Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (44 page)

"He believes," Gabriel told Lee.

"I'm not sure I do yet," Lee admitted. "Then, April is the
same
April we saw in the video? Not her granddaughter?"

"Indeed, April has granddaughters, but she wouldn't want them to live here, next to the slumball."

"Then why does
she
?" Lee asked.

"I'll let you ask her yourself if you have the nerve. I've always been afraid she'd answer by agreeing it was time to move on. Not that she doesn't go out system. But the three rotate somebody in to watch their interests on a regular basis. I don't want to encourage them to abandon the system," Gabriel said.

"There must be a definable reason," Lee insisted.

"If you think you see one after meeting her, run it past me. We'll see if you are as perceptive as Gordon credits you," Gabriel offered.

Gabriel stood up and Lee realized she had been so engrossed in the exchange she hadn't felt them stop.

Chapter 27

When the doors opened,
They're trying too hard to impress me,
was Lee's first thought. Then her native skepticism failed, and she had to admit they'd succeeded.

The room was circular and domed up high. Carved of native stone. Not fitted blocks, rather cut from a monolith. It was about sixty meters across, not huge, but entirely empty. The floor was paved in patterned polished stone. Contrasting colors making a compass rose. Four high peaked arches marked doorways on the cardinal points that would have done a medieval cathedral proud.

The lighting was indirect. Spread somehow on the curved dome surface. Probably from behind the heavy framing shapes around the doors. The four quadrants of the dome up above the door tops had murals painted, showing scenes from both Central and its predecessor Home.

"It's a whispering gallery," Gabriel told Lee. Then seeing her incomprehension explained. "If you stand at exact opposite points, the intercardinal points work best, you can speak in the softest voice and the dome focuses the sound to the other person. Our engineer read about them researching what to build and had to try it."

They started across the polished stone floor. Lee's friends were lagging behind a little, staring. By the time they reached the middle she realized the swish, swish, swish noise was from Gabriel. She stopped and looked down at his feet. He was grinning.

"My footies have a special sole. If you lean forward the front part grips when you pull back and slides forward easily. I can make better time on our floors than most people can ice skating." He demonstrated by taking a couple hard steps, making a sweeping circle with overlapping steps, and coming to an abrupt stop on his heels hands thrown out, showing off.

"You're pretty frisky for a hundred and thirty year old guy," Lee allowed, rounding it off.

"The life extension is not just cosmetic. I'm quite able," Gabriel said, wagging his eyebrows and giving her his best grin.

She hadn't meant it like that, and felt her face burn. "I'm too young... " Lee said, and had every intention to add, 'for you', but failed to finish it. "I grew up away from society, and when I finally visited Earth they didn't leave me trusting others of my kind very much. Gordon tells me I still need a great deal of socialization." That was as much explanation as she was going to offer.

"Ah, My Lady had a similar
vacation
to Earth about the same age as you. She found their hospitality rather wanting too," Gabriel said, grimly.

Lee found her palms sweaty and wiped them down the sides of her shirt, regretting the display of nervousness as soon as she did it, unthinking. She jammed her thumbs under her belt as if that's what she intended to do all along, elbows out. Standing aggressively.

Gabriel started, struck for some reason. He did the oddest thing, turning to her and stepping to look at her straight on.

"I'll try to remember to compare notes with her on that," Lee promised, and stepped around him, forcing him to turn to keep up.

They passed straight ahead through the north portal. It proved to lead to a series of buttresses, each set of which met at the top like the first doorway. There were alcoves to each side between them, some dark, some occupied with furnishings and office equipment and a very few people working at something. One was a library of old fashioned paper books. In another a gentleman was sitting practicing violin. When they got to the end it was a throne room, but a very strange one. April sat at a desk with a computer station on a platform. She could turn and accept someone approaching without the desk between them. A band of carpet ran from in front of the steps up right to the chair.

The large adjustable leather chair looked much more comfortable than any storybook throne Lee had seen. It made sense and was functional. But Gabriel stopped before the steps and checked over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't lost anyone.

When April turned to regard them it was apparent the chair was powered like a pilot's seat. It struck Lee to the core when she saw April face on. She
was
the same woman in the video, not a descendant. Her face was fuller now, more mature, but the same nose and freckles, the same reddish color of hair. It was longer than the boyish short cut in the video. Rather than flipped up on the front edge it was layered and swept back, like a wavy lion’s mane. It flowed over the tops of her ears a bit, but still showed the same sort of gold hoops she'd favored before. She was really starting to believe this story.

April made a little come here gesture with her cupped hand and Gabriel climbed the stairs and approached her.
So, that's how it works,
Lee thought. Gabriel was speaking too low for her to eavesdrop. He however made a gesture back towards her and touched his spex. They both turned and looked at the computer screen. It wasn't turned so Lee could see it, and April looked back at her and smiled. Was she now an object of humor? Had she misinterpreted Gabriel's facial antics and he wasn't flirting? Serious or not, maybe now he thought it
funny
she imagined he could find her attractive. Lee started getting irritated the longer they smiled at the screen.

"Do I
amuse
you?" Lee finally asked, in a tone that should have left them coated in hoary frost.

They both looked surprised. Unaware how she was taking it. April did the same come here gesture with her. "You astonish us because you look just like me in the capture Gabriel did with his spex. Come see. We're not disrespecting you, it's a wonder."

The screen showed April standing in hatch. Not an airlock, maybe a much older elevator. She wasn't in a pressure suit like in the BBC video, but dressed in the same black beaded outfit as the still Lee had. That other pic was obviously a cropped single frame from the same time or cut from video. It showed the whole outfit down to below the knees. She had things hung on her belt and a huge freaking knife with a handle like the one over her shoulder jammed under the belt.

Nobody would ever mistake them for sisters, but April was glaring at the lens, thumbs hooked in a wide belt with an elaborate closure, elbows and shoulders thrown back with
attitude
. Lee on the split screen looked old fashioned, like she was dressed for something like safari, but her body language and killer gaze was a perfect mirror. She looked like a stranger to herself.

"Back when that picture was freshly available the kids on Earth copied the style and drove the authorities nuts," April remembered. "Drove
me
nuts that they copied me too. The kids were banned from malls and such. Your pic would probably do the same. It's been long enough it would be fresh to the kids again, but now all public cosplay is banned. They'd all end up in juvenile detention."

"Oh my. I wasn't actually trying to uh,
project
like that," Lee said.

"Neither was I," April agreed, flicking her hand at her old image.

"Well there is
something
there in common that is... leaking, ladies," Gabriel said skeptically.

They both looked at him until he took a step back and showed his palms.

"He has been useful," Lee admitted.

"That's as much as one can expect," April agreed.

Gabriel hurried to introduce the rest of the party, uncomfortable when he became the subject. Lee noticed April didn't invite the whole mob up on her platform. Then April surprised her all by making sure the Badgers and Bills knew Lee and Gordon were newly met to her, just like them.

"Have you been treated well?" Was nothing they expected to be asked. It was obvious they were neither prepared nor comfortable with the question. They looked at each other, trying to decide if it was worse to speak first or let the other have that turn.

April looked suspicious at their reticence. "They don't report to me," she told the aliens. "I don't know a great deal about their character, and I'm always concerned about people's ethics foremost when I meet them and consider doing business or associating. If they issue a report or publish their voyage log it still doesn't speak to who they are and what was said and done in private. Have you complaints? Because I can see you home safe if you've been under any duress."

That was quite the claim right there. Lee had already decided she was misinformed about the balance of powers in the Solar System. For April to say she could take charge of them and return them home to the deep unknown, was either arrogance or confidence in a shocking level of power.

Talker looked at the floor. "I'm embarrassed to say Gordon has treated us better than we treated each other. When we squabbled like children I was afraid he was going to put us out to walk home. Lee informs me the proper idiom is that he 'knocked heads together until we saw some sense'. It's a marvelous language for horribly blunt statements. One of the crew said that when you damn someone to hell in English they can feel the flames on their toes. It was getting a bit warm."

The Bill just nodded agreement, not as eloquent yet with words as gestures.

Lee had been instructed how to conduct an interrogation by frontal assault with big questions that couldn't be tip-toed around. Even Gordon looked a bit taken aback. There was no chit-chat and getting to know each other. Seemingly no interest in doing business either.

"OK, you're all good with each other, the Derf have a treaty and are at peace with North America again, you've come to file claims with the Commission. You could have sent an unarmed ship in to do that without needing my intervention. I'm happy to meet the fellow who whipped North America's butt. Home did back when we rebelled, you know. I suspect they'll forget you did so almost as fast as they did with us." April played one handed with her chin, thoughtful. "Is there something we can actually do for you besides a pleasant meet and greet and offer you lunch?"

Lee looked at Gordon, and he didn't seem disposed to speak like she hoped. She sure was on the spot up here with April, those shrewd hazel eyes regarding her patiently.

"We want the truth," Lee said, making April look alarmed for the first time. But she didn't interrupt or try to turn it away with a joke. Instead she leaned back, body language saying she'd listen.

"Gordon and I have claims that have paid us very well. We're both rich from them. The Badgers and Bills we've brought along intend to negotiate to use the same Claims system now that our borders are in contact. We hoped for that to remove possible conflict. They have even ceded a cone of space towards us as off limits besides our direct line of our flight to them. They represent a few other species back home too.

"They're peaceful. Despite what Talker said about squabbling, they mixed and traded with unarmed ships until recently.
Now
they are plagued with a newly met race that raids on them and disrupts their trade and exploration. That's another reason they are here. To get weapons to defend their ships.

"We were in last hour count to leave and a Fargoer captain dumped the information on us we may not be
allowed
enter the Solar System armed. We don't
have
any unarmed ships to send anymore, April. We'd have had to stop and strip something bare. But the big thing is Captain Roosevelt destroyed our understanding of the entire balance of power and political stability of the system and the Claims Commission we've been advocating. We'd never heard of the L1 limit for armed Earth ships, or them needing clearance to cross the system to jump.

"Oh, Captain Roosevelt and several other Fargoer ships were at Derfhome because the North Americans sent a warship to perch on Derfhome station. We think it is intimidation, so what you said about them forgetting they were whipped is right on the money.

"How can we still advocate the Badgers and Bills joining our claims scheme? We have huge claims ourselves. How can we submit them and lose control of them if the system is a sham and you and your Lunar friends are the real hidden powers of the Solar System? I'm pretty sure we still don't have the full picture, and this is the first time our new allies have heard any of this," Lee said waving a hand at them.

"Captain Roosevelt intimated Fargone has agreements with you he wouldn't detail. We didn't feel like telling our new friend's spox that maybe we had no idea what we were talking about and queering the whole deal. Do
we
need a deal with you like the Fargoers? Do the Badgers and Bills? What the hell is going on? And to complicate things we find out you live
way
too long."

That last made April smile.

"Oh, and incidentally, we found traces of
another
race that builds tremendous big spaceships similar to the one following us around and we had to blow one of them to hell and gone. So be aware we might have an entire new civilization pissed at us too. I think that covers the big stuff," Lee said.

Talker muttered a long stream of something definitely not English and covered his eyes with both hands. His snout sticking out was half open in dismay, tongue sticking out a little.

"I bet that doesn't translate as 'Oh, goody'," April guessed.