Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet

by Mackey Chandler

  Chapter 22

  "We have a relayed message from Chance. All three ships are safely returned. He forwards a short summary of actions and says they accomplished their objectives. He plans a leisurely return, wide of the star, at a moderate deceleration. They will be at rest in orbit trailing the station the day after tomorrow about 1000 hours Retribution ship time," Thor informed Gordon. "Sending it to your screen."

  "That was brilliant of him to show a mosaic of our different races, minus the Biters," Thor said, after reading awhile. "It had to be done quickly too."

  "Agreed, they were down to a couple minutes to compose and transmit it. The fellow shows good command presence. But what a droll sense of humor he displays," Gordon said after reading a bit.

  "Yeah? I'm reading it too. What amuses you?" Thor asked.

  "How he keeps apologizing for things. Due to over estimating Biter abilities they expended two x-head missiles to destroy a fleet of six vessels. He laments that in hind sight he would have been better off to use one and finish off any survivor with cheaper weapons systems," Gordon said.

  "He does have a point," Thor agreed. "We should look into some of the legacy technologies. It's not like we are shooting North American deep space battle platforms. They still had some nice cheap little conventional warhead missiles as recent as twenty or thirty years ago that would work just fine, and we could carry more of them too."

  "We'll talk to the New Japanese and the Fargoers about that," Gordon agreed. "The interesting thing I see in this transcript is he told Captain Frost to fight his ship. So it was Frost's decision to fire two missiles, not his, but he takes responsibility for not overriding him."

  "I take that as a positive," Thor said. "It is his command ultimately."

  Hmm... He claims to have some insight on generalized psychology of the Bills. Maybe. I can't tell you how many times I thought I'd finally figured Humans out after actually living with them for years. Then they turn around and do things you never expected. Now in middle age I'm starting to doubt I even know Derf."

  "That's one of the things I like about you Gordon, your humility."

  * * *

  Talker's home was on a hill with a wonderful view of their farm operations below, laid out in neat squares and rectangles. There were modern looking barns and building down there in the flat valley, but the home itself was a castle. There was a residence with windows to look down at their holdings, but they had to look over a stout wall that ringed the hill. They went in a serious gate then had to make a sharp turn and pass another gate.

  "This is a nice big farm," Lee said. "It reminds me of the Red Tree Keep Gordon took me home to on Derfhome. Theirs is built back into a hill and dug way down deep in it instead of sticking up, but you guys both have obvious issues with physical security. Do you name your holdings?"

  "Yes, it would translate pretty much as Safe Haven. Our family could never have had anything like this on the Badger home world," Talker explained. "That's why my father came out to Far Away. Land was available much cheaper if you got in early, and he did. My eldest brother will inherit this. We don't break a property up and turn it into a bunch of minor holdings for inheritance. That's a road to poverty. Pretty soon the small parcels are sold off and gone."

  "I bet it drives the younger ones to explore and seek their own place too," Lee noted. "Or you'd all be back home on a city house sized lot."

  "Where they wouldn't need me, so me and mine would likely be stuck forever being poor," Amiable said. "Do you have such folk on any of your worlds?"

  "We do. I lived with such a family for some months. I'll tell you the story sometime if you like."

  "I'd be happy of any tale with which you wish to gift me."

  "He has a few of his own," Talker warned her.

  The truck was parked in a row of assorted vehicles, a couple of which were nice ground cars.

  "Was it a test of my attitude to come pick us up in the truck, instead of a car?"

  "No Missy. It was running short on time. If I took the time to clean the field grime off to drive one of the nicely carpeted and upholstered cars you'd have been standing waiting a lot longer. Are you used to people testing you like that?"

  "A little bit, yeah. Which makes me want to know how I need to act when we go in here. When I met Gordon's family he didn't coach me at all and just let me do what came natural. I don't want to start off here stepping on any toes."

  "Another wonderfully visual phrase," Talker noted. "My father will greet you, as hospitality is his to offer or not. Had I any doubt he'd welcome you I wouldn't have brought you. He may embrace you. I hope that doesn't offend or worry you?"

  "Heck no. If anything I'm under-hugged," Lee complained.

  Amiable marched off without any leave taking, probably back to his mud. Talker took her small bag and headed in the front door without explanation.

  "What do you have in here? Rocks?" Talker complained.

  "Money," Lee told him. "I thought maybe I'd get a chance to go shopping."

  "The servants will put it in your room," he said, and left it inside the door.

  The entry was unguarded in contrast to the Red Tree Keep. Lee remembered William guarding the entry with a pang of nostalgia and regret. The wide hall inside the doors ran straight all the way to a back door. It had to be over a hundred meters long. Open three stories high, it had balconies inside and stairs to them at both ends. Once again it was cooler than outside but not really chilled like a Human building would be. Talker led them to about the halfway point and turned left through open double doors. Instead of a huge open hall with rafters above the Badger main room like a Derf Keep, it reminded her of something else, the hotel lobby where she'd been assaulted on Earth. The lighting was a bit more subdued than she'd chose. There were large comfortable chairs and couches in groups all around, with plants and a small fountain. To one side was a huge screen with nothing displayed right now. Most notable was that it wasn't laid out symmetrically. You would have to meander around things to get to the rear of the room. Talker took her hand before working his way through the room.

  In the far corner was a desk with a Badger working at it, head down. How odd not to have a private office, Lee thought. Even the Mothers kept a private office where they could conduct confidential business even if they sat court most of the day in the great room.

  There was a space around the desk and associated pieces of about three meters however, marking it off as special. There was a sofa, big enough for three, facing the desk closely and two arm chairs to one side angled toward each other.

  The Badger didn't rise until they entered the open perimeter. The carpet was different around the desk too, Lee noticed, marking it off. Then he looked up and froze for a second. Lee was sure he looked at their clasped hands. Was that a problem? Talker dropped her hand and stepped forward. Father and son hugged and held each other, talking for a bit before stepping back. Talker turned back to Lee still holding his father's hand.

  "Most here would address my father as Lord, but you are not of his household. I told him you are a person of substance so he invites you to address him as 'Goy', which I'd translate as fellow. It indicates a similar status, but says neither larger or smaller, older or newer, both of which matter in our society."

  "I'm touched, but uncomfortable. I am much younger and less experienced, and I have ships and vast tracts of land, but I have yet to build a home on them where I could return his hospitality properly. What can I add as a mark of respect to honor him?"

  "He speaks Trade. Father, I should tell you, Lee has formally befriended me."

  "Ahh... " That was obviously significant to him. "In what way did she make this bond?" his father asked. He tilted his head and regarded his son intensely. Lee could see now he had white flecks in his fur all down his muzzle.

  "She offered to lay before my door to protect me with her body as I slept, without condition, and only expressed that it was a pact of friendship after. I'm afraid she was irritated with me tha
t she had to explain why, feeling the act should define the relationship without naming it."

  Lee noticed he asked how she made the bond, not how she expressed it.

  "She has a point," he agreed. "Did the Traveler and the Farmer stand and swear friendship or just do it?" he asked.

  "He refers to an ancient play," Talker said. "My father is the victim of a classical education I'm afraid, which he inflicted on me in turn."

  "And it seems to have served you well despite your cynicism. Starships and computers are all fine and good and serve us well, but people remain the same, and studying their character good or bad will never go out of style. If it pleases you little female you may call me Par Goy, which is Dear Fellow, if that is not too intimate for you. It suggests you are a concern of the household. By my word you have a place at our table and may seek our door as long as you are bound to my son."

  "That sounds nice. I have no door of my own, but you are welcome on my lands any time you wish, and I have leave by the Mothers of Red Tree Clan to offer hospitality at their keep by my name and invite you to use that should you chose to visit Derfhome. I am the First daughter of the Third love son of the Four Hundred-Seventy Third First Mother of Red Tree, by the Hero of the Chain Bound Lands, Second line of the short haired folk, of Gordon - Lee Anderson."

  "Well that's a mouthful isn't it?" Par Goy asked, amused. "I accept your offer. Derf have short and long haired folk too?"

  "Not as extreme as us," Talker told him. "I saw pictures and what they call long haired just looks like someone in winter coat. They have dark, what they call cinnamon, and light that is almost blond."

  "Well I'm pleased to meet you Lee." He held out his arms in obvious invitation, and she stepped in and hugged him. He was taller and she turned her head on his shoulder. He brought his chin down over her head and held her firmly.

  "You smell good," Lee decided.

  "Ha! I was sipping a spicy sweet liqueur when you came in. I probably reek of it. Do you think you can try a little safely?" he asked, holding her away by the shoulders double handed.

  "The sweet part is safe, and so far all the distilled things have been safe. Let me try just a drop on my tongue, and if I don't swell up and get covered in hives after a few minutes we should be good."

  "Sit," he said, leading her to the sofa by the hand. "We'll talk a bit and supper should be nearly ready by then. Unless you want to go lay down a bit? If you are tired from your trip?"

  "I've traveled in a lot worse. I've been in Human buses for days, Derf mail trucks and Earth Human police vans. Amiable in a farm truck with a view out the front was a treat, even if I don't think that was all mud on his boots."

  "He didn't?" Par Goy asked Talker, horrified.

  "He said he'd be late if he'd stopped to clean up," Talker said with a shrug.

  It was interesting. Badgers roll their eyes too.

  * * *

  "Entry radiation behind us," Einstein called out on the open command circuit. "Quite deep. It may have been on a line where we entered or a very close vector."

  "If it's Biters chasing us it's too late," Frost said. "We'll be docked or near the rest of the fleet before they can catch up. We'll see if they get in our face again and tell us to stand too. I'd love to see what it would do to a Biter ship to run the Retribution's or Murphy's Law radar at max power focused on them."

  "Does roast Biter taste like chicken?" Fat Ortega asked.

  "Probably. Everything else seems to," Chance agreed. "Let me know if we get a message, but watch the relay buoys, to see if they talk to the station in the clear too, " he ordered.

  * * *

  Dinner was across the big hall in a much smaller room than the one where Lee met Par Goy. There were about two dozen family members and introductions were deferred until after dinner. There had been more than 'a bit' of a wait until dinner, they'd talked a couple hours. She was hungry, but just a little buzzed. The sweet liqueur was strong and reminded her of both ginger and cloves. She had to remember to note them both on her pad as something the Badgers might appreciate.

  Dinner for Lee was a bland grain that was similar to rice or barley, with a syrup on it that Talker assured her was also tested. She added her own coffee which Par Goy tried, and like Talker preferred it with a little syrup in it. The coffee helped clear her head. She had an almond and toffee ration bar and a peanut and chocolate one break the monotony of the bland grain. By the time she got back to the High Hopes she'd be sick of sweet stuff.

  They went back across the hall after dinner and sat in a circle of chairs and couches across the room from the big screen. There was a stub wall between their grouping and the screen and the sound was a discrete murmur. She found out all the children ate separately and those over a certain age joined their elders after dinner. Most of them went to the far screen but a few were interested in the strange guest seated between Talker and Par Goy. Most stood back and tucked their hands together and gave a little bow on being introduced, a few left to join their peers at the screen after their curiosity was satisfied, but one marched right up and held her arms out to be hugged.

  Sitting down was just the right height to be head to head to the little one and she scooted forward and hugged her. Rubbing her head against her muzzle which she liked, lifting it over lee's shoulder and hugging harder. After a good long hug, and the kid was strong, Lee dropped her arms down waist high, although Badgers didn't have much of a waist, but didn't let her go.

  "How old are you Tish?"

  "I'm nine years old. I'm going to go on ships like you when I'm older."

  "Good for you. I like ships."

  "You must! My mother told me you own three."

  "I do. But they are very expensive, and you have to use them to make them pay for themselves. Planets can be very pretty too. What would be the point of ships if we didn't have planets to go to?"

  "I hadn't thought about it that way," Tish admitted. She thought about it a bit, curling her muzzle up. "This is a piece of our planet," she said pulling out a big pebble. Daddy says it is an agate. I found it on the beach and kept it to remember our trip to the sea. You can keep it now to remember our planet and me. It's much prettier when it's wet."

  "Thank you," Lee said taking the translucent stone. It was swirled with red and yellow bands on top of crème color. "I'll give you two gifts. This is a necklace from Earth," Lee took off her Byzantine necklace double handed and put it over the girl's head. She'd found it was bringing up unpleasant memories every time she contemplated it, yet she still admired the workmanship and hated to just scrap it. "You can remember me by it. My other gift is that you may demand a ride on any of my ships that call when you are old enough to be away from home alone."

  With Lee's hands free again Tish grabbed both of them in her hands.

  "Wow, thank you. But that's going to be a long time." She was obviously ready to go right now.

  "I'm sure it will be, but you have to know all kinds of things to go on ships," she said reasonably.

  "Then I'll learn," she said, stepping back and doing the little hand clasp and bow the others had done from afar. Lee didn't clasp her hands but she returned the little bow.

  "You don't have to return a bow to a young one," Talker told her.

  "That's in case I'm not around when she's old enough," Lee said.

  "You're as bad as Amiable," he said.

  "Thank you."

  "The chain is beautiful work," Par Goy said. "What do you call it?"

  "It's made in the style of the Byzantines," Lee told him. "I saw it on Earth and liked it. I was ready to pass it on."

  "These Byzantines are a nation on Earth?"

  "They were a culture over a region of Earth some millennia ago. We have nations come and go but we try to save what is good when we can, including the art forms."

  "That is wildly inappropriate for a small child, but only by custom, not law. I doubt we'll ever pry it off her. She'd yell thief and take me to court before she'd yield it."

&n
bsp; "A nine-year-old could take her lord to court?" Lee asked.

  "Her lord and grandfather. She's a willful child, just like her father, and I fear she'd prevail, because the head judge who sits here is a frosty old woman who is unimpressed with privilege and custom. She'd probably award her punitive damages to teach me not to test her again. She's been known to strip a lord of a tenth of his estate as punishment when he was spectacularly wrong. I've stood before her on two occasions, but I was very, very careful to make sure I was in the right and not just full of myself before I presented a case."

  "I think I like how you do things here," Lee told him.

  "Does the necklace need any care not to damage it or to keep it from corrosion?" Talker asked.

  "I once had a male Human about three times my size try to yank it off my neck to steal it. He practically lifted my by it and it doesn't seem any worse for the wear," she informed him.

  "What happened to him?" Talker asked, wide eyed.

  "He had a... mishap. He, uh, slipped and fell, totally blew out a knee and hit the floor face first so hard he busted his facial bones. He was knocked out, concussed, and couldn't remember any of it later." Lee was gaining maturity and control under Gordon's tutelage, but she still let her face slip for an instant remembering, with a small toothy smile that was chillingly inappropriate to the story.

  "How unlucky," Par Goy said, without a trace of sincerity or belief.

  "Some people are just clumsy," she said with a shrug. "The necklace is platinum and gold, so I don't think you need worry about it tarnishing."

  Talker muttered something in Badger darkly. Shaking his head.

  "Isn't that what Amiable said earlier?" Lee asked, suspiciously.

  "You should know, Tish is Talker's daughter," Par Goy said. He was entirely too amused.

  * * *

  "This is bizarre, the Biters are asking asylum if I understand this correctly. They say some crazy people from another clan fired on a huge ship that showed up at their second colony world. It pulled up next to their station as bold as can be. They can't talk to them at all to make them understand it wasn't their clan shooting at them," Captain Frost said reading Einstein's net post. "The large ships have shot back at Biter ships, apparently much more efficiently than their attackers, and what really has them upset is they snatched a couple ships and made off with them."