Axor put spectacles on nose to regard her the better. “You are a remarkable young being, donna Crowfeather,” he said, a surprisingly courtly turn of phrase. “If I may ask, how does it happen you are this familiar with the planet?”
“I grew up here.” Impulsively, perhaps because she was excited or perhaps because the beer had started to buzz faintly in her head, she added: “And my father was responsible for most of what you’ll see.”
“Really? I would be delighted to hear.”
It was generally easy to confide in a chance-met xeno, as it was not with a fellow human. Furthermore, Axor’s manner was reassuring; and no secrets were involved. The whole quarter knew her story, as did Tigeries across reaches of several thousand kilometers.
“Oh, my father’s Dominic Flandry. You may have heard of him. He’s become an Admiral of the Fleet, but forty-odd years ago he was a fresh-caught ensign assigned to the planet Starkad, in this same sector. Trouble with the Merseians was pilin’ up and—Anyway, he discovered the planet was doomed. There were two sophont races on it, the land-dwellin’ Tigeries and the underwater Seafolk; and there were five years to evacuate as many as possible before the sun went crazy. This was the only known planet that was enough like Starkad. It helped that Imhotep already had a scientific base and a few support industries, and that Daedalus was colonized and becomin’ an important Naval outpost. Just the same, the resettlement’s always been a wild scramble, always underfunded and undermanned, touch and go.”
“The Terran Empire has many demands on its resources, starting with defense,” said Axor.
“Although one must deplore violence, I cannot but admire the gallantry with which Admiral Magnusson cast back the Merseian attack last year.”
“The Imperial court and bureaucracy are pretty expensive too, I hear,” Diana snapped. “Well, never mind. I don’t pay taxes.”
“I have, yes, I have encountered tales of Admiral Flandry’s exploits,” said Axor in haste. “But he cannot have spent much time on Imhotep, surely.”
“Oh, no. He looked in once in a while, when he happened to be in the region. A natural curiosity. My mother and he—Well, I keep tellin’ myself I shouldn’t blame him. She never did.”
Once Maria Crowfeather had admitted to her daughter that she got Dominic Flandry’s child in hopes that that would lead to something permanent. It had not. After he found out on his next visit, he bade a charming, rueful goodbye. Maria got on with her own life.
“Your mother worked in the resettlement project?” Axor inquired tactfully.
Diana nodded. “A xenologist. She died in an accident, a sudden tidal bore on a strange coast, three standard years ago.”
Maria Crowfeather had been born on the planet Atheia, in the autonomous community Dakotia. It had been among the many founded during the Breakup, when group after ethnic group left a Commonwealth that they felt was drowning them in sameness. The Dakota people had already been trying to revive a sense of identity in North America. Diana, though, kept only bits of memory, fugitive and wistful, about ancestral traditions. She had passed her life among Tigeries and Seafolk.
“Leaving you essentially orphaned,” said Axor. “Why did nobody take care of you?”
“I ran away,” Diana replied.
The man who had been living with Maria at the time of her death did not afterward reveal himself to be a bad sort. He turned out to be officious, which was worse. He had wanted to marry the girl’s mother legally, and now he wanted to put the girl in the Navy brat school ‘ on Daedalus, and eventually see to it that she wed some nice officer. Meanwhile Tigeries were hunting through hills where wind soughed in waves across forests, and surf burst under three moons upon virgin islands.
“Did not the authorities object?” Axor wondered.
“They couldn’t find me at first. Later they forgot.”
Axor uttered a splintering noise that might f be his equivalent of a laugh. “Very well, little sprite of all the world, let us see how you guide a poor bumbler. Make the arrangements, and leave me to my data and breviary until we are ready for departure. But can you give me an idea of what to expect?”