by Dan Cragg
Dean began to cry.
Mr. Nguyen came around the desk, steered Dean into a chair, and then sat down beside him. “We say that a boy without a father is like a house without a roof,” he said in a quiet voice. “But you do have a father, except he’s very far away. Your mother’s made no bones about it, Dean, but she’s got a big job to do and she hasn’t had the time to spend with you that most of our boys get from their parents, even those who have both of them living under the same roof. Are you mad at Heine?”
“No, sir,” Dean sniffled. “He’s really a good guy. He’s honest.”
“Well, so are you. That’s something. And you’re a good student. You know that since you’ve been with us you have received no privileges, no special treatment because of who your mother is. The students here are from the most important and influential families in our world, but we treat you all like what you are: boys and girls who every now and then need small adjustments applied to their backsides. Your father might call that an ‘ass kicking.’” He smiled, remembering his own time in an army barracks when he was young. “Nevertheless, because of your special, um, status, I’ve recommended numerous times that your mother consider getting you a tutor, but she’s refused. Do you know why?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Because she doesn’t want you to grow up alone, without boys—and girls—of your own age around. She’s probably right, but it has been hard on you.” He put an arm around Dean’s shoulders. “Well, you whacked Heine a good one.” He leaned around and looked closely at Dean. “And he bloused your eye, didn’t he? You’ll have some explaining to do when you get home.”
“It won’t be the first time, sir.” Dean smiled.
Mr. Nguyen nodded. “I remember the Marines, how they came here to help us and how they changed things here. You know the form of government we have today would never have existed if it hadn’t been for the intervention by the Confederation. I didn’t know your father, Dean, but I bet there’s quite a bit of him in you. All right.” He got up. “Dry up, lad, and sally forth into the halls of learning, and sin no more—but remember, every time you get into a fight with someone the way you did today, it hurts your mother more than it does you.” He laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Life is a struggle, Mr. Kuetgens, and fighting is inevitable. What we try to teach you here is, pick the right fight with the right enemy at the right time. And, of course, win.”
Hway Kuetgens shook her head. “I talked to Heine Kurtz’s father. Heine wouldn’t say why you were fighting. I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to ask you why?”
Dean hung his head in silence. He would never repeat what Heine had said.
“I would like some kind of response, young man.”
Dean mumbled something. Hway put a hand to her ear. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
“It was nothing, Mother.”
“Nothing? You bloodied his nose and he blackened your eye just for fun? Son, I know why you were fighting. It was about your father and me. It always is. I may have been elected chief executive of Wanderjahr, son, but I’m not stupid. Well.” She shook her head and smiled. “Thanks for defending my honor.” She extended her hand and when he took it, she embraced him warmly. “I have news for you, Dean,” she whispered into his hair. “Aunt Sonia’s coming back.”
“Aunt” Sonia, Sonia Motlaw, Hway Kuetgens’s confidential assistant, was far more to her than just another staff member. Dean in fact had an eight-year-old’s crush on Sonia, who, in addition to her official duties, was also his music teacher. He hated his piano lessons, but they were bearable because they brought him close to Ms. Motlaw, who was one of the very few persons he could really talk to, and who took him seriously when he did. “And do you know what?” Hway continued. “She has seen your father.”
At first Dean thought he had not heard his mother clearly. “Seen father?” he repeated. And then the words struck him like a thunderbolt. “Seen my father? She has seen my father?” he shouted.
“Yes. I have something to tell you.”
“Mother, did he send me another letter?” Ever since Dean had been old enough to ask about his father, Hway had read him the letters he had written telling of his adventures and the exotic worlds he’d traveled to, the people he had met there, his fellow Marines, how much he loved his family and longed to be with them but couldn’t because his mission as a Marine always had to come first, and ending always with the promise that one day soon he would return to Wanderjahr and be with them again. The letters had been written on flimsiplast with a composing machine, his mother explained, so Dean could read them better. The boy treasured them above all things and kept them neatly arranged in little stacks in chronological order. He read them over and over again with the greatest pleasure and as soon as he was old enough to write, he spent hours composing answers, which his mother dutifully posted for him. His greatest joy was receiving his father’s responses, which always started off, “Dearest son, what a pleasure to receive your letter of—”
That night, after he had cried himself out and spent his rage breaking his things, Dean Kuetgens burned his father’s letters, every last one of them. His mother had at last told him the truth, that until Ms. Motlaw visited him on Thorsfinni’s World, his father did not even know his son existed. She had written all those letters.
Hway sat with Sonia Motlaw in her private office in the council chambers. “How’s Ed?” Hway asked, meaning Eduardo Morelles, her ambassador to Thorsfinni’s World.
“Healing up and as fierce as ever,” Sonia laughed. “Christian sends his regards.”
“Ah, Christian Mirelles, a gentleman of the old school.” Hway smiled. “They don’t make them like him anymore.” She leaned forward across her desk. “Sonia, I told Dean about his father last night.” She shrugged.
The news sent a small alarm, a breath of apprehension through Sonia Motlaw. “Oh. How’d he take it?”
“Not well. But you know how he feels about you, Sonia. You’re more than just ‘Auntie’ to him. I think he’ll be pleased to see you and he’ll listen to you.”
That meant he hadn’t listened to his mother. Sonia knew how difficult Dean could be. “He’s very mature for his age,” she offered, hoping the words meant something.
“Let’s go in and see him. He’s waiting in the next room.”
Hway and Sonia, smiling warmly, walked into the private sitting room just off Hway’s office. Sonia, delighted to see the child, smiled broadly and held out her arms to him. “This is from your father,” she said happily, offering him Joe Dean’s letter.
“Goddamned fucking lying bitches!” Dean screamed. He snatched the letter from an astonished Sonia and tore at it ferociously, but it was of duraplast and so could neither be ripped nor burned. He threw it to the floor and rushed at Sonia Motlaw. He was screaming inarticulately and began beating and kicking her with his little fists and feet. Aghast, Sonia staggered backward. Hway had warned her, but this—this was totally unexpected. She had never seen the boy, any child, in such a rage. It was so unexpected because it was so unlike the boy she had come to love as much as if he’d been her own.
“Dean!” Hway screamed, but he was beyond listening, beyond control. The two women restrained him as best they could. A male aide rushed into the room and his face turned white when he saw the child on the floor. “Get Doctor Montez!” Hway ordered. “Quickly! Tell him my son has suffered a seizure!” The man rushed off while Hway and Sonia struggled to keep Dean from hurting himself. After a few moments he lay on the floor exhausted, panting, his rage spent, his eyes tightly closed.
“I’ve handled this badly,” Hway whispered. “Badly, badly. I-I’m sorry, Sonia.”
Dr. Felipe Montez, a short, spry old man, arrived shortly. He had treated the Kuetgens family members for so many years he was virtually one of them; he had delivered Dean and his mother and in her last illness he had attended Hway’s grandmother in prison. “What? What? What do we have here?” he asked. He knelt beside Dean.
&n
bsp; “He’s had a seizure—”
“This is the healthiest boy I’ve ever seen. What’s going on here?” He examined Dean carefully as the women stood by nervously. The aide stuck his head through the door but Hway waved him away. “Seizure my ass!” Dr. Montez announced. “The boy’s had a temper tantrum.” He shook a bony forefinger under Hway’s nose. “What the hell brought this on?” He glared in turn at both women. Neither would answer.
“Will he be all right?” Sonia asked.
Dr. Montez shook his head in disgust, picked Dean up, and laid him gently on a nearby sofa. He turned and faced Hway. “You told him, didn’t you? Sonia, what’s your involvement in any of this?” Sonia briefly told him of her visit to Thorsfinni’s World. “Good girl. At least you have some sense, and you were following orders, no matter how stupid, but you, young lady,” he turned on Hway. “Goddamn, what scares me is we put the fate of our government into the hands of people like you! How can you manage Wanderjahr when you screw up with your only child like this? I told you that you’d have to be very careful about telling him.” He shook his head in frustration. “The boy’s vitals are normal. He hasn’t ruptured or broken anything. Only time will tell what’s happened inside his head, or here.” He tapped the left side of his chest.
Dr. Montez was one of those rare individuals who could, or thought he could, chew God out if he had to and get away with it. “All right, all right.” He shook his head in perpetual wonder over the abysmal ignorance of the human species. “Matter at hand, matter at hand. What to do with this child? Here.” He punched out a prescription on his writer. “Give him this tonight and call me in the goddamned morning.” With that he gathered up his things, kissed each woman lightly on the cheek, muttered into Sonia’s ear, “Ah, if only I were sixty years younger,” and stalked out.
Hway looked at the prescription and smiled at Sonia. It read, “Tender loving care, Montez.”
Hway Kuetgens had been raised to always hide her emotions. After her parents’ death, her grandmother and guardian, Lorelei, Oligarch of Morgenluft Staat, had groomed Hway to be her successor as the ruler of the state. A calculating, scheming realist, Lorelei tried to instill her values in her granddaughter and had almost succeeded, until Joseph F. Dean came along with Thirty-fourth FIST and awakened something in the young woman. In the intervening years, after the Marines departed Wanderjahr, Hway had worked very hard to exercise coolheaded logic in all things and, since she had never experienced much affection growing up, it was not difficult for her to put Dean out of her mind, at least during the daytime. But while she loved her son, a constant reminder of their brief affair, more than anything in the world, it was difficult for her to express unfiltered, spontaneous affection toward anyone. Her son, in turn, could express rage but not the love he felt for his mother or the longing for his father. But now, after her son’s reaction to Sonia’s message from Corporal Joseph Dean, Hway realized it was time to break down the emotional barriers.
Dean Kuetgens was a precocious child in the sense that he could understand some things far beyond his years. He realized after he’d recovered his composure that the way he had reacted to Sonia Motlaw’s message had been wrong. He loved Sonia as much as his mother and was profoundly disgusted with himself for having attacked her and for what he had said in anger to her and his mother. So, as he lay in bed the night of his rage, he realized he would have to make up for that somehow. As it turned out, he didn’t have to, because his mother did it for him.
“Are you awake?” Hway asked as she came into her son’s darkened room. Dean did not answer but lay stiffly in his bed, pretending to be asleep. He knew it was his chance, the opening he needed to jump up and embrace his mother and make up for what he had done, but he couldn’t. He felt the mattress adjust to his mother’s weight as she sat at one end of the bed. “It was all my fault, son,” she began. “I should have told you about your father, but I couldn’t. How do you explain to a child that his father does not even know him? What else could I do? I suppose I should have continued the lie until you were old enough to understand.” She rested a hand gently on Dean’s leg. “But I just could not do it.” She began to weep. “I miss your father as much as you do,” she confessed. Dean sat up suddenly and they embraced as if it were the first time either had ever done that with someone they loved.
Later, Dean said, “Please tell Auntie Sonia I’m sorry.”
“She knows that already. But in a few minutes you can tell her yourself. Son, I have brought your father’s letter. It’s a real one this time.” Hway smiled through her tears. “And I thought you might like to read it now.” She flicked on a reading lamp in the headboard and handed Dean the duraplast sheet. “Read it. I’m going to get Aunt Sonia. When I come back we’ll talk about many things and Aunt Sonia will tell you about your father.”
“But it’s late, Mother. I have school in the morning.” Dean realized immediately that was the most ridiculous statement he’d ever made.
“No, you don’t—and I am taking today off. Now read. I’ll go fetch Aunt Sonia and then we’ll make some plans. I promise you, son, great changes are about to happen around here.”
At first Dean had to blink his eyes many times to clear his vision but then he read. The letter began, “My dear son. I am writing this letter in a car in the snow on a world far, far away from where you live. An angle has just told me all about you. She’s almost as beautiful as your mother.” When he wrote these words Joe Dean had glanced at Sonia Motlaw sitting there beside him and smiled, and that’s when his fingers slipped on the keyboard. But the boy knew his father must be referring to Auntie Sonia, not Euclid, because she was beautiful. The letter went on, the boy savoring every word. “I can’t come to see you now,” Dean concluded, “because I am needed here, but when this mission is over, I will come to Wanderjahr and the whole world will know I am your father and we are a family and we shall never be separated again. Joseph F. Dean, Corporal, CMC.”
Dean Kuetgens, the son of Joseph F. Dean, did not know what exactly a “corporal” was but he knew now, with absolute clarity, that when he grew up that is just what he was going to be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“This heat! This terrible heat,” Livy groaned, “is causing me to melt away. Is there no way, Auntie, we can convince this, this, dreadful general to put us up somewhere else on this godforsaken world? And the food! My God, Auntie, it’s inedible! I shall lose forty precious kilos on this trip!”
“Auntie,” or Senator Anteus Baibu Query, leader of the Confederation Senate Armed Services Committee fact-finding mission to Arsenault, smiled and applied a damp cloth to Senator Olivia (“Livy”) Kancho Smedley-Kuso’s lower left leg. They both sat naked on the bed in the quarters assigned to Senator Query upon his arrival at Task Force Aguinaldo’s headquarters. Both did suffer in the heat since they carried more weight than was good in such a tropical environment, but General Anders Aguinaldo had made it clear to every member of the delegation that they would have to live as his troops did—and he himself did—while on their visit. “We are training for the invasion of the enemy’s home world,” he had explained, “so it’s necessary to acclimate ourselves to what we believe is a very wet, warm environment.”
“But the food, General, it’s awful!” Senator Query complained. They had just tried to eat lunch in Aguinaldo’s mess.
“Well, sir,” Aguinaldo replied, “I want my staff to be lean and hard when they get to Haulover, so there are no luxuries in my mess. Just enough to keep body and soul together. The troops, they’re different; they work off the calories. But I want you to see that it’s no luxury to be a member of my staff in this task force. I want you to go back to Earth, Senator, and let everyone know that we are not living high out here, and I want our citizens to support us, as I know you do yourself, sir.” He smiled warmly at the delegates, but behind that smile he was thinking, You’ve come here to screw with me so the sooner you’re gone the better for everyone.
Livy sighed. “The old
jarhead wants us gone, Auntie. Why not override him, have him put us up at that wonderful resort, you know, Jefferson and I stayed there some years ago. We could commute.”
“Oceanside, Livy. It was ruined in an earthquake or something, remember? They haven’t reopened it yet. More’s the pity.” He rubbed the cloth down Livy’s sweaty leg and gently massaged her toes. “We’ll be gone soon enough, my delicious little mountaintop. Just wait until Grimmer gets his glommers on Aguinaldo’s short parts,” he said with a chuckle. Grimmer had the reputation of doing hatchet jobs on generals and admirals, something he enjoyed since he’d been passed over for promotion in the Holloway Armed Forces and retired an embittered man. “And how is Jefferson?” Query asked with a grin.
“Oh, Auntie, why bring him up at this divine moment?” Livy drawled. She shrugged her massive shoulders, not at all pleased at the mention of her husband’s name. “He’s at home, doing what husbands do: porking the servants.” She laughed lightly to cover her hatred of the man and her anger at Query for reminding her of him. “Or whatever,” she concluded airily.
“Um, yeeesss, my delightful little snow cone,” Auntie sighed. He wet the cloth and applied it to Livy’s ample breasts. She groaned.
“Why have you never married?” Livy asked suddenly, propping herself up on one elbow. Her turn in the repartee.
“Well, my dear,” Senator Anteus Baibu Query of Holloway’s World answered, jiggling Livy’s left breast playfully, “why ruin all my perfect relationships with marriage?” He leaned forward and brushed his lips gently over an enormous nipple. “And besides, you are now my mound of adipose, Livy, which I have hardly begun to consume.”
“Well, be careful, Anteus,” Senator Olivia Kancho Smedley-Kuso, of Wilkins’s World, said in her most sharply senatorial voice, “that this ‘mound of adipose’ doesn’t consume you.”
