April 4: A Different Perspective (16 page)

He'd taken the pill they'd offered, but he'd bet anything his sister hadn't, or had faked taking it and spit it out. She simply
hated
anybody telling her what to do. If he told her she had to breathe she'd probably pass out trying to prove him wrong.

His mother looked back between the seats ahead of them and demanded he help his sister. But when he asked exactly what she suggested he
do,
she had no idea. It seemed a very personal endeavor and if he expressed support he expected from long experience it would be taken badly.

The few pushes and bumps to get them docked didn't seem to help Lindsy. The opposite, really. When they docked a crew member came back and suggested she switch to a fresh bag and removed the old one. Then another towed her out behind the family, like a big party balloon.

The station was really interesting, but they sort of rushed through with Lindsy moaning and she had her eyes clamped shut so she missed everything. The crewwoman handed Lindsy off to a station security guy, who handled her for them all the way to the elevator. They had enough trouble moving themselves, but he ducked back out of the elevator and assured them she'd have some weight pretty soon.

The guy was right, they had enough weight to stand soon enough, but he obviously didn't know Lindsy and the high drama she'd likely display for days. She acted frail. You'd think she'd been shot or something. He'd have liked to slap some sense into her, but she had twenty kilos on him and he had a scar from the last time they fought and she bit him.

His father would have let her crawl on the floor, before he'd allow her to hang on him, so his mother ended up with her draped all limp on her shoulder all the way to the Holiday Inn. The manager was so alarmed at her act he asked if they needed directions to the infirmary. His own inquiry if they had a mental facility was probably a mistake he'd pay for later, but worth it.

Everybody was hungry because they made you board without breakfast. Fortunately the cafeteria was nearby and they got ready to go over there. His mom called the front desk and asked if they had someone to sit his sister Lindsy. If she suddenly was well enough to go to dinner it would spoil her act. She knew her mom would bring her something anyway. The man looked at her out of the screen with a funny expression. "Is that the girl you just had in the lobby?" he asked.

"Yes the blond girl."

"Excuse me, but is she mentally or physically challenged that she has special needs?" he asked, confused.

"No," his mom said, irritated, "but she is
sixteen
. We follow the letter of the law and won't leave her alone until she is eighteen."

"Ms. Pennington, there is a nursery on this level for children to sleep over at full G. They might accept her for a part shift, if you'd care to call. The facility is mostly for sleeping however. As far as the law, there is no such law on Home. You will find that there is very little legal custom carried over from North American law to Home. Most folks on home regard a sixteen year old, or even younger, as safe to leave alone if they are not impaired in some way. Do what you feel correct, but the hotel doesn't offer sitting services."

"Very well, we'll figure something out," she said and disconnected with a sigh.

"Dare we leave her here, or will she flood the place before we return?" she asked her husband. Eric apparently didn't need to remind them of the plugged toilet incident. She kept flushing it until the water coming down the stairs had alerted them to a problem. It had been too embarrassing to come tell them about it getting plugged up, because it involved bodily functions, but somehow flooding the upper level until it ran downstairs hadn't embarrassed her at all.

She'd been fourteen then it was true, he bit his lip and kept silent. Somehow the fact
he
never flooded the place or set the cat on fire, or used their dad's work phone to download slash never earned him any credit. In fact some days it appeared to him being a mess and a hazard got you more favorable attention than acting sane.

"The toilet looks to be powered," his dad pointed out. "They seem to have some pretty good engineering here ," he said, pointing out the Do Not Cover warning by the air intake high on the wall and visible sensors. "I'm going to go eat dinner. If Lindsy needs to lay here and pine and moan, she can do so without my help. If you want to stay here hungry and pat her hand and reward her for that 'I'm a delicate little flower crap' go right ahead. I told you a year ago I was done with that and I meant it."

"We could leave Eric with her," his mom considered tentatively.

"Eric is fourteen," his dad pointed out, angry. "If you are leaving the fourteen year old with the sixteen year old, because he has better sense, something is mighty screwed up."

"Well he's a boy," his mom gave tentatively as an excuse. Missing what an insult that was.

"I refuse to sit her anyway," Eric informed her. "If you leave me here I'll walk out after you leave and try to find my own dinner. I'm hungry too, you know. She ignores me anyway. If I told her stay out of the refrigerator she'd be in the hotel booze before you got back, just to show me she doesn't have to listen to me."

"Oh my God! They leave alcohol unlocked, where children might get in it?" His mom looked in the refrigerator as Eric already had and was horrified. "Mo, put all this all in a bag and take it to the front desk. and tell them how upset I am they'd leave such a hazard in the room!"

"Bring it along yourself if you want," her husband said. He had fresh socks on and was tying his sneakers back up. "Eric and I are going to dinner." He gave Eric a wink on the side she couldn't see and got up. His wife scrambled to get the beer, wine and tiny single-serving booze bottles in a ice bucket.

"You stay here," she ordered her daughter. "You may watch video, but no trying to access adult channels. and no use of the com to call your friends. You can text and visit your usual sites if you wish, but I'm going to inspect your log when we get back. Understand?" she asked.

That got a sullen nod that wasn't real agreement. But Eric was in the corridor and her husband going out the door so she hurried after them.

The desk man accepted the alcohol rather indifferently. "Ma'am there are coathangers and bedding in the room too. If she is determined, she can find something to harm herself. I just want to point that out, given your apparent low expectations. We are not responsible for people at special risk. We don't rent any padded cells," he said bluntly. Eric give him a wink and was pleased the man had almost no reaction, just a twitch of the eyes. The fellow picked up on what a danger his sister was earlier than most.

"No, no it isn't that sort of a problem at all," Linda denied. "She's a normal teenager, just a little high strung and sheltered," she asserted. "She'll be fine."

 Eric hoped for his sake the man got that disclaimer on the surveillance recordings.

Chapter 19

"Hello? Director Silverson? This is Administrator Hartug on the spacecraft. Could we establish a link and conference on com?"

"This is Jesse Silverson. What would you like to tell us?" he invited. This was awkward. Terrorists usually are quick to speak and slow to listen, but he kept putting the burden of the dialog back on him.

"Could we have video too please, so we can effectively speak face to face?"

"No, I don't think so. You will have the best software to detect any slight doubt or hesitation on my part. I can chop off the dynamic range of my voice and we are dealing with our bare words and not playing games guessing each other's veracity. I like that better."

"Very well. What exactly do your propose to end this impasse?

"Oh that," Silverson replied, like they might discuss the latest Cubs game. "We had in mind we vacate Armstrong and allow you to install whatever new administration pleases you, but we have no desire to go back home in cuffs and spend the rest of our lives in courtrooms and prisons. Look at the plus side, you avoid the expense of jailing us long term and the embarrassment of having us extradited."

"That has some appeal," Hartug admitted. "It falls within the envelope of solutions that President Wiggen requested. She basically wants her orders followed and doesn't have any particular personal vengeful agenda to punish anyone. She certainly didn't want this international court case. But if we return you to Earth I don't see any way you'd avoid that. Even if we returned you to South America or Japan I believe you'd end up extradited to The Hague."

"How about if we stay in space? Find one of the other moon colonies or orbital habitats that will let us enter and we'll go there. There is a small matter of transportation you'd need to supply, but it looks to us as if your ship is large enough to take us. You can stay here and we'll send it right back once we are safely delivered and you should be going back home in five or six days at most. There are plenty of supplies and accommodations here to let you wait in relative comfort."

"How do you know we wouldn't just dock at a USNA controlled habitat?"

"Well, we intend to take several of our associates here with us. We'll leave them in the ship when we dock. We certainly know the various habitats by sight, so that is no problem."

"I'll call and see if we can get somebody willing to receive you," Hartug offered. "What do you propose if nobody
wants
you?"

"I'd rather not make threats. It would be a small matter for the USNA to sweeten the deal to make offering us asylum more attractive. I suggest you think along those lines," he said and disconnected.

"Lieutenant Carlson, I suggest you pull in your men outside. I am going to need to make a number of calls before this will be resolved. It's likely to go past the time you'd like your men to be bottled up in a suit. They can rest and be fresh if we need them out there again."

"Thank you, Administrator. I'll keep one sealed up just inside the lock in case somebody approaches, but we can rotate that position in shifts too."

"Lieutenant, is there anything in your orders that would preclude us staying here a week or so, if we had access to the various accommodations and services in Armstrong? I'm considering sending the
Pagosa Springs
away, back to Earth orbit and then they'd return for us."

"No sir, we are fully at your disposal. I'm sure they have air for us and we even have our own rations for that long. If you don't mind me asking sir, what would the Pagosa Springs be going to fetch back to us?"

"She would be removing our trouble makers rather than returning anything."

"I didn't see that one coming," Carlson admitted. "If I might suggest sir. It is terribly expensive and wasteful to deadhead an empty vessel across space. If you send her back to Earth orbit, then it would make sense to restore the original load we removed before returning to the Moon. It would add a day or two to our stay, but save millions of dollars."

"Thank you Lieutenant, I'll inform you when we have something definite agreed upon."

* * *

When the Penningtons went back in the corridor it was near the start of first shift and there were a lot of people going every which way purposefully. It had been late in the off shift when they arrived off the elevator and they'd only passed one person going to the Holiday Inn. Linda grabbed her husband's sleeve and held him back. "Let's go back in the hotel," she urged, "something is going on, look at these people. About half of them have some sort of gun. We better call the police and report this."

"Linda, if half the people are walking around with guns don't you think the police are well aware of it? Do you think they are locked in a closet somewhere and haven't been out today? I'd point out they are just going about their business. Nobody is waving them around and wildly firing. What exactly would you report? Nobody is threatening you."

"I'm scared just to see them. It's enough to make me scared somebody
could
hurt me. How can I feel safe?"

"How can you feel safe in Vancouver? About half the people around you every day are bigger and stronger than you. They could hurt you if they wanted to and they certainly wouldn't need a gun to do it. You are afraid of everything and I'm tired of it. Go back to your daughter you've taught to be afraid if you want. You can both cower in the rooms and maybe wait until the middle of the night and slink out when nobody is about."

"Will you bring us something back?"

"No, you didn't have to come up here. I could have worked the assignment alone and come back every six months on leave. You are the one who insisted we stay together. If you can't deal with it, we'll get you and the kids a ticket home."

"People who are apart that long end up divorced. I've seen it too many times."

"You mean you saw it with your father. I'm not your father," he reminded her forcefully. She might have said something, but not in front of Eric. "Let go of my elbow, it looks ridiculous and either come along or go back to the rooms."

"I'll come, but this is a terrible place," she muttered.

The cafeteria was pretty busy. There was a line of seven people moving along. A few helped themselves to a very simple buffet and self-serve coffee. There were little knots of people talking and they tended to the side close to the coffee. There were two ladies, one at the counter and one at the moment tending the coffee urns.

Linda was shocked to see she was pouring coffee beans in a hopper. They fresh-ground and brewed real coffee. That was an expensive luxury back home. Mitsubishi had earlier served liquid concentrate, but people had started bringing their own coffee, or buying it down the corridor and ignoring the house coffee, so they'd been shamed into upgrading recently.

The menu board wasn't what she was used to. In North America if you didn't order a balanced diet from three separate color coded lists you were charged a twenty percent surtax. If you just ordered from one and it was more than four-hundred calories, it was another five percent added on.

"We're new here," Mo informed the lady behind the counter. "I'm going to be working here, not just visiting. Is there some sort of a membership or residents discount?"