“We’re sure,” said one of them.
“It was my fault,” said the other. “I should have told her about …”
I lifted a hand to stop her. “I’m not asking for private details. I just want to know you’ve thought carefully about this.”
“We have,” they chorused.
I did the registering and congratulations routine. The next ten marriages were straightforward. All established couples from Military families. All duo marriages. I’d very rarely had to officiate at a triad marriage in my career, because most of them involved at least one Betan, and Betans always wanted proper clan ceremonies.
The last but one couple puzzled me. They were another two of the Military scientists, but I remembered this pair perfectly. I’d had to give them disciplinary lectures at least four times because their running feud with each other was disrupting their work.
“I thought you two hated each other.”
The man shrugged. The woman nodded. “We do.”
“Why do you want to get married if you hate each other?”
They both started speaking at once, and broke off to glare at each other. “I don’t believe that information is relevant,” said the man.
“I think it is.” I quoted Military Regulations. “When officiating at a marriage, a commanding officer must ensure all parties have given due thought to the commitment involved.”
“It’s a purely temporary arrangement,” said the man. “We’ve been informed we’re a genetically desirable match, and we want the child to be born within a marriage for legal reasons.”
I gave him a startled look, and hastily checked their records. Both born on Freya in Alpha sector, and obviously believers in its old genetically-guided parenthood system. Under the rules of the Military Charter, my official actions had to be politically neutral and without prejudice. Whatever my personal opinions, I had no right to refuse to marry these people.
I sighed, went through the formalities, offered congratulations that didn’t seem very welcome, and gloomily watched the pair of them leave.
The final couple on the marriage list were a total contrast. Two lieutenants, both from Military families, who’d arrived from the Military Academy just three months ago. They looked incredibly young, but everyone under the age of 40 looked young to me these days. The way they were holding on to each other told me they were genuinely in love, so I was far happier marrying them than the couple from Freya who hated each other.
When they’d left, I frowned down at the table. I’d planned to rejoin the party at this point, but only stay long enough to say a personal farewell to a few key people before going back to my quarters to finish my packing. After that, my idea had been to quietly leave for Tethys in Gamma sector. I hadn’t been back to my home world since my parents died, and I had an odd hankering for a nostalgic visit to the carrot fields.
Things were different now though. The wall shielding me from the past was breaking down, so I had to rethink everything. I ran my fingers through my hair. I’d stay for most of the party, and then go to Tethys as planned, but a couple of days with the carrots should be more than enough to rekindle my old hatred of them. After that, I’d go to Zeus in Beta sector, and revisit a few places I hadn’t seen in two decades, like Lake Galad. If I coped with that, then maybe I’d call in at the clan hall for an hour.
I heard the female voice in my head. “Why did you two decide on Galad as the male surname for our triad marriage?”
“We’ve told you that at least a dozen times,” said the male voice in my head. “Combining Torrek with my surname came out sounding silly. Riak and I went on a boat trip at Lake Galad just before our betrothal ceremony. That was when we talked through his concerns about exactly how the relationships in our triad marriage would work.”
There was a female sigh. “I still have the feeling you’re hiding something.”
She was right. What actually happened was we were messing about and capsized our boat. He scared me to death by vanishing underwater, and I dived down to save him from a watery grave, only to discover the man could swim like a fish and was happily trying to retrieve his jacket from the lake bed.
Once we reached the beach, he made the mistake of teasing me about my panic-stricken reaction to his assumed death by drowning. I was in an emotionally unstable state, so I hit him over the head with a beach parasol, and the fight ended with us both getting arrested. The conversation about relationships took place when we were locked in neighbouring prison cells.
Betan dialect has a lot of different words to describe the possible triad relationships. There is one where two of the partners have a deep platonic love for each other. There is another where two of the partners have a deep platonic hatred for each other. We established that we had our own subtle mixture of these, since he was happy to admit we were the first, but I felt more comfortable pretending we were the second. However much he might enjoy teasing me about that, and trying to push me into admitting the truth, he’d better not overdo it or I’d hit him over the head with another beach parasol.
On any planet outside Beta sector, the civilian authorities would have handed the pair of us over to Military Security, and we’d have been put on report for public brawling. We were on Zeus though, so an official eventually turned up, and got us to state we were both willing participants in the fight. After that, we just had to pay for the beach parasol I’d broken and we were free to leave.
A chime from my lookup interrupted my thoughts. I glanced down at it, saw Marack was calling me, accepted the call and projected his holo image in midair. I frowned when I saw the state he was in. His uniform was crumpled, he looked exhausted, the age lines on his face were deeper than usual, and there was a spectacular bruise on his forehead. His grim expression changed to shock as he saw me.
“You’re wearing a toga, Father!”
I’d totally forgotten I was still wearing the toga. “You can blame Drago for that. He practically forced me into it. Never mind that now. What’s been happening on K19448? You look as if you haven’t slept in a week.”
“I certainly haven’t slept in days,” said Marack. “It looked as if we had the planet stable, but everything suddenly exploded again. You know how fast trouble can flare up on Planet First missions.”
I nodded.
“That’s why I’m calling you,” said Marack. “My replacement was supposed to arrive next week. I was going to spend a few days handing things over to him, then head to Alpha sector and take up my new post commanding the five Earth solar arrays.”
“You don’t think you’ll be able to leave?” I asked.
“I know I won’t be able to leave,” said Marack. “We’ve just had to send K19448 back to maximum quarantine status.”
“Chaos!” I knew how desperately Marack wanted that post commanding the Earth solar arrays. “That means you can only leave if K19448 has a full emergency evacuation, and even then you’ll be stuck in a quarantine area for ages.”
“I need to get to Earth within the next two weeks to take up my new command,” said Marack, “and I can’t possibly make it. Solar Array Command can’t hold the position for me, because they know this sort of Planet First situation is totally unpredictable. I could be stuck here for months, even years, so they’ll have to appoint someone else. I hate to ask this, Father, but …”
“Yes,” I interrupted him. “Of course I’ll take the position until you arrive, and then hand it over to you. At least, I will if I’m eligible for it. I’m no expert on the technical side of running solar arrays.”
“You leave the technical side to your Science team leader,” said Marack. “Your job is managing people and making any necessary command decisions.”
He paused. “It would be a huge relief to me if you do this, Father. General Dragon Tell Dramis has offered to be a temporary substitute for me, which is extremely generous of him, but you know the reason I’m so eager to get this Earth posting and Dragon …”
He didn’t need to finish his
sentence, because I was already shuddering at the idea. “Oh no, we can’t let Dragon go anywhere near this! He’s brilliant at wading into lethally dangerous situations and getting them under control, but when it comes to dealing with people he has all the sensitivity of a charging herd of Asgard bison. I know that the second Dragon hears I’ve been seen in public wearing a toga, he’ll be pushing me to rejoin the clan, allocating me rooms in the clan hall, and suggesting duties I can perform.”
I pulled a face. “I know Dragon would only be doing those things because he wants to welcome me back to the family, but rejoining the clan is a huge emotional journey for me. I need to take it at my own speed, or I’ll fall apart all over again.”
“You mustn’t let Dragon put you off returning home to us,” said Marack.
“I won’t.” I smiled. “Dragon’s fond of giving other people lectures, but if he starts pushing me to do things I’m not ready for, I’ll be the one giving him the lecture for a change.”
Marack laughed. “Dragon won’t like that.”
“He’ll hate it, but my age means he’ll just have to listen in dutiful silence. Dragon may be a General, and on clan council, but he still has to treat his elderly uncle with proper respect.”
I paused. “Anyway, my point is that I’ll make sure Dragon doesn’t interfere with my return to the clan, because I know his idea of being helpful could destroy everything for me. I’ll make sure that he stays away from Earth as well, because I don’t want him destroying things for you either. Is there anyone specific I should contact about this assignment?”
Marack shook his head.
“Then I’ll call General Kpossi at Colony Ten Command. She’s been trying to talk me into taking another post, so she should be happy to help me with this. Colony Ten Command need to be constantly operational, so they run shifts, and I’m not sure what General Kpossi’s shift pattern is. It may take me a while to get to talk to her, so leave this with me while you try and get some sleep.”
Marack groaned. “My problem won’t be getting to sleep, but waking up again. K19448 has a twenty-four hour and sixteen minutes long day and I could sleep for all of it.”
I laughed. “Go ahead and do that. When you wake up, you’ll hopefully find a message from me telling you that everything’s arranged. Now I’m saying goodbye, so you go to bed and sleep!”
I ended that call, shrugged off my toga, put my uniform jacket back on, and made another call to Colony Ten Command. I wasn’t sure whether to go via their Command Support or contact General Kpossi directly, but compromised by sending General Kpossi a text message, flagged as non-urgent, asking her to contact me when convenient about a possible posting. I was pleased to get an almost instant response, but rather confused by the misty image on my lookup screen.
The mist abruptly cleared, and I saw General Kpossi’s face, her hair trailing limply round it and dripping water. “What position have you found to tempt you, Colonel?” she asked.
“The command of the Earth solar arrays, sir. Their future commanding officer will be late taking it up because of a Planet First problem. I’d like to take the position as a temporary measure until he arrives.”
The image on my lookup screen went misty again, and I realized the lookup was underwater. A moment later, it cleared. There were a series of random glimpses of a swimming pool, followed by a close-up view of a towel. General Kpossi obviously wore her lookup and continued working while swimming.
The towel vanished from view, and then appeared again, this time wrapped round General Kpossi’s head. “I’d prefer you to take another permanent position, Colonel, but a temporary one is a good start. I’ll give Solar Array Command a call right now and set that up for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I ended the call. I’d just sent the promised message to Marack, when there was a chime from the door. I gave it a bewildered look, tapped the table top, and the door opened. Leveque and Stone came in.
“The last of the married couples rejoined the party ages ago, sir,” said Stone. “We were getting worried you’d sneaked away without saying goodbye.”
“Actually, I’ve been busy arranging a new posting,” I said.
Leveque gave me a startled look. Judging from his expression, my Threat team leader had calculated the chances of me accepting another post as virtually zero.
I smiled. “Don’t worry, Mason. Your predictive skills haven’t let you down. I’m not giving up the idea of retiring, just taking a temporary post to help out my son, Marack.”
“Would you need a deputy commander and a Threat team leader on this posting?” asked Leveque.
I shook my head. “If this was another Planet First posting, then I’d be calling on you two and a lot of the other people from this command to go with me, but it’s not. I’ll be having a dreadfully boring time commanding the Earth solar arrays, where the biggest excitement is likely to be the food dispensers running out of Fizzup.”
I picked up my toga and shrugged it on. “Let’s get back to the party!”
Zeta Sector 2788 - Major Drago Tell Dramis
Zeus, Beta Sector, October 2788. Readers voted on which character they’d like me to feature in the final story for this collection, and they chose Major Drago Tell Dramis, a character who doesn’t appear in the Earth Girl trilogy until the second book, Earth Star. Drago also appears in Kappa Sector 2788, and this story is set immediately after that story ends.
Part I
Technically speaking, I was born an Alphan, because I let out my first outraged baby wails in the Medical Centre at Military Headquarters on the planet Academy in Alpha sector. Far more importantly though, I was born a member of one of the famous Military clans of Beta sector. The Tell clan hall on the Betan capital planet, Zeus, was the one stable point in my twenty-eight nomad years as first a Military child and then a Military officer. Despite my dual Alphan and Betan citizenship, my heart was wholly Betan, and I counted Zeus as my true home world.
Returning to Zeus after a long Military assignment was always a little nerve-wracking. I could count on our clan hall being comfortingly unchanged, because it was a clan policy to stick to classic furnishings and decor rather than follow the rapidly changing fashions of Zeus. The rest of the planet was much less considerate during my absences, so I never knew which of my old haunts I’d find had altered beyond recognition, or even vanished entirely.
I held my breath as I walked into Asante’s MeetUp, then relaxed as I saw the familiar marble pillars, and the gloriously fake, luxuriant grape vines growing up the walls. I scanned the crowded room slowly, recognizing some old friends of mine, like the aging, silver-haired Constantine who was as fixed a part of this place as the marble pillars.
I was really looking for the bartender, Asante, of course. On frontier worlds, a bartender wore functional clothes, stood behind a bar and served drinks. Here on Zeus, a bartender traditionally wore a flamboyant version of a laurel wreath, and roamed the room playing the role of welcoming host, while the drinks came from automated dispensers. Beta sector prided itself on being inspired by ancient Rome, and wearing laurel wreaths was somehow supposed to link bartenders with Bacchus, the ancient Roman god of wine and revelry.
I finally spotted Asante’s ludicrous laurel wreath at the far end of the room. He’d made a few alterations to it since the last time I was here. It was coloured imperial purple now, with matching tiny purple lights that flashed brightly among the black twisted strands of his hair. I raised an eyebrow when I realized Asante was sitting on an ornate throne on a raised dais. I could see a throne would serve the twin function of indulging his colossal ego, while also giving him a good view of everything happening in the room, but a throne still seemed a little ostentatious even for Asante.
My Military uniform made me conspicuous among the people in party clothes, so Asante spotted me at the same moment that I saw him. He gave me one of his improbably wide smiles, which always made me wonder if his face would split in half one day, jumped down from his
throne, and hurried over to meet me.
“Attention everyone, the irresistible Drago Tell Dramis is back among us!” he shouted in his deep, booming voice. He was using Betan dialect rather than standard Language. As a fiercely loyal Betan, Asante refused to speak the common tongue of humanity on principle, and constantly complained about Betan schools and newzie channels being forced to use it.
There was a round of applause and appreciative whistles as people got up from their seats and came to gather round us. I felt myself blush.
“Finally back among us,” added Asante pointedly.
I laughed and replied in Betan dialect myself, having to think carefully about which words were the same as in Language and which were radically different. I always had a problem when I first came home after spending a long time almost exclusively speaking Language. My brain seemed to need a couple of days to shake the dust off the part of itself that could automatically switch between Betan dialect and Language.
“I warned you I was going on what would probably be a long Planet First assignment,” I said. “When the Military are making a new world safe for humanity, we have to work under strict quarantine restrictions, so officers can’t casually portal home on leave.”
“Yes, but I didn’t expect it to be two whole years before I saw you again,” said Asante. “I was beginning to think you’d turned traitor and found yourself a different MeetUp on Zeus.”
“You should know I’m your faithful subject.” I knelt on one knee, and gave him the ancient right hand on heart salute of Beta sector. “Hail, Asante!”
“Oh no,” called Constantine. “Don’t start kneeling to him, Drago. We don’t want a repeat of last year.”
I got back to my feet. “What happened last year?”
Constantine smiled. “Asante decided Beta sector should declare its independence as the Third Roman Empire, with himself as Emperor. You must have noticed his new imperial laurel wreath and throne.”