by Ginger Booth
“I’m concerned,” Ben allowed. “You weren’t in on this conversation, so I wanted to bring you up to speed. The final decision is two ships to Sanctuary and Cantons, if you’re willing. Plus the Sank courier if they insist, and Hugo says they do. I’m afraid that looks like an invading armada myself. The Niña, Pinta, and the Santa Maria.”
“The what?”
Ben blinked. “Earth history. The Spaniards discovered the – never mind. Point is, I’ll leave Merchant at MO. Spaceways has great techs to install its pressure bulkheads and make the cabins pretty. Clay assured us Thrive is in. You’ve made a commitment to see the descendants of the Colony Corps settled safely, wherever. Do you agree?”
“Ye-es. Yes.”
“Care to explain that reservation?”
She admitted, “I’m not used to taking orders from you.”
“Good. I’m not issuing any. Except when it comes to fleet movements, and drink a beer with me. But we have two ships, captain, and assorted personnel. On staffing, we need to talk.”
“Especially if we’re sharing an engineer,” Sass murmured. “We are bringing Remi, right?”
“You’ve got Remi. I’ve got Cope. I hope you don’t want to swap, because I’m fond of my husband.”
“Cope is coming!”
Ben nodded solemnly. “Teke will stay on Mahina. He agreed to lead the Denali scholars at Mahina University. And raise our kids. With my dad. Dad mostly, but Teke committed to spend at least two half-days a week with Sock, and one with Frazzie.”
“And Nico.”
“Mr. Nico will continue as crew, with Mr. Bron. The teens are going with us. Nico requests a transfer to your ship, out from under his dads’ thumbs. Bron’s dad would prefer to ride with you, and we’d all prefer the teenagers amuse each other. But we can divvy up crew later. Key staffing is three qualified captains for two ships, including Abel, with Clay and Abel serving as first mates and supercargo. Two top-notch chief engineers. Jules and Corky excellent housekeepers. I assume?”
“Corky? Yeah, she’s grown on me.”
“Eli will head scientific mission. Your Porter and Zelda wish to sign up to continue. Elise Pointreau is sticking with us too. She broke off with Teke. Denali requests that we select another scholar from the corpsicles provided. I propose we let the science team choose. It appears Pono’s rings aren’t big enough for Tarana and Aurora to coexist. So you or me should take Aurora as third officer. She’s a fair pilot. I’d prefer you take her and Kassidy. On my ship, Zan and Quire don’t like Aurora, and Cope and Kassidy get along better in small doses.”
“Agreed. You arranged all this without consulting me?”
“Sass, I’ve been working this out for the past month. I wanted you involved this past week on Denali, but you’ve been stowing people into cryo instead of leadership. The month before, you kept busy in the rings instead of taking a break on Mahina. Which is fine. If you must.
“No, it really isn’t OK. Sass, you understand how this goes at the other end, right? Mahina Orbital, Mahina Actual, Schuyler? When you thaw them?”
“Some will die,” she gritted out. “And I will be there –”
“You will not. You will allow the Denali to resuscitate and mourn their own. You will appear at their memorial service and convey condolences. A Spaceways rep will tactfully attend to field complaints until Prosper catches up. But the contract stipulates the risks. All thousand passengers signed away any right of redress. Note I said Spaceways, Sass. Our contract, not yours. You fly these people under subcontract to us. Their deaths are our responsibility. Cope’s lawyer handles that.”
Sass didn’t know what to say. “You’ve changed.”
Ben spread a hand. “The rings have changed. Mahina mostly for the better, and the space platforms. Sagamore and Denali for the worse. A dozen years is a long time, Sass. Pardon me for growing up while you were gone.”
His smirk reminded her more of the pirate Lavelle than the goofy video-gaming kid she once recruited on a Poldark market field.
He fidgeted with his glass. “Clay says you’ve changed too. And you’ve avoided facing it. Says he threatened not to come unless you spent some time with him on vacation on Mahina. But you never did. Care to tell me about that?”
“You go too far.”
“Figured.” He pulled himself out of the bucket seat. “Tomorrow we warp back to the rings. I’ll drop Merchant and Thrive just above Mahina Orbital. Then I warp again to Hell’s Bells on the same engine burn. Saves fuel. We’ll be a few days behind you reaching Mahina. Two weeks to swap out cargo. Then we lift for Sanctuary. I hope we’ll see you and Clay for sunset drinks before then.”
“Aye-aye, commodore.”
“Do you intend that as an insult, captain? Resentment? Because Sanctuary and Cantons are Spaceways contracts as well.”
Sass did, in fact, resent that very much. She winced.
Ben patted the console. “Take care of my Merchant flying back to Pono.” Because of course she would conn one of his ships. “Sass, I’d like us to be friends again. Let’s find a way to accept instead of resent. Renew our acquaintance. OK?”
He let himself out, to walk home across the cargo bridge to Prosper for the night.
While Prosper visited Hell’s Bells, Cope picked up the final parts for a second warp generator, paid for with precious materials procured on Denali. They tested the gate on the way back to Mahina.
Thrive Spaceways now had a backup for the trip to Cantons.
12
“Chocolate-covered avocado, huh?” Ben admired his daughter’s craftsmanship on the sticky mess that was the outer coating. Steeling himself against the inner green slime, he popped it in his mouth. One chomp with his molars confirmed everything he didn’t want to know about this treat. He swallowed promptly. “That’s um…”
Frazzie giggled and clapped her hands in glee. “Aunt Jules said I made the most disgusting candy ever!”
Ben grinned appreciation. “And you saved some for me. How thoughtful. I hope Dad-Cope gets some too? Or is it just me on your special list today?”
He was only teasing. He’d spent terrific quality time one-on-one with Frazzie this past couple weeks, shopping, dress-up, fancy dates, bumper cars and sports spectacles. They glued frightening quantities of sequins on T-shirts. And their perennial favorite, they sat at an open-air restaurant talking and played board games on his roll-up display. Cope spent extra time with her as well to make up for her brothers visiting two worlds while she was a good girl and went to school.
Frazzie replied, “Well, I keep thinking someday my dad will want to live on Mahina with me for a year.”
“Not this year.”
“No. But someday I’ll be big enough to stay in the stars with you.”
Father and daughter nodded at each other solemnly, then cracked up laughing. “I’ll believe it when I see it, girlfriend. Time to say good-bye to nuther-dad. Love you, miss you, bye!” He picked her up and swirled her through the air, her puffy ruffled frock billowing about her scrawny leggings. When he put her down, she ran ahead to Cope. Ben jogged to catch up and swoop Sock into the air instead.
This met a moment’s resistance as their youngest clutched Cope around the thigh. “Give over, sport. Frazzie’s turn with the good dad.”
Cope ruffled the boy’s crewcut stubble. He contemplated his gift of chocolate in healthy distrust.
“So, young Socrates,” Ben began, placing the boy down on his feet a few meters away. “Back to a school-issue grav generator, I see. By the time I get back, you’ll be ten. Pull up a patch of dust.”
Ben set an example, planting his rump on the raked regolith of Mahina Actual’s overflow parking lot. He no longer worried about whether they launched from the urb or settler spaceport. Cope was still a settler partisan. But by now, it all looked like Mahina to Ben. They had more local good-byes here than in Schuyler today. Sass’s ship was mobbed with Denali and urb well-wishers. So was Prosper. The grateful Denali immigrants seemed to be settling in alread
y. They weren’t Ben’s problem anymore, but he was glad for them. Even Sass looked to be enjoying herself, chatting with old friends Atlas Pratt and Josiah of Schuyler Resistance fame, though Josiah went respectable long since. Drugs and the sex trade were legal under the settler-dominated government.
Sock hesitated to get his pants dirty. Ben looped an arm around his legs and pulled him down. Then he got a hand nice and dusty and rubbed it into the child’s stubble and all over his white Schuyler Jailbirds baseball jersey until the grubby kid giggled and retaliated.
Ice broken, Ben lounged on a forearm, legs stretched out with ankles crossed. “I’m glad you went to Denali with us. You?”
Sock nodded hard enough to ratchet his head off. “The kids at Denali Prime, they’re just like me, but so different!” He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, “One boy is a copy. They got my DNM from Aurora.”
Ben screwed his face askew. “DNA?”
“That,” Sock agreed. “He’s like identically me. Except bald. They fixed it so he wouldn’t have hair.”
“You didn’t tell Dad-Cope, right?” Ben asked skeptically. If anyone told Cope, he expected they would’ve left Waterfalls with twins, plus an interplanetary incident for kidnapping.
“Dad-Teke said not to, because Denali kids don’t have dads like we do. Just their creche-mates and teachers.”
Ben hoped that might help Socrates to let go a little. “Which do you think is better?”
“I like having four dads!” Sock claimed boldly, fists on his hips in his best Frazzie impression. Sock figured Nathan, Ben’s dad, counted as the fourth. “Because I love all of you.”
“We love you too, sport. Gobs and gobs. I hear you’re going to play inflatable soccer ball as soon as we take off!”
“Yeah! Dad-Teke wants to test the cheap knock-offs. We’re gonna play in the prairie biome before Minka and Jens go home to Schuyler.” He pointed to the Silva twins gathered tongue-tied with their dad and brother Bron.
Ben gazed around the throng a few moments in companionable silence. He liked to give the kids a turn to bring up their own agenda at these good-byes. They certainly had enough practice. He’d averaged no more than a couple months a year on the moon since Sock was born, usually parceled across three visits.
“Do you miss us when you’re gone, Dad?” Sock asked.
“Sometimes,” Ben allowed. “But I come alive out there, in space. When I lived here, I lived in a fantasy. Video games, day-dreaming. Of course, I lived in Poldark, the most boring town in the world. With your granddad, who criticizes me nonstop.”
Sock snickered. “He does it to Frazzie, too.”
“I bet he does,” Ben agreed. “He likes to tease a competitive kid. Make her try even harder, to see how far she’ll go. I think. Or maybe he just doesn’t like us.” They both laughed.
Then Ben sobered and pointed toward the faint rings and bright sliver of Pono filling a quarter of the sky. “But out there, it’s real and gritty. Scary and astonishing, and everything in between. You’re too young for the weirdness. But I love it, Sock. And after a hard day, I lay my head down on my pillow, and think of you. And I hope you’re having your own adventures and learning and fun. But nothing too big for you to handle, and grow from. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. I’m glad I went to Sanctuary and Denali. But it was too scary.”
“I’m glad we got to know each other better.” He folded the kid into his arms for a hug. He glanced across to see Frazzie growing wriggly with Cope. So he levered them up from the dust, and headed back, waving for Nico and Teke and his dad to join them for one last group hug.
Soon he retreated to the top of the ramp. He clasped hands with Clay to draw him into the hold before shutting the ramp. “You didn’t tell her, did you.”
“Telling her right now.” Clay shrugged unrepentant. “Just one night before we land on Sanctuary. Then we’ll see.”
Prosper could carry them from spaceport to spaceport in a single day. But Ben preferred his crew sleep off the emotional baggage of departure, then greet the oddities on offer at the new place with fresh eyes on the morrow.
“Just make sure your love life doesn’t blow up my expedition. Right, number one?”
“Aye, sar.” And Clay left to trot up the staircase.
Naturally Ben’s husband perched at his engineering console by the cargo ramp. Ben stepped closer to press his hand, too.
“Happy with staffing, cap?” Cope asked softly. “Got a long way to go. Big unknowns.”
Ben flashed him a grateful smile. “Dream team, chief. Sanctuary, Cantons – can do. Let’s begin.”
The Sanctuary sky showed a predawn murk when Prosper settled to rest alongside Thrive and the courier ship Cupid on the spaceport hard-top. Ben was the last to stroll down the ramp in his pressure suit, grinning.
It was 10:30 hours local time, their local 24-hour clock disconnected from the solar 17-hour day. Now the first rays of sunrise reached the crown of the new statue’s head like Midas’ touch. The sculpted hair, then face, of the tall monument shone forth heroically in gold. The beauty of the human form was shown nude, like Venus on the half-shell. The goddess, of stern visage, bore a pocket comm in one hand against her hip, and held forth a peach in the other.
No mistaking it for anything but what it was – a 10-meter tall statue of Sass Collier. Before it, at somewhat less than 2 meters, stood the real Sass, one fist on hip. The other gauntleted hand presently flipped Copeland and Remi the bird.
The two engineers, from opposing ships, both bolted out onto the spacepad first for a closer look. Ben strolled closer and clicked to their comms channel.
“Let’s see if we can get them to cross,” Cope was saying.
Ben frowned in puzzlement as his beloved stalked to the right, passing to stop in front of little-Sass. Then in revulsion he realized the great blue-grey eyeball of the statue tracked him. Remi came the opposite way, leading the right eyeball leftward.
Yes, they did get the statue’s eyes to cross, peering down its nose directly upon them. Both engineers, and Ben, cracked up laughing.
As his mirth wore off, Ben pondered why exactly Sass was so glorified in this spaceport. Sure, it took guts to come here. But once arrived, she spent most of her visit dead. He consoled himself that for his own family’s efforts, Spaceways got paid off with a whole spaceship in appreciation, now the Merchant Thrive, plus literally tons of other fine prizes Abel selected. His prizes included higher powered star drives plus an old-style warp drive, of the 11-year passage variety.
A statue of honor on the wrong planet wasn’t exactly useful.
Kassidy ran past, her drones deployed, late to catch the unveiling of the first lemony rays. She wouldn’t let that stop her. Her fans on Mahina would eat this up. No doubt Sass’s third statement would be family-friendly enough for a sound-byte.
Ben switched to a private channel to Cope. “So how do we earn a golden statue?”
“Don’t give them ideas,” Cope countered. “With our luck, we’d get 5-meter versions flanking her, like dwarf minions.”
Normally Ben considered public displays of marital affection beneath his captain’s dignity. For that quip, he made an exception and cracked up laughing on Cope’s chest. Cope patted his back til he calmed down. “She’s a little pissed off.”
“No! Really?” Ben pulled himself together. “I should go talk to her.”
“To piss her off more? Wait til after the meet and greet.”
Ben peered past him into the enormous low sports-field dome fronting the spaceport. The locals kept their small-town city below ground. But yes, a delegation was forming beyond the airlock. All three boroughs were represented, grey for the Gannies, descended from the Ganymede Colony Corps, Martian pink, and the navy blue of the Loonies. The largest faction, pink, boasted a whopping 3,000 people downstairs. Gannies and Loonies were nearly tied around 1100. They limited the welcoming committee to a dozen.
Belatedly, Hugo Silva and his s
on Bron emerged from Thrive’s passenger lock in their Ganny grey onesies and breath masks. Nico strolled alongside in his usual p-suit. Ben wished the local uniforms worked as pressure suits, as the locals used them, because they were comfortable. But they were far from space-capable, only fit to keep the unbreathable Sanctuary air from irritating the skin should a leak occur. True testament to their herd-like good behavior, everyone wore the same clothes, save for the colors.
You’d never see matching outfits in Aloha. Even Prosper’s ship coveralls only matched as far as ‘blue.’ Most of the crew had at least one set bleached baby blue from long wear, for cleaning out the recycling, or painting bulkheads.
Sass at last walked to join them. So did their swapped first mates, Abel and Clay, who positioned themselves beyond the engineers to stay as far from Sass as possible.
Ben switched his comms to the group. “The sincerest form of flattery –”
“Shut up, Ben,” Sass invited.
Hugo volunteered, “I imagine Loki made that, not the boroughs.”
“Why’s that?” Cope asked.
“We don’t make anything,” Hugo clarified. “Robots do that.”
“Ah.” No, Cope didn’t have much sympathy for the Sanks.
The Saggy engineer Remi was none too fond of the lazy bums either. He peered around Ben to study Sass’s face. No, her eyes were not bright blue, more like grey. “Just checking.”
Sass snarled at him. “Are we ready to proceed?”
“By all means, Artemis of the peach-fuzz.” Ben invited them with a courtly swish of suited arm. The statue’s peach amused him, proffered seam-side out, rosy with pink suffused into the gold, scaled to the size of a human rump.
Cope jabbed to remind him not to antagonize her at this juncture.
Ben addressed them all, once the capacious airlock pressurized and they racked their breathing apparatus. “People. I anticipate centrifugal tendencies. I appreciate that each of you has an agenda here. Here’s mine. We blow this town in three days. We’re here for pickup. The target is Cantons. Understood?”
