Peggy Sue (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (25 page)

Ludmilla turned to Bear and said, “Bear, would you please stand up and show the children how tall you are?” Bear complied, rising to his full two legged height of just over 10 feet. This caused some of the children to back away.

“Come now,” Ludmilla scolded. “There is nothing to be frightened of, these bears are our friends.” With that she turned and hugged Bear, her arms only reaching partway around his body. Bear crossed his two gigantic paws over Ludmilla’s back and lowered his head to nuzzle the top of her parka hood. The children all made sounds of wonder and delight.

Bear released Ludmilla and spoke to the children in his deep bass voice, “anyone else want a real bear hug? Just pick a bear and introduce yourself.” Tentatively at first, children and bears made contact. Soon things pretty much dissolved into chaos, with children and young bears running in all directions and mothers of both species getting to know each other. All was going well and the Captain stood by smiling. Then Emily Hinkle slid down the bears’ slide into the frigid water.

Even while conversing with the mothers, Isbjørn, out of long maternal habit, was constantly scanning the area for threats. She saw the girl was in trouble first. “Bear!” she barked.

Bear was much nearer to the pond, trying to keep the children from getting too close to the water’s edge. Hearing Isbjørn’s alarm he immediately turned around. Following his mate’s line of sight, he spotted the girl as she splashed down in the middle of the pool and vanished beneath the surface. Bear rose and dove into the pond in a single motion, spray from the splash wetting the pool’s edge.

“Emily!” shrieked Mrs. Hinkle, running forward.

“Wait, Mrs. Hinkle,” said the Captain, ensnaring the panicking mother with his parka encased arms. “The bears are better equipped to help Emily than we are.” As he spoke, Bear’s head emerged from the water in the middle of the pool. On his back was Emily, thoroughly soaked and already starting to go into thermal shock.

“Hang on to my fur, little one,” Bear commanded and headed for the pool side where Isbjørn was waiting. As Bear and the girl arrived at the pool’s edge, Isbjørn leaned out and snared the child by her parka. Carrying the sodden child dangling from her mouth, Isbjørn headed for the habitat exit at a run, with Ludmilla close behind.

“Where is that bear taking my child!” Mrs. Hinkle screamed, struggling against the Captain’s embrace.

“Calm yourself, madam,” Jack replied. “Isbjørn knows that Emily must be gotten out of the cold quickly, so she has taken her outside the habitat. Don’t worry, Ludmilla is a medical doctor, Emily is in the best of hands. Come, I will escort you to the door.”

Bear shook the water from his coat like an oversized retriever, much to the children’s delight. Aurora, the other fully mature female, stood up and said loudly “All right everyone, let’s be more careful around the pool, and stay off of the slide.” She sat back down and said to the speechless young mother standing beside her, “it’s always something when you have cubs.”

* * * * *

“My goodness! What happened? Is the little girl alright?” Elena asked.

“Oh yes,” Ludmilla replied. “We stripped off the child’s wet things and wrapped her in my parka before the mother arrived. When Mrs. Hinkle got there, Emily was nestled in Isbjørn’s arms, clutching her fur as momma bear sang an Inuit lullaby. As fate would have it, Mrs. Hinkle was the mother who complained to the Captain.”

“And how did she handle it?” asked Gretchen.

“Surprisingly well, considering that her beliefs about bears must have been turned upside down. She realized that what happened to Emily was an accident and that the bears acted to save her child before the humans present could even react. I am not saying that Mrs. Hinkle is totally won over, but great strides were made in human-ursine relations.”

“I am not questioning why the Captain values the polar bears, they are magnificent animals. These talking bears are certainly worthy of being called people,” Elena said. “But sometimes he seems obsessed with them. Given everything else he has to do, they appear to be a distraction.”

“I asked Jack about the bears once and he was uncharacteristically evasive,” said Ludmilla with a shrug. “All he would say is that the bears have an important part to play in what will come.”

While the tale of the polar bear field trip was unfolding, Jean-Jacques de Belcour had quietly approached the women’s table. Ludmilla spotted him out of the corner of her eye. Her features hardened and she addressed him in a voice as cold as the polar bears’ swimming pool. “What is it that you want, M. de Belcour?”

“Pardon me, Dr. Tropsha, ladies. I saw you all sitting together and thought that I might take this opportunity to make an apology.”

“An apology?” said Gretchen, raising a single questioning eyebrow.

“Yes, Commander. I have come to realize that I have been acting in a most uncivilized manner and I wish to make amends,” said the contrite Frenchman. “I promise not to act so
gauche
in the future.” He then hurried off, not waiting for a reply.

“Now what the hell was that all about?” asked Gretchen, watching the UN representative depart. She looked at Ludmilla and their eyes met.
I agree, I don’t trust that French snake as far as I can throw him,
she thought, knowing Ludmilla was thinking the same thing. 

Chapter 12

Bridge, Peggy Sue, Farside Base Dry Dock

Things were moving apace on Peggy Sue’s retrofit. New systems were installed and a combination of crew, base technicians and robots swarmed about testing equipment and making adjustments. On the bridge, Captain Jack and Lcdr. Curtis were running down checklists and attending to final details before relaunching the ship.

A spaceship the size of a modern navy destroyer presents a daunting list of requirements. Captaining such a ship, like running a base, requires attention to a thousand and one details—food, water, medical supplies and consumables of all types must be loaded and stored. Jack asked, “have the hydroponic gardens been reestablished?”

“Yes, Sir. Miss Hamilton and her crew have replanted and reorganized the hydroponic spaces in double quick time. They are already producing usable consumables.”

“And the other supplies?”

“They will finish loading by the end of the day. Then we will be ready to load ordnance, the new missiles in particular.”

“Good, I’m anxious to see how they perform. A torpedo with an antimatter warhead would have made short work of the refueling station in Beta Comae.”

Gretchen sighed. “I guess that makes it official.”

“What?”

“If you are calling the missiles torpedoes, then we may as well officially designate them as such.”

The Captain chuckled. “Military personnel have a long standing tradition of calling things by names they favor, not the official names handed down by the powers that be. And in this case, I rather like the name ‘torpedo’ myself—it sounds more nautical than missile.”

“Noted, Sir. Torpedoes they are.” Gretchen smiled and consulted the next item on her tablet. “We will be ready to board the ship’s complement in two days. Then we can start to depressurize the dock and a few hours after that we can get underway for the shakedown cruise.”

“I, for one, cannot wait,” Jack said longingly.

“Yes, Sir. I believe we are both sailors too long ashore,” Gretchen replied with a grin.

 “I think that we will visit some of the other planets in our home solar system—I swore to set foot on Mars and see the rings of Saturn up close before I die. We will also need to pick up some antimatter for use in the torpedoes.” The alien antimatter ‘liberated’ from the Beta Comae refueling station was stored on several large asteroids, a prudent precaution given that a single large container of the stuff could end all life more complex than bacteria on a planet the size of Earth. “Send orders to all officers and crew: prepare for departure in two days.”

“Aye aye, Sir,” she acknowledged the order, making an annotation on her tablet. “With your permission, I would like to check on the combat training.”

“Certainly, Commander. How is that going?”

“They’ve graduated to practicing maneuvers outside in full armor with live weapons. That’s as close to the real thing we can manage, unless some of those spider things pop up.”

“Maybe we should ask the robotics section to build some expendable target spiders,” the Captain mused. “No matter, we are just about out of training time anyway. Do you have recommendations for the Marine detachment on the next mission?”

“I’m thinking first squad—twelve humans plus five bears, half our current strength—led by the Gunny, of course,” she replied without hesitation. “That will leave five bears and the second squad of Marines for base defense. We need to convene a promotion board before the final assignments as well.”

“Very well, Commander Curtis. Keep me apprised of their progress.” As Gretchen departed the bridge, Jack looked out over the upgraded bridge, with its additional weapon operator stations and recited: “I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.”

“And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,” added Billy Ray from the helm, where he was running diagnostics. “John Masefield.”

“Very good, Mr. Vincent,” the Captain smiled. “Carry on.”

North Face Airlock, Farside Base

The last few squad members straggled into the large airlock, hidden in another collapsed lava tube. This one, on the north face of the volcanic dome containing Farside Base, was smaller than the tube that housed the ice haulers and shuttles but still large enough to accommodate the entire squad. The twelve human Marines and five ursines had spent the past six hours on maneuvers. Under the watchful eyes of Lt. Bear and GySgt Rodriguez, they practiced small unit tactics, ducking in and out of the shadows on the lunar surface.

The garage door sized airtight hatch closed silently behind them, there being no air to transmit sound. In due course, lights on the lock walls changed from red to green, indicating the presence of a breathable atmosphere.

“OK people, listen up,” said Gunny Rodriguez. “You need to pass through the shower one at a time to wash off the moon dust. In case it isn’t obvious, you should keep your helmets sealed until after the shower. Now move it.”

Moon dust, a fine talc-like covering of pulverized rock was everywhere on the lunar surface. The powder actually consisted of jagged, crystalline rock particles formed by uncounted asteroid strikes over billions of years. It clung tenaciously and got into every crack and crevasse. After trying several other cleanup methods, the approach settled on was a high-pressure shower combined with ultrasound. Even then, the armored suits would need further cleaning by hand.

As the Marines emerged into the station proper they began to remove their helmets, affording them their first breaths of ‘fresh’ air in hours. “I don’t care if these things are powered and the gravity is only 1/6
^th
of Earth’s,” groused Joey Sanchez, “running around in armor is worse than slogging around with a rifle and vest back home.”

“Joey, you would complain if you were being carted around in a sedan chair by nubile slave girls,” replied Jon Feldman.

“Hey,” said Bear, “it’s when Sanchez stops complaining that I get nervous.”

“You said it, LT,” chimed in Ronnie Reagan. “The only time I remember him not complaining was on the Space Mushroom when we almost got our nads blown off.”

The airlock operator called out, “Did you manage to shoot anything out there?”

“Nothing but a few moon rocks,” answered Kato Kwan.

“Just how I wanted to spend my last weekend before shipping out,” added Reagan. “Hell, we didn’t even bag any Mooninites.”

“To quote Ignignokt,” added Jon Feldman, “Here on the moon, our weekends are so advanced, they encompass the entire week.”

“What are they talking about?” whispered Aput to Isbjørn, totally confused by the Marines’ banter.

“References to some obscure cartoon characters, if I’m not mistaken,” she replied. “It would appear that you youngsters aren’t the only adolescents among the ship’s Marines.”

Commanding Officer’s Quarters, Farside Base

Several levels below the Administrative Offices was a block of large apartments, intended for high ranking officers and civilian officials. One of those apartments was designated as the base commander’s quarters, currently occupied by Captain Sutton and Dr. Tropsha. Though even larger than the expansive owner’s suite onboard the Peggy Sue, neither of its current residents felt comfortable living there—it was on the Peggy Sue that they were at home.

“Only two more days, Luda,” Jack said to his lover and soul-mate. As the day of departure approached, Jack was becoming more and more keyed up, like a caged animal anticipating freedom.

“Be calm, Captain of my heart. You will ruin your digestion with all this worrying,” replied Ludmilla from the bedroom. They were invited to dinner with TK Parker and would be going next door to TK’s apartment, where an informal
bon voyage
party was being held.

“Sorry, love, force of habit,” he replied. “A captain readying his ship to sail does not relax until he clears the outer channel marker. So much to do, so much that can go wrong.”

“What was that saying you told me? Never borrow trouble?”

“You’re right. If you set around waiting for something to go wrong, it will. Let’s go next door and put a dent in TK’s booze locker.”

“Now that is the Jack I fell in love with,” Ludmilla said with an impish smile. “Just do not get too drunk, you have obligations later in the evening.”

* * * * *

Ludmilla and Jack arrived to find Gretchen and JT already there, and already partaking in some of TK’s aged Kentucky Bourbon. They were seated in a large, sunken conversation pit on the far side of the spacious living room. A holographic fire crackled in the simulated fireplace, occasional pops heralding showers of heat-less sparks.