely absent they will lay the blame on me for leaving you unsupervised I’m sure.”

  “So it isn’t about me, as usual it’s about you. First of all, consider if you take me with you and this apartment is completely vacant Jeff might quite reasonably take it back. You need me here to maintain a façade of occupancy. Secondly, I promise you I won’t get in trouble. I’ve been doing a marvelous job of staying out of trouble for a year, on my own basically, and I’m not doing anything of which you’d be the least ashamed. You aren’t aware, but I have a lot of businesses that would be destroyed by going to the Moon with you. I’ve built them up until I’ve made six and seven Solars each of the last two months, and I’d have to start from scratch and need a couple years to build back up to that again.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just a little boy and that’s more than a lot of men make,” his mother said, “professional men. It’s far more than I make working for a real established business.”

  “Real business? That’s so Earth Think. Real because it has a government license, or stock, or a neon sign out front? Anything that makes money is a real business. It just grates you I make more than you. You never thought to ask your little boy how to make money, because what could he possibly know? You’re here, but your head is still stuck back on the Slum Ball, and I’m coming to doubt you’ll ever adapt to Home. It’s like you’re selectively blind to anything around you that’s too different or you don’t like.”

  “So what are these big business deals you’re doing that can make so much money? Linda demanded. “I don’t see any way people would pay you that kind of money for anything honest.”

  “I’m not going to tell you, because you’ll try to steal it just like you did with Lindsey’s stuff.”

  Linda slapped him so hard he saw stars and his ears rang. He hadn’t seen it coming and didn’t even start to duck. He didn’t have to look in the mirror to know he was marked. She kept longer nails than spacers and when he felt his cheek it was swelling already and his hand came away dotted with blood. There was nothing left to say so he headed for the door. He needed to go see Jon in Security while his face testified to the hazard home had become. He’d ask to live with his sister or failing that some sort of guardian. But she grabbed him violently by the arm when he tried to go past, hurting him again.

  “Mother, I’m short, but I outweigh you already and I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than you. Please don’t make me fight past you to walk out the door, because I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She looked shocked and then stepped back clearing the way. When he got to the door he looked back and she wasn’t even looking at him. She was still just staring off in the air where she’d stopped him.

  * * *

  “We don’t have any indication that France has changed the deal behind the scenes or diminished their support for Weir’s partners?” April asked.

  “We haven’t seen any meetings in France again, but the one partner’s brother is still active in the French space program and hasn’t been demoted or anything. If they were out of favor you’d think it would have destroyed his brother’s standing in the agency. As far as I know there really isn’t any alternative group to carry the program forward for them. It’s pretty much press on with them or drop the whole idea. I’m not sure they aren’t simply encouraging the public nay sayers to stifle any competition, while quietly pushing ahead supporting it fully. The partners seem to be the only ones not discrediting it without advancing any alternatives.”

  “So do you think this new ship they’re going to build will work?” April asked.

  “I don’t have any idea,” Jeff said. “How can I when I don’t know why they failed the first time. We jumped out and turned around and did the same thing to come back. If it wasn’t going to work, my money would have been on it not working at all.

  “I don’t have any idea what they are going to change. If they have a plan, good for them, because I wouldn’t know what to suggest. They haven’t even finished building the room for fabricating the modules in pressure or the sun shield and assembly area to put them together in vacuum. If they keep it in that shed until the last minute like last time, we won’t get to see any changes until they’re within days of trials. Assuming there are any visible changes. I know Heather said she is trying to get somebody on the inside, but that’s a long shot.

  “I think I know one thing they’ll do differently,” April said. “Last time there was a firestorm of negative publicity and all sorts of denunciations in the popular press and from academics when they failed. I think maybe they will have learned from that and won’t make any big public announcements. If they made a big deal of it with press releases and a feed of them leaving and fail again, it’s going to be twice as bad. The no-risk mantra politicians might even rush a law through forbidding them from trying third time.”

  “If they don’t think of it on their own maybe we should plant the idea,” Jeff said. “It sounds like something they’d take up with just a little nudge, and that would serve our purposes just fine if they hold off a generation or two and grant us a bigger head start.”

  “That just seems wrong to me, but I can’t articulate why,” April admitted.

  “Because you’re nicer than me?” Jeff asked.

  “I’d never say that.”

  “You see? You make my case for me,” Jeff laughed.

  * * *

  “I need to see Jon,” Eric insisted to the first person he saw in Security. It was an older lady. He’d seen her around but didn’t know her name. Theo reached out and grabbed him by the chin with unexpected strength, and turned his face up to her. It was totally unexpected and she looked so fierce it scared him for a second, before he figured out it wasn’t directed at him.

  He was upset, but that wasn’t what had her attention. She turned his head, but gently, looking at the swollen red handprint and broken skin on his face. “You need to go to Medical,” she insisted.

  “Not without talking to Jon,” Eric said, stubbornly. “Let me talk to Jon, and then I’ll go down to medical if you want me to.”

  “Jon, call a cart and help me take this kid to the Clinic,” Theo called over her shoulder. “He’s as pig headed stubborn as you.”

  Jon stuck his head out of the doorway ahead and ducked back, presumably to make the call. “It’s on the way,” he said when he returned, “good call because it’s closer to call a regular cart than make a round trip by the emergency cart.

  “This is the young Mr. Pennington, this is my officer Theo, Eric,” Jon said.

  “Anisocoria,” Theo said, touching first under one eye and then the other on her own face. Jon peered in Eric’s face intently, eyes scanning back and forth.

  “Crap, you’re right. Call ahead and tell Doc Lee who we are bring in and what to expect. He put one huge paw on Eric’s shoulder and turned him around. Eric couldn’t have resisted, but he didn’t want to anyway. He’d come to see Jon and now he had his full attention, if not the way he wanted.

  The cart was already visible when they went back in the corridor. Theo was still on the phone, and then complained about how slow the cart was.

  “There’s no way to hurry it when it’s driverless,” Jon said. When it came to a stop the flashing yellow light went off. Jon and Theo hustled him onto the bench, a snug fit between them. Jon stuck his Mitsubishi ID in the slot on the dash and the strobe started up again, but blue, and brighter than before.

  They made a sweeping U-turn and wove through a couple knots of pedestrians who couldn’t decide which way to dodge. Once past the cafeteria they had the open corridor in front of them, and Jo
n pushed it much harder. He hugged the wall away from the center kiosks and planters. There was one pedestrian in a long stretch and he scampered out of the way well ahead of their passing. Eric felt the wind in his hair. He had no idea a cart would go so fast.

  Doc Lee was standing in the entry waiting when they came to a stop.

  “Ah he’s moving good. That’s excellent. They went in past the reception desk to one side and straight into a treatment room with a couch set up as a recliner.

  “I’d like to interview him while you treat him,” Jon requested.

  “As long as you shut up if I need to ask him anything,” Lee agreed.

  “Who did you get into a fight with?” Jon demanded.

  “It wasn’t a fight. I never hit her. She slapped me. I begged her not to make me fight her to leave,” Eric protested.

  Jon nodded to acknowledge that. “You’ve got a girlfriend now?”

  Eric looked shocked at Jon’s assumption. “No! It was my mom. I’m not hurt that bad. It just stings a little.”

  “Eric, your pupils are very different. One is tight and one wide open. Didn’t you notice anything?” Dr. Lee asked.

  Eric closed one eye and then the other. “The left is kind of blurry. I was too upset over everything to notice much of anything.”

  “Because she hit you?” Lee asked, waving an instrument with a screen slowly back and forth over across Eric’s head from ear to ear.

  “No, yes, both - because she hit me, but I was already upset because we argued, and it’s all on top of… other trouble. She was pretty upset too.”

  Doctor Lee’s eyebrows went up. “One assumed so. You have an arch of tiny hemorrhages on the side you got hit. I’d like to get them under control quickly. I’m no longer under the legal restraints I was with Earth law to get permission to treat you, although it was never applied to life critical emergency care. I can easily make that claim here, but you are old enough and smart enough I feel the need for your consent to treat you.”

  “What happens if you don’t?” Eric asked.

  “You may never feel any differently and heal on your own. It may however impair your thinking ability or subtly impair something like your hearing or your balance in ways that may or may not heal. If it doesn’t heal, then later is too late to fix it. At worst one of more of the tiny spots may keep bleeding and by the morning you could be in serious trouble. The fix then becomes much more invasive and difficult.”

  “You’re talking about on my brain then,” Eric said, shocked.

  “Exactly, you are suffering a concussion,” Lee said. “It’s too serious for me to say mild, but even lesser injuries than this, are cumulative and to be avoided.”

  “Please, do whatever you can,” Eric asked. “I want to avoid losing any ability, but especially I don’t want to be stupid.”

  “Turn you head away from me and don’t wiggle around,” Lee ordered. “I’d strap you down if I didn’t trust you to hold still. He wiped Eric’s neck with something cold and there was a hiss and more cold. He pressed an instrument in each hand against Eric’s neck.

  “I’m using an imager to locate your artery and my needle, and I’m auto-injecting an agent into your artery that will act to cause clotting, but it’s sensitive to the chemical changes at the bleeding sites to do so there and not elsewhere. Continue to stay still because the auto-syringe is still injecting it slowly. This is faster than an I.V. I want you to stay here tonight and get scanned in an hour and then a couple more times tonight. I don’t have to wake you to do it. I can tell what is happening better by direct observation than interviewing you.

  “I’ll like to report your treatment and condition to your parents. Is there anyone else you need to notify?” Lee asked.

  “More than I want to ask you to do. Jon, take my pad off my belt please, and call for me. I want you to call my dad and sister, but not my mom. Not unless you can spare somebody to stay here with me and keep her away, because she’ll be right down here and giving everybody a hard time. Call the sleep barracks and tell the supervisor I won’t be in tonight but I’m sleeping in full G at the clinic. Then call all the numbers with a red star beside them and tell them I’m sick and they should take care of my business. They’ll know what to do. If you turn my pad off after that it will forward all my calls to them.”

  “I’ll do that,” Jon promised, “and I’ll have Theo stay with you.”

  Eric didn’t say anything, and the doctor hadn’t cleared him to move, but his eyes went to Theo behind Jon, and he looked dubious.

  “By chance, when you walked in, you found the person I’d have charged with helping you anyway,” Jon assured him, “she’s helped other young people who had family problems, and she’s much tougher than she looks.”

  “Just, keep my mother away,” he said, clearly looking at Theo.

  “That’s not a problem,” Theo said.

  “I’ll be staying here tonight too,” Dr. Lee said. “I don’t want to hand this off to the tech to do the scans and have to decide whether to wake me up or not. I’ve slept on a gurney lots of other times, and glad of it.”

  “Thanks,” Eric said, and did a slow long blink.

  “Are you getting sleepy?”

  “Yeah, the whole thing was exhausting,” Eric admitted.

  “Less than a minute and I can pull the needle,” Dr. Lee said. “Then if you drift off that’s fine. We’ll both be here in the morning.”

  “Thanks,” Eric said, but his eyes were shut already. He didn’t seem to know when the syringe was pulled.

  * * *

  “Mr. Pennington I’m glad I caught you before you went to bed and didn’t have to wake you up. I don’t think you need to be alarmed, but your boy Eric suffered a concussion and other slight but visible injuries. Dr. Lee at our clinic is treating him and he’s sleeping quietly and being monitored through the night. If you call Dr. Lee in the morning he can give you an update.”

  “Are you there at the clinic?” Mo asked.

  “Yes, but not in his treatment room now, I might waken him calling. I brought him here along with one of my officers. Eric gave me his pad before he went to sleep and asked me to call you and his sister. Also he had a number of contacts marked off to leave messages and inform them to take care of business interests for him. I called you first and am going to call his sister Lindsey next, then the sleep barracks and work through the business contacts before I leave the clinic. I’m going to leave my security officer here with him and Dr. Lee.”

  “Mr. Davis, is my boy under guard? Is he in some sort of trouble?”

  “Not at all. Theo is here for his protection,” Jon assured him.

  “Is my wife there too? No offense to you, but I’d rather hear from a family member what is going on than from Security,” Mo said.

  “Your wife is not here,” Jon said. “Eventually I’m going to have to interview her. This is difficult to tell you, but according to Eric it was his mother who struck him in the midst of an argument. I can’t really confirm that beyond Eric’s claim, but somebody struck him because he has a handprint, swelling and minor lacerations on his face as clear as anything.

  “My officers and I all run personal video recording on duty so I have documentation of the whole process that brought him here. Eric came to my offices and didn’t seem aware of the extent of his injuries. We brought him straight here to seek treatment since my officer noted his pupils were radically different in dilation. That’s a common sign of a brain injury. That took first priority over continuing to question him further or go interview your wife.

  “Even if it all turns out to be true I don’t see your wife being a danger to others. Domestic situations rarely are a hazard that way, unless there is extended family such as in-laws. When I call your daughter I will advise her to continue to avoid contact with her mother, in case the same issues and responses repeat.”

  There was a prolonged silence on the phone, and Jon was starting to wish Mo had enabled it as a video call.

&
nbsp; “Do I need to come there?” Mo finally asked. “It would be very difficult right now. I hadn’t even intended to take my next leave back on Home. This is all the more of a surprise because my wife recently indicated she’d come visit here and inspect my circumstances on the Moon. I had hopes she’d finally consent to move here and the whole family… situation would improve.”

  “Honestly, I can’t see any advantage to you being present. I haven’t looked into what will have to be done for Eric yet, simply because there has not been any time to do so. He’s only been treated and asleep for about a half hour. I’ll worry about all that in the morning. His sister may be able to help in that regard, and if not, I have all the resources needed for a few days. Even if you end up needing to be the custodial parent again, it would make more sense to send him to you than to make you return to pick him up and escort him.”

  Mo must have sighed right into the pickup. It was a loud >woosh< of air.

  “You may regard this as cowardly,” Mo said, “but I’m going to bed, and I’m not going to call my wife. If I do I don’t expect to get any sleep or be able to work tomorrow. She’s never been abusive with our children, but Eric has always been truthful, if anything, excessively truthful. You might imagine this is difficult to hear and sort out from far away and I apologize if I still carry a little Earth Think distrust of authority. I didn’t mean to offend you. I thank you for your care of my son, and I’ll similarly trust you to call Lindsey as Eric requested. Until tomorrow some time, good night.”

  “Thank you Mr. Pennington. I’m not in a hurry to accuse anyone or take action against your wife. Matters may resolve without needing to do anything like involve the Assembly. I’ll keep Eric safe,” Jon promised, and terminated the call.

  * * *

  “I didn’t see this coming at all,” Jeff said. “Weir’s partners have paid to have four assembled modules lifted to LEO with unmanned reusable vertical lift vehicles out of Guiana. They had them all built and apparently the facility at Marseille is not so much a fabricating facility as an assembly, port, and service facility. I imagine they will get pushed by a construction tug into a lunar orbit and brought down. I’m not exactly sure how, but that part isn’t terribly hard.”