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“Gracie’s on the warpath about you,” her father said.
“I know.”
“You might want to do your bookwork here today,” he said. He didn’t quite twinkle at her, but there was an edge of humor in his voice.
“Thank you,” she said. “Where’s an empty workstation?”
“San’s off checking yield in the young plantations; you can use his office. Don’t answer the phone.”
Ky dumped her shoes and boots in the corner of San’s office, and pulled up more of the data she needed on his station. Facts flowed into her mind: the history of the Gle
“I’m not sure what Gracie’s got in mind for you, Kylara, but you probably should come back here tomorrow. Or just go out. You won’t have a chance to snorkle or ride again for a long time.”
“Would that be all right?” Ky asked.
“You’ve been working hard. I’m sure you can decide how much more work you need to do. Take the day if you feel like it.”
Ky dreaded the thought of di
Early the next morning, she was down at the shore shortly after dawn, squinting into the light to check the buoys supporting the protective nets that kept out the larger marine predators. How long had it been since she had a day to herself, a day free to do whatever she wanted? She couldn’t remember—years, anyway. Every brief vacation from the Academy had been filled with duties—courtesy calls on this or that family member, di
Little waves slid meekly up onto the sand, leaving interlocking arcs of wet behind them; squirts of water revealed the hiding places of burrowing clams. Ky struggled into her wet suit, clipped on her safety beacon, put on gloves and flippers, and almost fell on her nose when she started toward the water and caught a flipper in the sand.
Once in the water, she moved slowly out to the first of the broad, knobbly coral heads, where she knew she’d find a flurry of brilliantly colored small fish. Her implant gave her the names. A black-tooth undulated into her view; she turned to face it. It retreated to deeper water, then dove into the sandy bottom, fluffing sand over itself. Her implant marked that location; she would be careful not to step on it.
She had set the timer for two hours; when the implant beeped, she stroked back to shallow water, then stood up. She felt heavier; she always hated coming out of the water once she was in. Her father had used that as a metaphor for growing up, leaving the easy support of a family and carrying her own weight, but she resented his lecture. Unless it meant you could drown in your support system, and this day she simply wanted to enjoy the beauty.
She looked again at the lagoon, and thought about the rest of the day. She could saddle a horse and ride out through the plantation, or… she could stay here. She queried her implant. Aunt Gracie was on the move. All the horses were in use. Half-a
“I made this just for you,” Aunt Gracie said at breakfast the morning Ky was leaving. She handed over a gaily decorated sack. Ky almost dropped it when she took it; it must weigh, she thought, five or six kilos.
She looked in. There, swathed in bright-colored flowery wrapping paper, were the unmistakable shapes of three of Aunt Gracie’s special fruit-spice cakes. Aunt Gracie beamed at her.
“You’ll be gone a long time, and I always say that a taste of home is the best thing to cure homesickness…”
Aunt Gracie’s fruit-spice cakes were, without doubt, the densest mass of flavorless, tooth-breaking pseudofoodstuff in the galaxy. She produced them at intervals, for birthdays and holidays, and the family disposed of them discreetly as soon as she was out of sight. Even a sliver of Aunt Gracie’s product left Ky with a day or so of gastric uneasiness.
“Uh… thanks,” Ky said. She could always leave them under her bed as insect repellent blocks… she’d done that with the ones Aunt Gracie had given her each year to take to the Academy.
“I know how rushed it can be, when people leave on a long assignment,” Aunt Gracie went on. “So let’s just let Jea
San made a sound; Ky looked at him, and his lips were folded tight but his eyes danced mischief.
“Thank you,” Ky said again. She handed the sack to the maid and resigned herself to dumping Aunt Gracie’s creations into some unsuspecting trash container on the way to her command. She was not going to spend five kilos of her personal baggage allowance on inedible crud.
She finished her juice, and made her escape—not without kissing that withered old cheek—to the car, where her father waited to drive her to the airfield.
“If you’re pla
“How did she find that out?” Ky asked.
“Bribed the staff, I shouldn’t doubt,” her father said sourly. “But look at it this way. Anything is a commodity to someone. In a very large universe, your aunt Gracie’s ca
Ky snorted, surprised into a laugh for the first time since her private disaster.
“Courage, Ky,” he said, as he stopped the car and leaned over to give her a kiss. “You’ve got what you need to start a good life. Go.”
Gaspard was waiting on the apron. “You look better,” he said, as he looked up from checking the oil. “So, what did the family do for you?”
“I’m taking Gle
“And give you a chance to show your talents,” Gaspard said. He went on with the preflight check while she looked around, trying to fill her memory with the home she would not see for months, maybe years. Maybe ever again, space being what it was, and life being less certain than she’d thought the last time she left.
“Well… assuming I have any.” What talents did it take to captain an experienced crew on a boring one-way run? Now if she could figure out a way to avoid scrapping the ship and surprise the family with a great triumph of trading…
“Don’t fish, Ky; it doesn’t become you.”