Family Law

by Mackey Chandler

  "And what's the down side?"

  "Well, you are responsible for your mouth once you are free to speak. If you offend somebody we could suddenly be unwelcome. At the very worst somebody could demand satisfaction and challenge you to a duel. That hasn't happened in years. The Mothers never let things get to that point. And you can form legal contracts."

  "How is that on the down side?"

  "If a child shows up at your door in the mountains, even if it's the winter and you are low on food, you have to take them in. If an adult shows up, you could theoretically shut the door in his face, if it is a burden. You can demand payment, or that he pledge to repay you when the winter breaks. Even demand he stay and work it off in the summer, if he's broke. All financial things work pretty much to that pattern.

  "Huh."

  "And you can't take it back once you declare. Oh and if you are an adult, then you are responsible for children. If you are around them you are expected to supervise them and protect them. That means you should avoid being alone with them up in the hill country, because you don't know how to keep them safe," he pointed out.

  "Technically, if you are an adult and visiting Red Tree clan, once you accept their hospitality and stay under their roof you are obligated to defend the place. Like I said, we haven't had a clan war in twelve hundred years, so that doesn't mean much."

  "All of a sudden, lots of things I didn't understand about the language make sense. I didn't have the cultural context to understand some of the sayings. What do I have to do to declare I'm an adult? You have some kind of registry or something?"

  "If you wear an edged weapon, that's your sign to the world. A child can carry a hatchet, or a single bit ax, but a double bit battle ax is an adult's. Same of course with a knife that has a guard. Children can have folders, or a utility blade with a straight handle. I brought a knife from the capitol in case you wanted to do this. I brought a pistol too. If you wear a knife, then you can wear a pistol too. Long guns and bows are tools, if they aren't military grade. There are some exceptions for them, but I don't want to get into explaining complicated customs."

  "Can I think about it tonight and decide before we start out in the morning?"

  "You could, but then you'd best stay in our room. We're close enough to the hill country here that tales travel. If you show yourself one way tonight in the tavern and show up different at Red Tree, they will take it for deception. I could bring something up for you if you want. They don't exactly have room service. At least not any that would hold your interest."

  "What? Why would... Oh crap." Lee blushed and decided to ignore that.

  "Do I get to see what kind of weapons you brought?"

  "Does what I got really make any difference in what you do? If so, I can guarantee you aren't ready to wear them."

  "No, it was just a way to put off deciding. Give me a minute and I'll think on it."

  Gordon fussed with their luggage and watched Lee lay on her back with a bag for a pillow. For all he could tell she was drifting off to sleep.

  "Does that screw up anything about my adoption? Lee asked after awhile.

  "Not at all, late adoptions are common among Derf and mean more in a tribal society. I've seen forty-year-old people adopted where there were issues of inheritance they wanted settled."

  "So, if you adopt me will I be a citizen of Derfhome?"

  That jolted Gordon. "I never thought that part of it out. But if I adopt you then you are a member of Red Tree and by extension a Derf. There may be a few in the clan who don't like that, but nothing they can do. I have enough status they can take a flying leap. So, yes you'd definitely be a citizen of Derfhome. You would be expected to work to the advancement of our clan and do charity to those in need."

  "Huh!" he exclaimed to himself at a new thought. "Being female, you could even come to be named a Mother in time and represent the clan to the outside and sit in judgment over disputes." He seemed a bit shocked at his own idea.

  "OK, that's a lot more than just having you as my guardian. You got a lot of pull in the clan, huh?" she asked.

  "Lee, most of my clan have never been down to the sea. I've been out to the stars. Over the long haul our clan has counted itself successful if it had enough to eat over the winter and the old people and kids didn't starve. I'm like everybody who leaves home to work. I keep my business private and what I make is my business and nobody asked how much I earn, or how much of it I'm going to contribute to the clan. I've been generous enough that the old ladies who keep the books are very kindly disposed to me."

  "Hmm, I'm going to be rich too. Maybe that will make me a little more acceptable to your clan. You got any idea if Derf majority and citizenship enjoy reciprocity in Earth law?"

  "I'm surprised you know the term. And I have no idea. I wouldn't want to try to claim majority for you under Earth law. It's not the same at all and human children who are emancipated are usually sixteen or seventeen and are either married or doing something like joining the military so they are on their own."

  "Yeah, well it was just one of those things you find in a search looking for something else and suddenly you've been reading about it for hours. Something about a bunch of Loonies who went to Japan on vacation and the hotel got all freaked, because the Loonies were all married to each other in a group. Said they wouldn't rent them rooms except by pairs. So it was an issue of Loonie and Japanese reciprocity."

  "How did it work out, do you remember?"

  "Yeah, the Japanese had already allowed Arabs to rent rooms with more than one wife, so they couldn't fail to acknowledge Loonie marriage contracts, if they allowed Muslim. It's hard though, I know one little item of trivia, but you know more about Earth and human customs than I do and I'm the Earth Human."

  "I'm seventy years old and have been closer to a human couple than most Derf ever have had the opportunity. I'll let you read their wills some time. They specifically name me to be your guardian and asked me if that was OK before they wrote it. I read a lot about raising human children and asked them a lot of questions while they were alive knowing it was a possibility."

  "Then why did you ask me if I wanted you to adopt me, if it was all set up from the start?"

  "Because it didn't matter if we wanted it. I had to hear it was what you wanted as well, or I'd have tried to find some other way you'd be happy. I'm not going to force anybody to be family."

  "That is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say," Lee told him.

  "Uh, thanks, I think." he said uncertainly. "I wouldn't call you an Earth Human either. The humans out here are very different and I think Earth will be a bit bewildering to you. I know it was to me when I went there and joined up with your parents."

  "OK, I made up my mind. I'll declare myself a member of polite society and wear the stuff. I kind of figure my mom declared me to be at that stage you are talking about six months ago, when she trusted me with a pistol. But I'm sticking right by your elbow and keeping my mouth shut most of the time, until I figure out what's what. I can just see I won't enjoy the visit, or learn very much, if I can't even ask questions."

  Gordon considered that. He'd never viewed Myrtle's action in that light. It made sense and he knew she wouldn't do something like that without consulting Jack too. Aloud he said - "Good, 'cause I'm getting hungry. I couldn't get another pistol like yours. They didn't have much for humans at all. This is a six millimeter," Gordon displayed a slim automatic. It was nothing pretty, just efficient black death in a compact package. "I'd have liked to get you at least a nine, but I wasn't sure you could handle the recoil. Same make as your first at least, so the safety and sights are the same. The magazine holds twenty-six and there is a spare magazine holder in the edge of the holster," he showed her. The holster had a full snapdown flap too.

  "Why is there a flap on the holster? Doesn't that just slow things down?"

  "It's polite. Derf have a thing about humans with naked guns, given how we started out with each other. I want it to slow you d
own. I want you safe, but I don't even want you to unsnap that flap, unless you are bleeding already. I do not want you shooting some idiot child who has never been off the farm and thinks it would be funny to jump out of the bushes and scare the harmless little Earth child. Understand where I'm coming from?"

  "Derf got idiots too?" Lee asked.

  "The gods seem to have decreed a minimum number, in every race and family, no matter how hard they try to eliminate themselves before breeding age. I have a brick of a thousand rounds and a couple extra magazines. There will be plenty of places to practice on our clan hold, but you have to load the magazines yourself."

  "Thank you, Uncle Gordon."

  "You should stop calling me Uncle Gordon too. It may sound like you are not accepting your adoption. I understand, but plain Gordon would be better. If you try to go back and forth between them you'll forget in public," he warned her.

  "This is your knife. The pistol is enough to demonstrate adult status, but the Derf have a thing about edged weapons. They'd never think to engrave a pistol or put fancy grips on it, but the kind of ax or knife you carry shows your status. I tried to make sure yours was suitable to somebody wearing a Greenie."

  The blade was about a hundred and fifty millimeters long, swirled in strikingly beautiful Damascus. It tapered straight with double edges and at the thick rear was scalloped in from the cutting edges in front of the guard. The guard was in fine silver, each side terminated in a claw clasping a Lapis ball. The grip was small enough for her hand and covered in a wrap of double twisted silver wire. The termination that flared out on the end was fine silver too, but instead of Lapis, a single oval sapphire cabochon was mounted in a rope twist rim.

  "We couldn't find anything human sized like this out here," Gordon explained. "Even the tiniest little plain kitchen knife would still have too big a grip for you. That's why I bought them in the capitol, where there is a market for human sized things. I figured you'd use them someday if not now."

  Gordon slid it in a textured silver sheath, which gave a little snick as it locked all the way in. "You can pull hard and it will come out," he instructed, "or you can touch here," he showed her on the sheath and it will release silently and not drag."

  "This is the prettiest thing anybody has ever given me," Lee told him.

  "Here's a belt to hang them," he continued, pleased and offered her a rig most humans would call a Sam Browne belt. The shoulder belt supported the pistol on the cross draw side and a handy purse clipped on the belt too. He also produced a set of human scale silverware for Lee. Travelers and guests were expected to carry their own in the back country.

  Lee dressed for dinner in canvas pants and a safari jacket over plain t-shirt. By the time she was done Gordon was ready in Derfish rustic formal, a silver studded cross shoulder belt with a small case, a .75 caliber machine pistol and a plain steel ax that looked to mass about twenty kilos.

  Chapter 10

  The room was big, but full of Derf it was cozy. It had been cool when their taxi pulled in near night and even colder now, but the room was warmed by the fire and the mass of warm bodies. It was full of workmen and farmers, some still wearing leather aprons or work harness from their jobs. There was a stew kettle to one side of the hearth and the meat turning they'd seen earlier was being cut by a Derf serving himself.

  There was no big reaction when they walked in. No hush fell, nor did everyone turn and look, but by the time they seated themselves at a small table by the wall, they were certain everyone in the room was aware of their presence and had probably communicated his opinion on them to his neighbor, by expression or whispered comment.

  The innkeeper came around and Gordon told him they would take the hospitality of the hearth and ordered beer. Lee wondered if they had tea, but Gordon had to warn her off it. On the orbital habitat they'd have tea safe for humans, but in the countryside they had herbal teas that could be toxic for humans. They didn't have sodas, so she just said she'd have a sip of Gordon's beer.

  The rustic look of everything was broken by the plastic bag of bread he brought back to the table, with its bright modern printing. They were big circles of flat bread and he left a couple bowls for the stew.

  "Watch me when I go up. You'll get the idea."

  Gordon put his silverware on the table and took a small knife with him, as well as a round of bread and a bowl tucked under his arm. He held the bread under the meat with one hand and sliced off a few strips. Then he set his bowl down and dipped some stew from the pot. He made it look easy with his big hands. He could grip the bowl around the rim in his finger tips from above. Lee decided to leave her bowl and make two trips.

  The knife was so sharp it was scary. She cut one strip off and felt something poke her in the butt tentatively twice. She had no idea it was a fork and figuring it for harassment, refused to give anyone the satisfaction of turning and looking. She hadn't seen one of the regulars in a well used work smock, who had winked at his table mates and gone up to give her a hard time.

  "This little tidbit looks good, but it's a bit on the rare side," an unfamiliar voice muttered in a stage whisper, close behind her.

  The humor of hill clansmen and mechanics and farmers, ran to the coarse. Gordon forced himself to look amused, knowing a few eyes would be watching his reaction more than Lee's. She usually had a good sense of humor, but that was before. He hoped she could handle a little ribbing. The way they were smiling it didn't seem mean spirited.

  "I'm tough and stringy and too salty," she assured her unseen tormentor, remembering her conversation with Gordon and continuing to cut another slice like nothing had happened. Quite a few ears perked up at her flawless command of the local language.

  "Besides, you'd never survive the ... you know," she said mysteriously.

  "No, I have no idea." The strange voice said, with a hint of honest curiosity.

  "The diarrhea," she said, in her own well pitched stage whisper and using a really crude word for the affliction.

  The troublemaker's friend back at their table blew beer through his nose explosively and couldn't decide whether to choke or laugh. Even her tormentor was momentarily at a loss what to do, but then took a big step back and made an exaggerated show of wiping his fork off and inspecting it so dubiously, he looked like he might thrust it in the coals to be on the safe side. Lee finished carving her meat and gave him her sweetest smile as she yielded the hearth to him.

  Gordon made no mention of the exchange and neither did she.

  "Can you go back up and get seconds if you want?" Lee asked.

  "You can if your belly is big enough." He was looking at what had to a kilo and a half of meat on a round of bread a third of a meter across in front of her. He figured he'd have to finish it for her. "Some of these guys will sit and drink all evening and go back up three or four times. They won't start a new haunch of meat, because it takes all afternoon to cook, but they'll dump more stew in the pot from the kitchen and bread is cheap."

  "Not for me. I'm just wondering what is customary."

  "I forgot to tell you, there's a bowl of salt on the side up there, if you need a pinch."

  "This is great like it is. Tastes like beef."

  "That's because it is beef. Some of the things we were delighted to buy from Earthies, were breeding stock for beef cattle, goats and pigs. None of our native herbivores do well in captivity. We still manage them free range and hunt them, but beef is cheaper to raise. Down in the lowlands that is, not up here."

  "No sheep?"

  "Sheep are so gods awful stupid they take too much care and ruin the land if you don't manage them closely. The pigs you just let loose in the woods and harvest them like the native animals. We already had an animal similar to swine so they haven't upset the balance of things much. Our version is a little smaller and more of a digger, making actual burrows. Only trouble with the Earth swine is some of the big boars are so mean they'll attack a Derf."

  "That's - hard to imagine."

  "One of
my letters from home, told me about a male child from my clan, went up a tree rather than mess with a big boar. He spent near a day up the tree before they went looking for him. The pig weighed just under four hundred kilo and had tusks twice as big as my claws. Kid in the tree was about two-fifty kilo so he was smart to climb. He might have taken the boar, but for sure he'd have gotten hurt doing it. On the plus side, they are generally smart enough they stay away from around a clan home with all the activity."

  Lee tried picking up Gordon's beer and gave up on it. She just tipped it on edge and drank deep since it was so much trouble to get to it. It was deep red and just cool, not ice chilled.

  "Not bad," she allowed thoughtfully. "Dad would give me tastes of his beer, but it had a bitter taste this doesn't have. This even has a touch of sweet to it."

  "Out here each inn has its own beer. Even bottled beer is local. They won't drink city beer here. Can't say as I blame them, this is as like to have cheap Earthie wheat or rice in it as barley, now that they grow it in the flatlands. Our clan brews its own of course. All the clan houses have their own brew mistresses and supposed secret formulas. The jokes get even cruder about what the neighboring clans put in their beer, than what you gave back at that joker up at the hearth." He looked over and found his discourse had been wasted. Lee was sound asleep, leaning on the wall.

  Nobody was offended, or even surprised, when he carried Lee out draped over his shoulder. Quite a few customers far bigger and older than Lee left the same way.

  * * *

  In the morning the inn served no breakfast. Lee was very happy she had a couple food bars in her carry case and followed Gordon's advice to eat one slowly, with tiny little bites and save the other. Even Gordon grumbled about not having coffee. He'd forgotten to bring any too. They had a ride again, but to her surprise it was with the local mailman. He seemed not at all surprised at a human as a passenger, just nodding hello.

  Derf disdain for needless redundancy being what it was, he was agent for a half dozen package delivery services as well. When he delivered for UPS he popped on a brown hat with their logo and when he delivered for Cooper's he donned a gray cap with a stylized old rocket.