“Grayson Cabot Lodge was your uncle?” She nodded and I swore beneath my breath.
“The One-Day Revolution is an historical fact,” she went on. “Terranova is today a free society. I have neither the ambition nor the inclination to attempt to change that.”
“Or to help anyone else do so?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Or to help anyone else do so,” she affirmed. “I volunteered for this expedition and I agreed to work under your authority because I wanted to be a part of exploring the Belt, not to pursue some quixotic mission of familial revenge.”
I concentrated on removing a tiny speck of lint from Sean’s blanket. “Lieutenant, either your naïveté is so complete as to be almost incredible or it’s one hell of an act. Must I remind you that during the so-called One-Day Revolution, I was directly responsible for the death of your uncle, Grayson Cabot Lodge, commodore in your service?”
“Ahem,” Caleb said.
“It was my responsibility, Caleb, I was in charge. I was also responsible for Terranova’s declaration of independence, Lieutenant. That, if you remember, put a considerable dent in the prospective profits of one Standard Oil and Solar, a corporation of which your grandfather happens to be majority stockholder and CEO. I gave the order to hijack five Patrol Goshawk fighters for the Terranovan fleet, and—”
“Excuse me, Star, but you were unconscious at the time,” Caleb interjected.
“Yes,” she said. “I was next in line to command that squadron at my next promotion.”
Wonderful. “In short. Lieutenant, if the Patrol starts shooting, there’s reasonable cause for me to be uncertain of which way they’ll be aiming.” I settled Sean in his crib and fastened the safety straps as I spoke. I turned to face Lodge squarely. “Tell me I’m paranoid about your reasons for coming along on this trip. And make me believe it.”
Her square jaw worked for a moment. “Ms. Svensdotter. My name could be Smith or Jones or Clinkerdagger, and if I screwed up an assignment you’d ship me out. If it comes to that, do it for the right reason.”
“And your name isn’t a sufficient reason?”
“Not in my opinion, no. Ma’am.”
We stared at each other for a long time. Caleb’s head swiveled back and forth between us like a spectator at a tennis match. I blew out some air and looked at Caleb with a slight shrug. Caleb nodded to himself as if he had known it all along, and said, “Lieutenant.”
She went back into her brace. “Sir.”
“It’s no use saying you won’t be working under a cloud, because you will. You’ll be watched and followed and second-guessed and leaned over. It’s not fair, I know, but that’s the way it’s going to be, past history being what it is. You’ll have to prove yourself, you and the rest of your squad. You come under my authority out here, according to your orders, and I won’t make it easy for you.”
“I understand, sir. All I want is the chance.” There was real relief in her voice. Relief that she would be given a chance at the job, or at me? I wished I knew.
“You’ve got it. Dismissed.” She left. Caleb said, “I believe her, Star.”
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
He laughed a little and shook his head. “I’ll put her to work as soon as I can. Keeping her busy will keep her out of mischief.”
“I can live with it, as long as she’s working for you and not the other way around. Now get Mother in here.”
“Mother,” I said in what I felt was a calm, rational tone, “if I’d ever been pregnant before I’m sure I’d have remembered it.”
“Esther dear, don’t push your chin out like that,” Mother said. “It makes you look positively australopithecus.”
“Mother,” I said, some of my calm deserting me, “do I have to beat it out of you? Where’d he come from? Aside from that egg I donated to CalTech’s egg bank for that publicity stunt Helen thought up eleven years ago. I have managed to get that far.”
She settled herself more securely in the webbing affixed to the walls of the dispensary and folded her hands. She had small hands, neatly made, that were always either folded or taking notes. She looked down on me benignly. Mother never got excited. Getting excited wasted energy better spent in irritating her children. “Well, dear, as I am sure you recall, I strongly encouraged you to participate.”
“That isn’t quite correct, Mother. You demanded I do it or you’d disown me.”
“If you say so, dear.”
“I do say so. Mother, that egg bank maintains strict anonymity for the donor parents. It was the only way I would agree to enter the program. What’d you do, rob it? And if so, how dare you?”
“Esther dear, what was I supposed to do? There were my only two children, a quarter of a million miles away, and not likely to return home anytime soon, if ever. My only grandchild went gallivanting off around the galaxy without even consulting me.” This with an expressive sweep of one hand that indicated Betelgeuse and other points north. “And there was I, alone on Terra, my husband gone, no other family to comfort me in my old age—”
“All right, Mother, you can cue down the violins.”
“Yes, dear. So I called Helen—”
“Helen knew?”
Mother looked mildly surprised. “Of course, dear. How else do you think I managed to get hold of the right egg? After that—”
“Helen knew about Leif?” When I saw Helen next—
“I just said that, dear. Didn’t I just say that?”
“You just said that, Natasha,” Archy confirmed.
“I thought so.” Mother carried on as if there had been no interruption at all. “It was simply a matter of finding a donor father and a host mother. When Leif was born, I took over. When you came downstairs last December and found me looking so strained it was because Leif had been ill, not I.”
I thought of the thin, pale child and said, “Ill? With what?”
“He’s fine now, dear, just the measles combined with the Arctic flu—do you know they still don’t have a vaccine for the Arctic flu? I’ve never heard of such laggardness. I mean to speak to Carlotta about it.”
“Never mind the Arctic flu, just when were you going to tell me about Leif, Mother?”
Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “I intended to tell you as soon as he was born, taking all the responsibility for his upbringing, of course. But then all that bother started with those Luddite creatures, and after that the Alliance Congress, and then the Space Patrol… well. Hardly a suitable environment in which to raise a child. I hardly ever saw you except when you came home on those awful publicity tours, and even then we were never able to spend more than a few hours alone together. There was never time to sit down for a nice cozy chat.” She sat back, folded her hands, and prepared to dismiss the matter.
“Mother—” I said, and sighed. “I don’t know what to say to you. Have you considered what you are doing to the child? Maybe you shouldn’t have told him. Who says he has to want me for a mom?”
She granted me one of her rare smiles. “Ask him, dear.”
Leif looked at me out of direct blue eyes and said simply, “Who wouldn’t want you for a mother? You’re Star Svensdotter. It’s on the trivee all the time, how you worked to get Copernicus Base going on Luna, how you practically built Ellfive bare-handed. How you kept it free of the Space Patrol so Terrans could move into the sky. I’ve heard about you all my life, and not just from Emaa.” He shrugged and repeated, “Who wouldn’t want to be your kid?”
My face was burning. Caleb was grinning. I managed to say in a steady voice, “So you really feel okay about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I cast about helplessly for something to say. “Because you weren’t my idea. Because although I may be your parent biologically—”
“Oh, that.” Leif’s voice was almost scornful. “We did all that in school.”
“Did what?” I said. “Who’s we?”
“The Pet
ri kids.”
“Petri kids?”
“That’s what they call us.” He saw my blank expression and looked impatient. “You know. ‘Born in a Petri dish, behind a Bunsen burner, in the lab on a Sunday afternoon’?”
I didn’t recognize the words or the tune but I nodded anyway because I didn’t know what else to do.
“We—the Petri kids—figured out that what we do for ourselves is more important than who we came from.” He saw my face change and added, “It’s not like we don’t have people who love us.” He smiled at Mother. “Emaa’s been better than any two parents could have been.” He met my eyes and said steadily, “Probably better than you would have been, too. You’ve been busy.”
“How old are you?” I said.
“Ten.”
I looked at Mother. “You didn’t let the grass grow under your feet, did you?”
“No, dear, I didn’t,” Mother agreed placidly.
It had been a busy week. It wasn’t until the next day that it occurred to me to ask who Leif’s father was. The answer knocked me up against a bulkhead. “Grays?” I repeated in a stunned voice. “Grays? You gave that poor kid Grayson Cabot Lodge for a father?”
Mother said, as if she were reasoning with someone younger than Leif, “Well, Esther dear, he was the only man you were involved with in the entire fourteen years after you went to space.”
“You never liked him, Mother,” I said. “You wouldn’t let me bring him to the potlatch when I brought him home that time. You wouldn’t even let him stay in your house.”
“What has that got to do with anything, dear? The geneticist said Grays’s DNA was very clean.”
“But he almost killed me!”
“Yes, dear, but he didn’t.”
“I married the man who killed Grays, Mother! Don’t you think Leif might have a problem with that?”
“No, dear,” Mother said simply.
The more indignant I got, the more reasonable Mother became. “Did he know?”
“Certainly, dear.”
I rubbed my forehead. Of course he had known. You won’t kill me, Star, I heard Grays’s voice say distantly. Never me. Grays was dead and buried and now he was reaching out to me from beyond the grave. Damn him. Wearily I told Caleb, “Have I ever told you that the only member of my family I ever got along with is dead?”
“That would be your father,” Caleb suggested.
“That would be my father,” I agreed. “It’s why I took his name. A more rational, reasonable man you’ll never meet. You could talk to him. He—”
“Esther dear, I couldn’t have your child fathered by a complete stranger, now, could I?”
“I don’t know, Mother,” I said. “I suppose not. I feel a little dizzy. I think I’ll lay down for a while.”
“Of course, dear,” Mother said solicitously. “I do hope you felt all right during the journey. Zerogee is no fun when you’re pregnant.”
“How would you know?” They left, and I told Archy I was off line for the next eight hours.
· · ·
The next day I told her she and Leif couldn’t stay on with the expedition and that was that. I had help. Caleb suggested that after seventy-three years on Terra perhaps Mother might be unable to adjust to subgee life. Simon told her that the addition of two extra people, one of them a child not bred to space, was simply not feasible for the continued good health of the expedition. “Mother,” Charlie said, tackling the problem from a different angle, “what about research materials? What about your paper on the society of the Alaskan Eskimo after ANCSA? What about the background statistics you need to prove your theory that assimilation is essential for survival of race as well as culture?”
“Carlotta dear, you have been telling me for years about Simon’s computer. If he’s good enough to run Ellfive single-handedly, and to receive an open invitation to browse through a Library somewhere on the other side of the universe, he can surely find some little corner to store the small amount of relevant sociological data I may require en route to Mars. Can’t you, dear?” This last was directed toward the ceiling pickup.
“Certainly, Natasha. My data base is at your service, and I can access the library at the University of Alaska on your word.” Archy’s tone was grave and respectful, which made me wonder what was wrong with him.
“Yes, Simon dear, and I want one of those wrist thingies—”
“Communits, Natasha. Communits.”
“—communits, then, dear, so I may communicate freely with Archy, and we can set up a program as soon as possible.”
“I like your mom, Star,” Archy said. “She reminds me of the Librarian.”
“Thank you, dear,” Mother said. She was quite unruffled at being compared by the only sentient computer in the system to a photonic being that traveled faster than light around the Milky Way doing research for the Encyclopedia Galactica.
“Mother,” I said, squaring my shoulders and meeting her eyes womanfully, “you do not have a skill that will contribute to the success of this expedition.”
Mother looked at me.
“We don’t need you on this trip,” I said, getting specific. “Exogeologists, hydroponics techs, astronomers, yes. A Darwinian social anthropologist, no.”
Mother’s gaze never faltered. I hoped that shine I saw in her eyes wasn’t tears. “Well,” I said. “That’s that, then. I’ll tell Maile to start looking for a vessel inbound for O’Neill. I’m sure Terranova will be happy to have you. Now there’s an evolving society for you to study. You’ve even got a place to live, the Habitat Assembly deeded my house over to me. It’s beautiful, you’ll love it. It’s even got its own cat.” That wasn’t precisely true, as Hotpants had been adopted out to Petra Strongheart, but I was getting desperate.
Mother said nothing.
“And don’t try to argue with me about it, Mother, because my mind’s made up.”
Mother remained silent. “End of discussion. Finito. Pau. Hecho. Done.” Not a word.
So I put their names on the crew roster. It’s a wise child who knows its own mother.
— 4 —
Should-Be-Ables, Inc.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
—Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
CHARLIE WAS BUSIER THAN A CAT with two tails and no room to swing either for the next month. She had that mutant strain of Hudson’s Disease just about whipped into line when a bunch of miners who hadn’t been getting their exercise came down with hypercalcemia. While they were flat on their backs, an epidemic of influenza swept through Piazzi City, another mutation. The cramped, crowded living quarters on Ceres and in the claims encouraged proliferation of the most minor sniffle, so what one got they all did, and then of course everyone spread the infection to Piazzi City, which gave it back to the miners, who brought it back to Ceres and so on ad infinitum. On Terra or Terranova it would have been an overnight task for any moderately sized hospital to isolate and identify the bug; in the Belt, Charlie and Blackwell had to improvise. She lost ten patients before she managed to come up with a vaccine, and she was short-tempered and surly until she did. Immediately thereafter she gave birth, on schedule and with a minimum of fuss, which relieved Archy. As she pointed out in a fair-minded way, she did have more experience at it. Simon wanted to call him Norbert, after Norbert Wiener, but Charlie put her foot down and they called him Alexei after Simon’s father. Alex was little and loud and born looking like he needed a shave. Simon immediately shot a message off to Terra informing his father of the happy event. As he explained, the old man would no doubt wish to alter his will immediately.
Charlie assigned weightless workout sessions for her hype
rcalcemic patients aboard the Hokuwa’a on a rotational basis and the grunting and thumping could be heard all over the ship, nonstop around the clock. The difference between cozy and crowded on a spaceship among 127 permanent residents and God knew how many transients was too close to call. When she got them organized, she turned her attention to me and before I could say “Dr. Benjamin Spock” I found myself in the dispensary with my feet up in the stirrups.
“Uh, Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“How much longer?” She looked at me over my knees and grinned, and I added, “Caleb wants to know.”
She laughed. “Sure he does. Well, the equipment looks in pretty good shape. Give it another two weeks and we’ll see. Okay, I’m through.” She pulled herself over to the clinic terminal and wrote a few notes to my chartdisk. “How do you feel, Star? Good, bad, indifferent? Mentally, emotionally, whatever?”
“I feel well enough for my first visit to Ceres,” I said, looking up from where Sean was already rooting purposefully at my breast. “Is it safe?”
“I give you the booster for Hudson’s?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re up-to-date on your flu shots?”
“Yes.”
“The twins, too?”
“Certainly.”
She sighed. “All right, if you feel up to wrestling your way into a pressure suit, far be it from me to stop you.”
She tugged her way over to her console while I fought my way into my jumpsuit. I really hate zerogee. I keyed my communit and said, “Caleb? Charlie says I can go down to Ceres.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Caleb said from the doorway, Paddy in her baby bag strapped to his chest. “Alert hizzonner that we’re coming, Archy.”
“I’ll go with you, dears,” Mother said from right behind him. “I want to look at the social structure of the place before our presence contaminates it.”
Strasser, Charlie’s first Belter patient, was in the dispensary for his booster shot and he asked if he could hitch a ride. “Sure,” I said. “You’re looking better.”
A Handful of Stars (Star Svensdotter #2) Page 6