by Rob Buckman
“Because that is the normally accepted mode of address…”
“Or because you’re the president? Like hell!” Mike cut in.
“No, I was going to say, between family members and civilized people.” Mike snorted and turned away, walking over to the window and looking out at the view over the harbor. Gordon Tregallion let out a heavy sigh, and followed his younger self into the living room. Behind him trailed the Avalon spy chief and family attorney, Andrew Anderson. With a wave of his hand, Gordon motioned him to stay by the door, but it was clear he wasn’t happy about it.
“So what do I owe this visit to?” As if, he didn’t know. “Concern for my well being?” Mike turned to face the older man, shoulders hunched, fists clenched. His posture didn’t go unnoticed by Gordon, or Andy Anderson.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Michael.”
“Like hell you didn’t! You knew you’d have a fight on your hands the moment you knocked on my front door.” Suppressed anger chopped his words up, and he spat them out like blaster bolts. It was something of a shock to Gordon to see Mike in person after so many years, his image of a reckless, immature young man vanished the moment the door opened. Facing him was a young man, a very angry young man, in the full sense of the word. A man as tall as he was, and with muscles just as well developed as his own.
“Yes,” the older man said thoughtfully, “I supposed I did.” He stopped a moment and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry…”
“Don’t say it! Don’t even think it!” Mike yelled, taking a step towards him.
Andrew moved and slipped his hand inside his jacket, then stopped. He had his orders, and even if it came to a physical fight, he was not to interfere unless a weapon was drawn. This wasn’t Avalon where a Proctor would be standing by in case. Gordon Tregallion closed his mouth on the unsaid words, realizing that words of condolence were not what Mike wanted to hear right now, nor would he accept them from him anyway. Without being asked he sat in one of the easy chairs careful to make sure it wasn’t a favorite one used by either his brother, or Michael. This put him in a less threatening posture, and at a disadvantage should Michael start throwing punches. His earlier assumption that he could handle a 16-year-old boy went out the window, as one look at his grandson’s size made him think again. Older and more experienced in rough and tumble fighting he might be, but he was willing to bet he wouldn’t come out of the fight without getting his lumps. A physical fight was one thing he wanted to avoid at all costs which had nothing to do with who came out the winner. What he had to do was difficult enough without adding an extra dimension to it like trading punches.
“All right, Michael, I won’t say a word about how I feel about my brother’s death.”
“Smart of you.” Mike snapped, seeing the muscles in his grandfather’s jaw tighten.
“My visit is in the nature of a legal requirement more than anything else.”
“Oh?” Here it comes was Mike’s thought.
“It’s to do with your legal status.”
“If I may, Mr. President…” Andy Anderson tried to say.
“SHUT UP!” Mike snapped. “This is between me and my so called grandfather, not some limp-dick lawyer!” If the insult offended Anderson, nothing showed on his face.
“That remark was not called for!” His grandfather growled. “Keep a civil tongue in your head!”
“Or what if I don’t? And like hell I will. This is still my house, and I’ll damn well say what I please in it!” Even as he finished talking, his grandfather was shaking his head.
“It’s not your house.”
“Like hell! It’s Gramps’ house, and his will said that everything he owned is now mine.”
“Right and wrong. The house belongs to the Tregallion family, and was loaned to…” he paused and swallowed, “this house, and its fixed contents revert back to the family upon his death.” Mike stood there unable to say a word. His brain refused to work.
“So you are tossing me out into the street?”
“Good god, no!” Gordon Tregallion snorted. “You should know better than that, boy!” Andy Anderson winced, having warned Gordon not to use that particular word when talking the Mike. “No orphans, remember?” It took a moment for that to sink in. Then it hit him.
“No way! I’m not going to go and live with you, not on this side of hell! I’d rather live under a stinking pier than live with you.” He spat.
“You have no say in this matter, Mr. Tregallion, it’s the law.” Anderson snapped.
“Stay out of this! Or I’ll throw you out! And my name is Gray, not Tregallion.” One look at the angry young man was sufficient to convince him that he was ready and able to do just that.
“That law was implemented for a reason, Mike, a damn good reason I might add.” His grandfather growled.
“So say you!”
“Your great grandfather didn’t want anyone to be destitute or orphaned. The care, protection, nurturing of all children is the responsibility of the whole population, until they are of legal age. That has been the policy from the inception of this colony until now, and it works!” He growled.
“I don’t give a shit!” Mike snarled. “There is no way in hell I’m going to live with the likes of you.”
“You’ve got a bad mouth on you, son…” Gordon Tregallion lunged to his feet just as Mike lunged and swung. Half expecting it, he managed to block the first punch, but not the second that came out of nowhere.
The punch connected, shaking the older man down to his boots even as he lunged to follow up the punch with another. Had he seen half of what Gramps had seen, he might have done better. As it was, Gordon found he had a full scale fight on his hands as Mike connected with a solid body punch. He returned it a moment later with a right cross that connected with Mike’s jaw with sufficient force to propel him backward and over an easy chair. It would have knocked a lesser man unconscious. He lay there, gasping for breath before scrambling to his feet to continue the fight.
“STOP! Before I stun the pair of you!” Andrew yelled. For a moment both froze and looked at the older man seeing the stun weapon in his fist.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Gordon growled.
“So get the fuck out of my house!”
“I can’t!” Gordon yelled back. “I have to make sure you are cared for, that’s the law!” Gordon wiggled his jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken. “You have to come back to Avalon, whether you like it or not.”
“So write another fucking law, that’s what you are good at.”
“Damn you to hell, boy!”
“You already did!”
“I have to do this!”
“Why?”
“You are my grandson!” he growled, “and I’m the president, for god sake!”
“So where were you when I was born? Where were you when Gramps brought me home from the hospital? Or any time since then, tell me that?” The two men, older and younger were nose to nose, each blazingly angry, neither willing to back down.
“There were reasons why I couldn’t be…”
“Horse shit!”
“It’s not that easy…”
“I’ll say.” If anything, Mike moved closer. “Not once in 16 years have you sent me a birthday card, a message, nothing! And now you expect to waltz in here and start dictating to me what I will, and won’t do!”
“No.” The old man answered softly.
“No, that’s right, and you actually expected me to fall into your arms in gratitude? Judas Priest! Gramps taught me to stand on my own two feet, make my decisions, and live by them, and I’ve been doing that since I was twelve years old!”
Mike clenched and unclenched his fist, wanting nothing more than to continue the fight and beat his grandfather into a bloody pulp. Gordon Tregallion had some idea how Mike felt, knew how he’d feel if the situation were reversed, but that was no help. He couldn’t think of a way around it. In the back of his mind, he did think that he came here with differe
nt expectations. He wasn’t sure what, some sort of reconciliation, a meeting of the minds. He certainly hadn’t been prepared, at least on a conscious level, to meet a full-grown man, willing and capable of dealing out as much damage as he received, verbally as well as physically. What had he expected? He asked himself. A willing, malleable, 16-year-old? Someone he could dictate to. At least someone who was willing to concede to his position as president. He wiped the blood trickling down his upper lip and looked at it. It had been many years since someone had given him a bloody nose. He looked at his grandson anew, really seeing him for the first time. Six feet two inches of hard-muscled body, used to and able to do a day’s work on a space tug. Someone who even at his young age, had passed all the exams and was entitled to the title of captain.
He had, with the help of his brother, saved the lives of the crew of two ships from an act of sabotage and dived into the atmosphere of a gas giant and rescued the passengers and crew of a doomed liner. Those were not the actions of an unthinking 16-year-old boy. Those were that action of a man, one that he should be proud to know, and he was, but dared not say it. He and the rest of the Tregallion clan could take no credit for how Mike had turned out. All credit went to his brother for what he’d done, despite the decree from on high.
“I… I can arrange for you to stay with one of your aunts, or an uncle…”
“Forget it! I want nothing from the Tregallion family, now or ever!”
“But you are a Tregallion.”
“Like hell! Not if it means turning out anything like you or that madman, Max Tregallion!” That hurt, deeper than even Gordon wanted to admit. He was proud of who he was, and what his father and he’d accomplished in the last 80 years, yet he could understand Mike’s anger. In this one thing they’d failed dismally.
“There are reasons why I did what I did.”
“Reasons? Explain them to me, maybe I’ll understand why you abandoned me.” Mike snarled. “Maybe I’ll understand why an ex-Royal Navy admiral, a drunk, had to crawl out of the bottle and come to the hospital to get me. Why he had to raise me on his own with no help from the great Tregallion family? Tell me that, tell me so I will understand!”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not? What’s so secret that you can’t tell me?”
Gordon Tregallion just shook his head suddenly realizing that tears were running down his face. With a snarl, he turned away and stormed out of the room, followed by Andy Anderson. Surprised, Mike just stood there, unable to move for a moment. He was still angry, but now he didn’t have anything to focus his anger on. He looked around the room as if looking for someone to strike out at, a puzzled look on his face. Suddenly he was awake, maybe the first time in a month. The law was clear, no orphans.
Collectively, everybody on Avalon was legally responsible for the care and well-being of all minors under the age of 18. It made sense as no child ever went hungry or without a place to sleep or loving arms to hold them. Child abuse in any form was unknown, and people had the obligation to prevent such occurrences from happening up to and including the use of deadly force if necessary. This was one case where the law failed, and had failed since the day he was born. Not that he was abused or mistreated in any way, far from it. His grandfather had taken him home from the hospital and cared for him in every way possible until now. It was the other half of his so-called family that had failed him. No-one had stepped forward to offer help even when Gramps and he had struggled to make ends meet. Why, he didn’t know, and at this point, didn’t care.
As they drove away, Gorgon wiggled his jaw, wincing slightly. “Range your bell for you, didn’t he.”
“Yes!” Gordon snapped at Andrew.
“Told you not to call him like a boy, or try to treat him like one.” Andrew had little sympathy for him, even if he was the president.
“But he is a boy, despite how big he is.” Gordon growled. Andrew nodded.
“Didn’t see that left hook did you?”
“No, damn it. Caught the right, but the left hook came out of nowhere. Damn he fast!” Gordon eyed Avalon security chief out the corner of his eye.
“Why is it that I get the distinct feeling you knew how fast he was and deliberately didn’t tell me.”
“State secret and all that.”
“Right. In a pig’s eye.”
“I did warn you not to talk down to him, but did you listen? No sir, you went right on making the same mistake everyone makes when they meet Mike.”
“Either way, he has to come back to Avalon until he’s of age, that’s the law.”
“Yes, I know. Maybe we can find someone he’s not pissed off at to stay with.”
“Fat chance of that. Who’d want to put up with his surly attitude, and you know who’s going to have a fit once he knows Mike is back on Avalon.”
“Max.”
* * * * *
In the end, Mike went for a walk wandering here and there trying to make sense of it all. The fact that Gramps had opened the drive to the point that it had killed him still wouldn’t sit easy on his conscience. He still felt it was his fault for pushing too hard. If he’d stopped to think before diving into the Jovian atmosphere, Gramps might still have been alive. However, three hundred people would be dead, a small voice in the back of his head reminded him. He shook it away. He didn’t know any of the people on that ship, he knew Gramps. Was the cost worth it? Three hundred lives against one old man. Tears rolled down his face, pain gripped his heart, squeezing it into a knot. The answer had to be “yes,” one old man was worth the lives of three hundred people. That didn’t make it any easier to bear. He just knew he never again wanted the responsibility of making such a decision. Let someone else decide who should live and who should die. As the soft darkness fell he sat down on a nearby park bench, looking out at the people and children playing in the warm summer evening, happy, carefree and content.
“May I sit down?” The deep baritone voice pulled Mike out of his thoughts, and he looked up. A broad shouldered, middle-aged man stood looking down at him, his hand motioning toward the empty bench beside him.
“Yes, of course.” Mike nodded, and half turned away not wanting the man to draw him into a conversation. The man sat straightening his pant legs as he did. Nothing was said for a while as they both looked at the scene before them each with his own thoughts.
“As the Queen Ann sunk deeper into the atmosphere, I wondered if I’d ever do this again.” The man murmured softly.
“What! Pardon?” The man’s voice drew him back to the present.
“They say that at the moment of death, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Not true, it’s all the things you are going to miss that flash before your eyes.”
“Oh.” Mike answered, not caring one way or the other.
“I don’t mean the big things, it’s the little things that you yearn to do again. Like sitting on a park bench and watching children play, enjoying a cold pint of beer on a hot day at your favorite pub, or a good book to read.”
“I see.” Mike didn’t, but didn’t want to say so.
“When Captain Philips told us they couldn’t get the fusion reactor back on line, I knew we were doomed, and it was just a matter of time before we sank deeper into the atmosphere and were crushed.” Mike turned his head and looked at the man understanding why the man needed to speak to him.
“You are one of the survivors?” It was a dumb question, obvious from what he was saying.
“Yes.” The man answered. Mike just nodded his head, unable to think of anything to say. “Then we received word a tug was coming down to pull us out. I think I laughed, partly from hope, and partly from the sheer guts it took for one lone skipper to bring his tug down that deep and pull the Queen Ann back out.” Mike had the grace to blush at the harsh words. His stupidity was what the man should have said.
“Then they told us it was an old Royal Navy deep-space tug that was on the way. Then I did hope. I know how powerful those old tugs are and what
they can do.” He paused for a moment to cough, as if clearing his throat. “You and your grandfather did something few men, or women, in the universe would have done. Not for gain, not for glory, just because it needed doing.”
“There wasn’t time to think about it, I just knew we could do it.”
“Oh! I see, so the press got it right for once. You were at the helm?”
“Yes, Gramps’ ticket was under suspension at the time, so I was the Skipper.” Mike didn’t say it with pride or arrogance, just as a fact.
“Then the rescue was even more remarkable than I first thought.”
“Except for the cost…” He didn’t need to elaborate.
“So now you feel guilty about your grandfather’s death.”
“Yes.” He snapped, angry that this man had touched such a raw nerve.
“Even though, through your actions, you saved the lives of over three hundred, mine included.” It was an odd thing to say.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
The man nodded. “When I heard who was coming to rescue us, I couldn’t believe it. You see, I knew your grandfather.”
“You did?” Mike shot round, seeing the man nod.
“I even served under him for a short time, as a Second Leftenant, before he was court-martialed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
“Explain!” The man dropped his chin to his chest and sighed. He opened his hands and looked at them for a moment. Maybe he was seeing blood on them.
“I can’t tell you the story. That will have to come from someone else, someone who knows the whole truth.”
“Who might that be?”
“I don’t know. I can tell you your grandfather was falsely accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy.”
“I knew it was something like that, but Gramps would never say.”
“I can imagine why. The secret is buried somewhere in the naval archives. Maybe one day you will have a chance to look at that record and find out the why of it.”
