Demeter

by Dr. Alan D. Hansen

  “I trust you, doctor. You make the call.” Ryder tried to joke, but his head was swimming.

  He glanced over into the corner where Miss Li lay unconscious. They learned from Winger that when she warned Ryder, Aster had turned and hit her so hard they weren’t sure she would regain consciousness. “I was really wondering if he had killed her,” Winger moaned.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Ryder started. “Small’s army should be here soon. If you can keep me from bleeding to death until then, they’re bound to have a medic with them.”

  Hondo interrupted. “I’ve already been on the bug with Major Small. They do have a medic, and they’re aware of the situation. They should be here in about fifteen minutes.”

  “All right, then all you’ve got to do is keep me alive for sixteen minutes, Cynthia, and I’ve got it made.”

  Cynthia’s eyes were struggling with tears, but she nodded. “I can do that.”

  Debbie had given Ryder a quick hug and asked if he was all right. Ryder assured her that he would be fine, and she was soon off investigating the room and testing Margaret’s memories of stories related to it. “I like this place,” she volunteered. “I think we should open a hotel here. I can be the manager.”

  After the third apology from Ensign Steerman, Ryder responded, “Duncan, I have a feeling we’ll look back on this someday and laugh. You better keep me alive, or you’ll find yourself reporting to Debbie.”

  Steerman looked admiringly at Debbie. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine coming out of this excited rather than upset or mad or in shock.”

  “That’s Debbie. May she never change,” Ryder slurred as he fought to remain conscious.

  Mr. Small and a detachment of twenty DDF troops arrived shortly thereafter. The medic was second in line and immediately moved to Ryder. Mr. Small made sure things were in order, then turned to Miss Li. “She’s next,” he ordered solemnly.

  Chapter 25: Celebration

  Ryder set a new record for himself. Six days in the medical center. He was hoping this was not going to become a habit. The good news was that he had his own personal medical apprentice in his room a good part of the day. Cynthia had been reviewing the wound, and debriefing herself—which meant Ryder had to listen— about what should have been done with the rock shard in his leg on the scene. She was full of ideas about portable medical equipment and aps that could easily have been loaded onto her sub-computer.

  “The problem with that is that your computer was smashed, and I wouldn’t have wasted the memory for something like that on mine,” Ryder teased.

  Ignoring the intended joke, Cynthia said, “Yes, that was interesting. I thought you had vowed never to put that thing in your eye. When did you change your mind?”

  “Back at your hopper. I had to do something, and I wasn’t sure who, if anyone, I could trust.” Ryder leaned up on one elbow. “I wanted to trust Mr. Small, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I figured if I could track down the kidnappers, and Mr. Small wasn’t part of it, it would be easy to patch in. And if the kidnappers had studied me, they wouldn’t bother looking for the sub-computer, knowing I couldn’t stand to wear it.”

  “That’s a stretch,” Cynthia responded.

  “Not at all,” Ryder smiled weakly, lying back down. “By the time I put the sub-computer in, I knew the kidnappers were after me too. If they were after me, they would know everything they could know about me.”

  The evening of the second day back, Grandma Ryder made an appearance. She was with Debbie and getting an earful of the adventure, and the caverns, and the potential of the caverns, and that they should be set aside as national monuments, except for where she was going to put in her hotel. Grandma Ryder smiled and took it all in. “It has been way, way too long. How are you doing, Willilam?”

  “I’ll live, they tell me. Of course, it is more interesting that you’re alive. I still remember your funeral.”

  Her smile faded, and she had a misty look in her eyes. “They needed us. Not to complain, but it was really your parent’s turn, but your mother never adapted here, and they wanted to raise you children on Earth, although I cannot imagine why. The place was ready to fall into chaos after that crazy Colonel Roundy, or I should say Hondo, killed the old Director-General. We consulted with your parents and felt this was the best way.” She put a smile back onto her face and continued, taking Ryder’s hands. “We were expecting you, by the way. Your parents had agreed that you could spend a year before you started high school. We just weren’t sure which year it would be. And then your sister Debbie as well. That was a happy bonus!”

  “Why didn’t you come and see us before?” Ryder asked.

  Grandma frowned. “It was that old stick in the mud grandfather of yours. He’s tradition bound. He felt for good or bad you should have the opportunity to develop your own views of Demeter.” She lowered her voice and did her best imitation of a bass voice. “Marie, let them experience it for themselves. If they like it, great! You’ll see them often. If they don’t, they won’t have to go through mourning our loss again.” Returning to her normal voice, she finished, “Or hating us for deceiving them. I think he actually fears that worse.”

  Ryder saw his grandmother every day thereafter, but still had not seen Grandpa Ryder. Doesn’t he care anymore? he wondered. The day he was released from the center, Cynthia was wheeling him out in a powered grav-chair when an old man in a gray DDF uniform approached Ryder.

  “William.”

  “Grandfather,” he exchanged formally.

  “You did a nice job on this. I’ve talked with Lieutenant Pinoke. She says she couldn’t have done it as well as you did, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” Ryder said, but the words felt empty.

  “I may have made an error in judgment on this one,” the Director-General admitted. “I thought giving you a chance to get your own feeling for Demeter was the best way to go, but I hadn’t considered the variables of a hostile force flanking the experience.”

  “From what I’ve read, there was no way to anticipate that problem,” Ryder said. “Plus, after hearing Steerman’s story, I wonder if Debbie and I would have had any friends if we had come here as the Ryders.”

  “Well, we have to anticipate the unexpected and account for the variables in the game all the time. If we lose, unlike chess, real people die.” His grandfather actually let his lips curl upward. “I was wondering if I could interest you in a game of chess when you get back on your feet?”

  Fond memories rushed in, and Ryder heard himself agreeing. “If I can bring my nurse along.”

  “Of course,” grandfather smiled. “All right, dinner tomorrow evening at seven o’clock. Dress is informal.” With those words, the Director-General turned down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  “He seems to be an interesting man.” Cynthia drew Ryder’s attention back.

  “Very interesting. I’m wondering if he’ll still let me win at chess.” Ryder eased back into the chair.

  “The question may be will you let him win at chess.” Cynthia grinned, and Ryder followed suit.

  The last few weeks of their tour of duty on Demeter was approaching an end. Lieutenant Heliotrope Pinoke had left on exercises with her squadron, and Ryder was left to test scenarios on his own again. It wasn’t nearly as challenging without Pinoke running him ragged. He’d discovered that Pinoke would take her off week to study possible scenarios in advance to keep an edge. Even so, Ryder was winning as often as he was losing now. The loss of Lieutenant Pinoke was partially offset by “Chess nights” with Grandpa Ryder. Second guessing Grandfather was getting easier and easier, as he recognized the Director-General was typically only thinking six or seven moves ahead.

  Cynthia, Debbie, and Becky usually came along and chatted with Grandma Ryder. She enthralled them with stories of the “old days.”

  Captain Li of the DDF Security force was commended for her actions in the kidnapping. She had been working undercover tr
ying to ferret out whom the mastermind behind the plot had been. She had recovered fully from her injuries, leaving the hospital three days before Ryder. Although they had nabbed Aster, he was, as Hondo put it, “middlin’ fry, not the big one.” Still they had incarcerated the perpetrators of the kidnapping, if not the plot.

  With ten days to go before returning to Earth, Ryder received a handwritten invitation on gilded paper. It was an announcement that Yara Li would be marrying Roger Small two days before Ryder and his friends would be returning to Earth.

  The wedding was taking place at Shimmer’s Head. Ryder never got all the details of why it was being held there, but he was looking forward to seeing “the old coot,” as Grandpa Ryder referred to Hondo. Director-General and Mrs. Stephen Ryder had offered to take Ryder and his friends to the event, but Debbie was insistent that she was piloting a flyer, as she had just received her upgraded license. She gloated a bit that she had earned it before Becky, but Becky didn’t seem disturbed at all. “I won’t have a chance to use it for a year if I get it,” she confided to Cynthia.

  Ryder wore the same tone of gray as the official DDF uniform. It had set him back two week’s pay to buy it, but he thought it looked sharp, and Cynthia agreed. He knew it must look okay, because Debbie said it made him look like a gray whale.

  Cynthia, Debbie, and Becky were dressed in some sort of blue chiffon mid-calf dresses—“with petticoats,” Debbie complained. The dresses had gold embroidery that accented Captain Li’s wedding dress. Cynthia responded to Debbie’s complaints. “We’re all co-maids of honor, buck up and bear it. We can change back after the reception.”

  Ryder had no complaints. They looked terrific, and he said so. “I think you should wear that every day.”

  The response was a united set of glares that had him leaving the room immediately. “Maybe you should wear a suit and tie every day,” followed him out of the room. He wasn’t sure who said it.

  Athena was the fourth member of the maid-of-honor club, and joined the group with Randy and Joel. She looked great, not only in the dress, but her disposition seemed to have lightened dramatically. Ryder wasn’t sure if she had overcome homesickness, or was just realizing that they were about to return Earth in two days.

  Randy and Joel were dressed casually in jeans and checkered shirts with a western cut. The outfits were new, but didn’t seem in keeping with the formality of the event. “We’re comfortable with this,” Randy concluded.

  The trip to Shimmer’s Head was as eventful as Ryder feared. He didn’t know how many more g-force turns he could take, and he prayed that he would never have to fly with Debbie as the pilot again. The only thing he liked about it was every other turn was a benefit curve, with Cynthia sliding into him.

  Debbie parked the flyer on a ridge of the canyon, and they waited for one of two shuttle hoppers to ferry them to the Shimmer’s Head landing. With Lieutenant Miles Baron and a female DDF officer serving as their official “security team,” they made quite a crowd. Ryder let another couple, a short, dark-haired middle aged man named Tuco, who was accompanied by a tall woman half his age, board the shuttle ahead of them, and they waited for the next flight.

  Shimmer’s Head sparkled. Ryder wondered how the place could be cleaned up to that degree. The chips in the rock face of the lodge had been repaired, the windows were clean, and Hondo’s chair was nowhere to be seen. The porch looked like it had been totally rebuilt.

  The dining area had been cleared away. All the tables were outside covered with white linen, replacing the standard gingham table cloths that Ryder was used to. There were chairs lined up with a wide aisle down the middle to a slightly raised platform. On the platform was a small granite block, about waist high with pillows on either side of the block. There were bulb-shaped light sticks in holders on long strands encircling the seating.

  Ryder got to cool his heels with Randy and Joel, as the girls, giggling, joined the bride’s party inside the lodge.

  Ensign Steerman made his way through the crowd toward them. “Mind if I join you? I seem to have misplaced my friends,” emphasizing the word “friends” with a sardonic grin.

  “Sure, join the party. When is this thing supposed to start?” Joel asked.

  “The ceremony should start in a few minutes now that the errant bridesmaids have arrived. I was charting your flight as you came in. I never saw so many rebounds in one in-atmosphere flight, ever. Looked more like the maneuvers for evading an entire squadron of Pervs.”

  “Yeah, I can still feel the bruises,” Ryder complained.

  “So”—Steerman hesitated—“was it your sister flying?”

  “None other,” Ryder replied, wondering at the question.

  “You are returning to Earth in a couple of days, aren’t you?” Steerman continued.

  “Day after tomorrow,” Ryder responded.

  “Are you coming back?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? It was the question Grandpa had studiously avoided their last evening together. It was the unspoken question that Mr. Small had studiously avoided at their last meeting in the simulation room. Even he and his friends had avoided the topic. But here it was, boldly pressed by a Cryellian of all people.

  “I’m not sure,” Ryder answered candidly.

  “Well, I’ll take my chances. Could you give this to your sister?” Steerman handed Ryder a paper envelop with Debbie’s name clearly written on the surface.

  “What’s this?” Ryder asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing harmful, I promise. Just a note.” Duncan’s face turned a shade of green.

  The ceremony started shortly thereafter with the blast of bagpipes. Ryder, Randy, Joel, and Steerman took their seats and watched the procession of beautiful Earth girls, and several junior officers of the DDF security forces, leading the procession. Mr. Small was standing on the platform, and waited for the arrival of Miss Li, dressed in a white baju kurung with gold embroidery that matched the trim of the bridesmaids’ dresses. Roger and Yara knelt across the altar from each other and made commitments to each other that bound them for eternity.

  The ceremony itself was short, which was totally satisfactory to Ryder. The shorter the better, he thought. Afterward there was food, too much, and dancing. It turned out that the dance of the night was Western Swing and Square Dancing, for which Randy and Joel were perfectly dressed. Hondo, in full dress uniform, played the fiddle and was the caller for the Square Dance, accompanied by Grandma Ryder on the piano.

  As Cynthia was Ryder’s dance partner for the evening, he managed to keep up for the square dances, but after two swings, he bowed out, and they sat chatting at one of the tables. “So what do you think?” Cynthia asked, suddenly turning serious.

  “I think you really are beautiful, and a great dancer,” Ryder responded evasively.

  “Oh, you’re getting better at this. Thank you. But no, what do you think about Demeter? Are you coming back?” Cynthia leaned in conspiratorially.

  “I really don’t know. I want some time to think. In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make a rational decision until I’ve been back on Earth a few weeks. Are you coming back?”

  “Absolutely!” Cynthia beamed. “There is so much to learn. And the training? They told me I’m about halfway through a college curriculum. I can help people if I come back.”

  “Well you’re making things tough, but you’re certainly stacking the deck.” Then Ryder’s face fell. “I imagine Debbie will be coming back. If they let her fly the Pegasus, I’m not coming, and that’s final.”

  Cynthia suddenly bent over and gave him a light kiss on the lips. The world stopped for a moment. Then she straightened back up. “Are you sure?” Then she got up and ran over to join their friends.