If you don’t knock that off I’ll ship you off to Corizen so you can turn blue and live like a savage!
The King of Corizen will make you a slave, and you will have to dig selenium out of the mines with your hands!
Denicorizens drink the blood of their enemies—and they consider all Citizens enemies!
Of course, most of the wildest tales had to be just that—exaggerated inventions used to scare unruly children into obedience. However, Jimmy would bet a handful of senines that Jenna had heard similar kinds of things about Corizen when she was growing up, and now her sister was missing on that planet. Not only that, the planet was in the middle of a brutal civil war that had been going on for several years. The king had been deposed, and who knew what kind of chaos had ensued? In any history that Jimmy had ever studied, no matter how bad a government was, what followed when that government collapsed was worse.
Somewhere, Jenna’s sister was caught in the middle of that.
There was nothing Jimmy could do for Andie. However, he had to find something to do for Jenna. He was watching his wife fret herself into a shadow of her normal self. She wasn’t sleeping regularly. She followed newsfeeds on Corizen obsessively, to the point sometimes that Jimmy would finish his evening’s work and find that Jenna had left all three kids to run wild for hours. She would grimace when she realized how distracted she’d become (Jenna had been no happier than Jimmy the third time Erik flooded the bathroom), but then it would happen again. It was like she was an addict, unable to quit searching for that next hit—a nugget of news that might give some idea where her sister was.
It was time for an intervention.
When he’d dug up enough weeds to fill the top of the compost box and the kids were tired of making dirt castles, he lined them all up and sprayed them down and then corralled them all over to Mrs. Smitz’s apartment. When she opened her door and saw the dripping-wet kids, she grimaced.
“James August Trimble Forrest III, you know better than to bring the kids in my house drenched like drowned sailors. What, did you take them all swimming in the bay with their clothes on?” she rebuked sternly.
Jimmy grinned and looked at Kendra with her golden hair plastered to her cheeks, Berry’s shortalls dripping down her brown legs, and Erik jumping up and down making a squelching noise with his sodden shoes. “The Forrest seedlings covered themselves head to toe in dirt building a city or something. The hose jet was easier than the bathtub, and it’s a warm day,” Jimmy explained with a shrug. “I’m going to send them to run around on your lawn to dry off, but I thought I’d check and see if you had any cookies on hand first.”
The eyes of all three kids brightened.
“Cookies! Cookies!” the girls squealed. Mrs. Smitz looked at them fondly.
“I just might have made some ranger cookies earlier today,” she admitted.
A few minutes later, Jimmy settled into one of the comfortable deck chairs that Mrs. Smitz kept on the covered porch outside the front of her apartment. A wide expanse of lawn ran away from the porch. Most people in Tarentino didn’t have lawns, but Mrs. Smitz had lamented her lost lawn from her childhood days on Terra, and Jimmy had planted one for her the first year here. It had taken a few years to find a mix of grass seed that liked Tarentino Bay’s soil, and Jimmy was sure it was a much different variety than Mrs. Smitz had on Terra. Yet now it stayed full and lush and grew so fast that Jimmy had imported a grass trimmer bot from Omphalos to keep it from overtaking the whole property and turning it into a jungle. It was perfect for the kids to play on; he leaned back in the chair and watched the three of them chase one another across the grass, laughing and holding half-eaten cookies in their hands.
Mrs. Smitz groaned as she lowered herself into the other deck chair. “I’m not as young as I used to be,” she grumbled. “Getting stiff in the joints.”
“You know they have nanobot injections for arthritis, Mrs. Smitz,” Jimmy reminded, though he knew what she would say.
She snorted. “And then I’m dependent on some doctor who wants to keep injecting more and more little bots into my bloodstream. Pretty soon I’d be so full of nanobots, I wouldn’t be human anymore, so what’s the point? Better to grow old gracefully and stay human.”
Jimmy just smiled, taking a swig of the water she had brought out for him. They watched the children in silence for a minute, Jimmy musing about the best way to attack Mrs. Smitz with his request.
“You make a good father, Jimmy,” Mrs. Smitz said unexpectedly. “Your mother would have been proud.”
Jimmy glanced over at her, surprised. Usually Mrs. Smitz was full of good-natured criticism of his sad lack of parenting skills.
“I missed having young ones around after you and Jax and Cari grew up. Jax has always needed me, and I do what I can for my boy, but it’s not the same. Children bring hope, that’s what they do, and without any children around, my days were gloomier. When it was clear that Cari never meant to have children, and of course I knew Jax would never have any either, I thought I would never get to have that hope again.”
“What, you’d written me off at the very beginning?” Jimmy asked in mock indignation.
“Well, when your mother died and you quit everything, I did.”
“I didn’t quit everything,” Jimmy protested.
“You gave up everything that meant anything important,” she refuted with a sniff. “Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
“You weren’t even on Terra anymore,” Jimmy said. “You were already here on Zenith with Jax.”
“I heard about your goings on. You wouldn’t listen, either. I thought you’d spend the rest of your life trying to pretend you were young and carefree, never taking on any responsibility again.” Her tone was stern. “Too old to be pretending you were still a child.”
Jimmy laughed. “Is that what I was doing?”
She shot him a grim look. “Thank the stars you met Jenna. She snapped you out of it with a vengeance,” Mrs. Smitz said with satisfaction. “And the best part is those three little scamps.” She waved her arm out toward Kendra and Berry, who had gathered wildflowers from the edge of the lawn and were sticking them in each other’s hair. Erik was on his hands and knees, staring avidly down at the grass blades underneath him.
Jimmy jumped at the chance to change the subject. “Speaking of Jenna,” he began.
Mrs. Smitz turned and frowned at him. “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about her,” she replied, her brows drawing together. “What is she doing to herself? She looks like she’s losing weight. I know the girl can’t cook beans herself. Aren’t you feeding her?”
Jimmy sighed. “I try. She doesn’t eat much right now. It’s the worry about her sister. It’s kind of taking over everything.”
“Humph,” Mrs. Smitz grunted. She clearly wasn’t happy about it, but since she didn’t launch into a spurt of advice, obviously she didn’t know how to fix it either.
“I thought I’d plan a little getaway, just for the two of us. We’ve never taken a trip without the kids since we got married. Our anniversary is coming up, and that would give us a chance to take a break, maybe get her mind off things.”
“You have the money for that kind of trip right now?” Mrs. Smitz asked shrewdly. Jimmy hesitated.
“Well, not for anything fancy. But Jenna’s got another trip to Omphalos for a new project pitch coming up, and I thought maybe I’d go along and we could add an extra day to it.”
Mrs. Smitz rocked back in her deck chair. “So you need me to stay with the kids?” she asked.
“If you would. It would just be a couple of days,” Jimmy said, his tone wheedling.
Mrs. Smitz’s eyes twinkled. “You know I would enjoy it. Just for a couple of days, mind. I’m not so young as I used to be.”
“Would you rather have them stay with you here or move over into our house with them?” Jimmy aske
d.
The older woman sagged visibly. “Well, it would be easier to stay with them over there, of course. But would Jax be OK? If we all went back to my place for meals, though, then I could prepare Jax’s food and check on him before heading back to spend the night in your place,” she muttered to herself.
Jimmy let Mrs. Smitz talk herself through all the little details. If he could just get himself and Jenna off by themselves without any other distractions, maybe take her dancing or off to Seven Falls or something, he could find a way to break this hold uncertainty had on her. Something that would remind her that she still had love and beauty and joy in her life to focus on, despite what might or might not be happening on Corizen.
Anything to get that sparkle back in Jenna’s eyes again!
5. Dinner with Lilah
It always took Jenna a moment outside the shuttleport in Omphalos to readjust to the sheer busy crowdedness of the capital city. She stopped and looked around at all the transports, the pedestrians, the looming skyscrapers, the glaring lights even during the day, the scrolling ads on screens built into the sides of buildings, and the automated vendors hawking everything from snacks to clothing to city guide chips for newcomers. The smells were more overpowering than the sights: the slightly metallic smell of the magnetic runner tracks on the streets, the hodgepodge of a hundred different kinds of food, sweaty and overly perfumed bodies, the occasional whiff of some kind of exhaust from a factory. When Jenna first moved to the largest city on the planet from her childhood home on a remote Armada base, she was bedazzled by it all. She had loved everything about it from the start (well, maybe not all the smells). However, after so many years of living in comparatively sleepy Tarentino Bay, Omphalos (the City, as so many Zenithians referred to it) left her feeling more befuddled than dazzled. Part of the reason for that was the city had literally doubled its population since the year she had first arrived. That had been good for business; even when Carter & Yen, the most prestigious architect firm in the city had fired her (and had done their very best to blacken her reputation as an architect), the constant growth meant that she had more or less steady work as an independent contractor.
Two years ago she and Jimmy had scraped together enough of a nest egg for her to officially launch her own design firm. It wasn’t exactly the vision she’d had for it back in her dreaming days as a student at the Omphalos University. Her firm had exactly one full-time staff member besides herself. Kinsey Lawton was a professional assistant/receptionist/PR consultant all rolled into one. She was the public face that people could contact locally, though they didn’t yet have an office in Omphalos. Even a tiny office in a decent part of town would have put them in the red. Jenna did all the designs from her home in Tarentino Bay and communicated with as many of the clients as she could by comm. Every few months she made a trip into Omphalos to take care of the list of errands that Kinsey had waiting for her, the few things that Jenna would need to do personally. Occasionally she would come to present the bid for a major project that she hoped to win. If for some reason they needed an office for a presentation or to meet with a client, Kinsey rented a day-use professional suite in the Doublespire business district, something she had done for Jenna’s pitch the next morning. This trip was supposed to combine the regular catch-up trip plus a bid for the new wing of the city’s shuttleport. It was a massive project that could potentially either boost her fledgling business enough that she could finally hire other architects to work with her, or it would ruin her. “No pressure,” she told herself under her breath.
Jimmy’s arm suddenly wrapped around her shoulder and squeezed. “Relax,” he whispered in her ear. “The city won’t bite you.” She turned and flashed a smile at him, the tension draining from her neck. He took her travel case along with his own and moved into the taxi line. The line was long today; apparently a few off-planet shuttles had landed earlier in the day, and the new arrivals to the planet had made it through the health offices and customs and now spilled through the main shuttleport exit as well.
“Wait, Jimmy, I promised Kendra a vid of the Winter Fountain,” she exclaimed.
Jimmy looked back at her and then forward at the taxi line. He shrugged. “I’ll wait in line while you get the vid. It won’t take you that long, and this looks like it could be quite a wait.” She nodded and then darted back into the shuttleport. Turning left, she hurried into the big, open eastern lobby. It was four stories tall, and it housed the largest indoor fountain on Zenith. Well, the largest fountain of any kind on Zenith. It had been a commissioned piece of artwork intended to show new arrivals just how “cultivated” their frontier planet was. Tubes of shiny metal spiraled from the ceiling all the way down to the ten-meter pool at the bottom. From jets in the ceiling, water fell in sheets and patterns, reflecting off the pipes. Different colored lights could activate along with music, giving the fountain a different appearance. The light and water show regularly changed, so it was a popular and famous sight in the city. Jenna had shown clips of it on a feed to the girls before they left, but they had wanted their very own vid, one their mother had taken herself. Jenna had agreed; she was feeling miserably guilty about leaving the kids all alone this weekend. Well, they were hardly alone when they were with Mrs. Smitz. But on all her other trips to Omphalos they had at least had their father. We’re not abandoning our kids, she argued with herself. It’s a five-day trip, and they are with someone closer to them than their grandma. They’re fine.
At the base of the fountain, she pulled out her flipcom and moved around between other bystanders, trying to get the best angle for her vid. Eventually she found a good one that would catch most of the water play and lights without someone else’s arm or head in the way. She had just finished the vid when an incredulous voice spoke behind her.
“Jenna Donnell?”
Jenna whirled to find herself face-to-face with a tall, familiar man with dark hair and serious eyes. A man she had hoped never to see again.
“It is you!” he cried excitedly, holding out his hand.
“Hello, Zane,” she greeted, reluctantly allowing him to take her hand and press it briefly.
“So you are playing tourist in Omphalos, I see,” Zane said conversationally, nodding to her flipcom. “Did you get a good shot of the fountain?”
Jenna snapped her flipcom shut self-consciously. “I just needed a vid for the kids. They wanted to see it.”
“That’s right, you have kids now. How many?”
“Three,” Jenna answered, wondering how he knew she had kids. Was he getting updates from his father? Was Lev still keeping tabs on their family? Or was it just friendly updates between business partners, Jimmy’s dad sharing that he had three grandchildren that he’d never yet seen in person?
“That’s fantastic!” Zane enthused. Jenna’s return smile felt starched and brittle. “I’m waiting for a special guest for the QE arriving from off-planet today,” he explained in a friendly tone, “and I told him I’d meet him here at the Winter Fountain. Told him he wouldn’t be able to miss it.”
“I didn’t realize you were working at the QE again,” Jenna said without thought. Then she bit her lip. That was bordering on rude. Zane had once been the general manager of the Quintan Edge resort until he’d become addicted to nanospeed. His father had sent him off-planet to Kirtuth to permanently get clean, and obviously Zane must have succeeded well enough to be allowed back into the good graces of his father.
Zane’s expression faltered just the slightest bit. “Well, I’m not doing the same kinds of things now,” he admitted. “My sister Moriel is the general manager. I work in guest relations, but my responsibility is making sure that the VIP guests are particularly seen to.” Jenna felt just the tiniest stab of pity. Zane had had so much potential. He’d been a brilliant manager, and he’d loved it too. It couldn’t be easy watching his sister do the job that had originally been his, even if it was his own fault that he’d lost it.
“Jimmy’s here too?” Zane’s voice rose enthusiastically. “Let me walk you out, then. I’ve got to say hello. It’ll only take a moment, and I’m sure that even if my guest beats me back, he’ll be enthralled by the fountain for at least a couple of minutes.” Jenna couldn’t think of a polite way to decline this suggestion, and there was always the possibility Jimmy really would want to see Zane. She thought they’d exchanged at least of couple of comms since the horrible night Zane had betrayed them all.
The night he’d nearly choked her to death.
Granted, his mind had not exactly been his own. His prolonged addiction to nanospeed had meant that the nanobots had been running the show. But some things were still hard to forget. Her whole body was stiff with tension, and she had to force herself to walk instead of sprinting back out of the building. Luckily, Zane didn’t seem to notice her discomfort at all.
He asked her what she was doing in Omphalos, and she told him about her fledgling architect firm. “That’s fantastic!” he congratulated. “You did a wonderful job when you were working on the Marah resort. I’m sure you must have clients flocking to you.”
Jenna smiled wryly. Well, she had done very good work when she had been a project manager for the huge Quintan Edge Marah resort on the coast. However, since Mr. Quintan had refused to give her any kind of commendation at all and her employer at the time, Carter & Yen, had decided to actively get her blacklisted from any kind of major project in the city, practically nobody knew that she had worked on Marah. If she tried to use it as an example of her prior work, clients couldn’t verify it, and she looked like a dishonest pretender. It was one of the sacrifices she had made when she had chosen Jimmy over Zane and when they’d walked away from Lev Quintan’s desire to manage their lives.
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