`And do you really have to report back to Blundell in just six more days?’ Clancy, she’s thirteen! Damia said on a tight line as she recognized the adolescent symptoms in her daughter.
Don’t think I don’t regret that, Damia. You’ve mothered a brood of heartbreakers, so you have, and it’s not fair on poor mortals like us Denebian backwater boonies.
Backwater? Boonies? Then Damia burst out laughing, knowing that Clancy would handle Morag’s crush gently, Don’t ever let my father hear you say that!
It’s your father I learned the words from, but I’d never have the gall to repeat them near your mother!
Roddie appeared next and it was his intention to swim off the exertions of the evening before and that seemed like such a good idea that the heated pool was crowded by the time the last Lyon arose.
`Thought you’d like to hear what else happened,’ Roddie said to Rojer, Thian and Flavia after brunch when they found themselves more or less alone in the lounge area.
`Like what?’ Thian asked.
Roddie grinned. `Our queen’s hatched up a lot more speciality creatures and, while I don’t know for sure, I’d say she was assembling a crew to help her fly Refugee out of her vile durance.’ He paused, waited a beat, and then went on. `She’s a lot more active, too, and sends the scurriers out on all kinds of errands. Some of the new hatchings are the kind that would go down the conduits and pipe lines I understand connect the Refugee. And she’s got a couple of big bruisers we couldn’t quite figure out a need for. They’re not true males so it isn’t a mating she’s after. She’s also started planting … of all things – the seeds and pips she’s saved from her food. Used her own dung to plant `em in. Got herself a trio to take care of the garden, too.
`What sort of things is she growing?’ Flavia asked.
`Broad-leaf plants,’ said Roddie with a significant wink and nod.
`That’s going to be one disappointed female,’ Thian said with a thin smile.
`Counting on hatched eggs isn’t wise,’ Rojer said.
`No, no, you mean don’t count on eggs until they’re hatched,’ Thian said.
`Uhuh,’ Roddie put in, waggling an index finger.
`You’ve both got it wrong. It’s putting all your eggs in one basket.’ `What are you talking about?’ Laria asked, joining them.
Each one answered simultaneously. `Eggs!’ `Chickens!’ `Expectations!’ Rojer looked about him, concerned. `Where’d Asia get to?’ When no-one knew, he went to the kitchen.
`Mother, you seen Asia?’ `Xexo has her,’ Damia said and added to Rojer’s disappearing form, `she is here to learn Tower engineering, you know.
The last day of their holiday Rojer, Thian and Flavia were asked to attend the Tower for a conference with Earth Prime.
Thian wondered if Rojer felt as odd as he did, to be sitting on their own, on their parents’ couches. The generator silence, too, was unusual but then a link between Primes did not require the use of the gestalt.
That fact gave Thian a certain glow of satisfaction probably about to be blasted by whatever his grandfather had in mind for him.
thian Lyon, Rojer Lyon, Flavia Bastianmajani, Jeff Raven said, stating the official nature of the interview, I know I offered you choice in your next assignments but there have been some unusual developments. I heard that groan, Thian.
Yes, sir, so what’s happened? They’ve cancelled the pursuit, and Thian felt a wave of almost prescient dread that that was what Jeff Raven would say and he knew that to discontinue the search right now could only have serious repercussions in future generations when the Hive imperative sent yet more Sphere ships forth from their colonial fastnesses, looking for more M-5 worlds to colonize.
The Washington The who? Thian thought he was familiar with the names of all the major Alliance ships. Rojer raised eyebrows and shoulders, puzzled, too.
The Washington is the Nebula class battle-wagon that the Alliance has built, mainly from Aungaeon metals, I might add, Jeff replied with a droll tone to his voice, and that’s not yet to be public knowledge.