Ancient Birthright (4 page)

Billy hip-checked Terrie as he passed her. She flew across the grass between the sidewalk and street and hit face first in the side of a parked car. She rebounded from the car crying, and fell to the grass holding her nose. Her backpack split open. Papers and art projects spilled out and scattered in the breeze.

Laughing, Billy stopped and toed her hard in the side. “You’re just like your brother...a Dumbass crybaby. You’re lucky that chicken shit brother of yours got my homework done, else I’d have to hurt you to teach him a lesson.”

Beldon ran back to his sister to protect her from Billy. “You’ve only got a few minutes to get those papers signed, Billy. Besides, she’s just a little kid; she’s only twelve. You don’t want to hurt her,” Beldon said as he got between Billy and Terrie.

“Yeah, I have to get back before old lady Thornbloom leaves. Remember, Dumbass, your hide’s not the only one you got to worry about,” Billy sneered as he headed toward the school.

Beldon fell to his knees and hugged Terrie to him. “Are you hurt? Did he break anything?” He did not seeing any blood or apparent broken bones. “I told you to quit yelling. But would you listen to me? No, you just had to attract Billy. One of these days your mouth is going to get one of us killed.”

Terrie sniffed trying to hold back her tears.

Beldon blinked rapidly.

“Are you crying, too?” Terrie asked

“’Course not. I got dust in my eyes from the hedge.”

Beldon helped Terrie to her feet, collected her books and papers, and stuffed them in the ripped backpack.

“I just wanted to walk home with you and tell you what Marcie told me,” Terrie said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Marcie Goodwin?”

Marcie with her silky blonde hair, flawless complexion, the breasts of a goddess, and legs that went all the way to the...floor, the girl of my fantasy day dreams.

“Marcie talked to you, about me?”

“Yeah, she stopped me when I was leaving school and told me to tell you she’s going swimming at the Rec Center pool tomorrow.”

Bel’s face brightened. Marcie Goodwin, the most beautiful girl in his class, and she wanted to meet him at the pool.

I can see her now, in a bikini and coat of sunscreen. No...needing me to slather on sunscreen and spread it over all that exposed skin. The mental picture made him stumble.

“Are you okay, Bel?” asked Terrie with concern in her voice.

“Yeah, I just stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk.”

Terrie looked at the smooth sidewalk then back at Beldon with a confused look before continuing. “She said she’s having problems with her computer, and you need to stop by and fix it. She has to have it for the summer, so she can stay in touch with her friends. Her parents took her cell phone away for two whole months when they caught her in the hot tub with three boys at that keg party last week. But with her computer, she can still email her friends. Marcie said she got your name from Danny Wilkins. He told her you’d fixed his system that time when it was trashed from the virus.”

Oh yes, Danny Wilkins, another wonderful example of the finest the human race could produce. A strutting hard-on with a body and face the girls drooled over, and the mental capacity of an out-of-service fire hydrant.

Danny had grabbed him in the hallway at school, given him a black eye, and choked him until Bel agreed to fix his computer.

Bel fixed Danny’s top-of-the-line fully-loaded computer. After hours of research and several all-night sessions to clear out the worst virus infection he’d ever seen. He’d then added a program of his own. It had a calendar of all school days and football practice sessions. During those times Danny was scheduled to be out of the house, the computer changed the screensaver to display a slide show of Danny’s extensive collection of stored pictures. Trophy pictures of him drinking beer with his buddies or naked with several girls who attended their school.

The computer would then switch back to the normal screensaver a half-hour before Danny was scheduled to return. Beldon hoped Danny’s parents and the household staff enjoyed the slide show.

Bel took Terrie’s hand and walked up the sidewalk to pick up his dropped books and backpack. His favorite computer programming book had its cover ripped off. He’d saved every penny he’d earned last summer to buy it.

Stuffing Terrie’s backpack on top of his own, Bel said, “Come on let’s get home and see if Sandy has dinner started.”

Their father, Duane Dumas, was the lead maintenance technician at the NARO radio telescope, and their mom, Linda, was a data analyst. She analyzed the recorded signals, formatted the information, and then sent it on to the astronomers.

“Sandy, we’re home,” Terrie yelled as they walked through the front door.

“Good, you can help me with dinner. Bel, take out the trash. Terrie I need you to start peeling potatoes.”

“I’ve got stuff I’ve got to do. I’ll empty the trash tomorrow,” Bel answered as he tried to get to his room before Sandy could see his torn and bloody shirt.

“Good. Then you can eat your dinner tomorrow, too. Terrie, wash your hands before you start handling the food.”

“Who died and made you Queen? Just because you’re sixteen and a year older doesn’t make you the boss.”

Beldon dropped his load on the kitchen table and pulled the liner from the wastebasket.

Typical, she hadn’t even noticed his back was bleeding.

He stuffed the bag into the trashcan by the garage and slumped back to the kitchen door.

Sandy looked up at him from the pot she was stirring. “Mom called and said they’ll be a half-hour late. Dad’s maintenance crew is working on a problem on one of the antennas at the far end of the array. They don’t call it the Very Large Array, VLA, for brownie points. Mom said it takes almost half an hour to drive in from the farthest antenna. She wanted me to let you know that she has a bunch of data to analyze tonight, and she could use your help.”

Beldon sighed. “Sandy, do you think things will ever go back to the way they were before Mom and Dad got jobs at the observatory? They’re both working ten-hour days and with an hour’s travel just to get to the site, they’re gone for at least twelve hours a day. We only see them for a few minutes over dinner then Dad goes to bed, and Mom continues with the work she couldn’t finish at the site. If I didn’t help her with the file conversion and formatting, she wouldn’t get any sleep. I have to tell you, this staying up until two or three every night to help Mom is getting old. I don’t remember the last time I had eight hours of sleep.”

By the time his parents got home from work hours later, Beldon was rubbing his eyes and shaking his head to stay awake.

His Dad pulled out a kitchen chair and collapsed over the table, his head resting on his flattened hands.

Sandy started filling serving dishes with food. “Looks like you had a hard day, Dad.”

“This upgrade is going to kill me. My boss wants everything done yesterday and refuses to hire the help that my crew needs to complete the job. Wilkins just keeps pushing us to work faster and cut corners. Someone’s going to get hurt or forget something. When that happens, guess who’ll get the blame. I will since I’m the lead technician.”

“Dinner’s ready. You’ll feel better after you eat. How was your day, Mom?” Sandy asked as she moved the serving dishes to the table.

“My day was about the same as your dad’s. We’re recording every observation on every receiver instead of just the one requested by the astronomers. That means ten times the work for every requisition. At least things should slow down for me next week when the entire system comes down. I may even take a couple of days off,” Linda told Sandy while she slipped her shoes off.

“I think I’ll quit my job and join you. The boss is already talking about eighteen-hour days until we’re back online,” Duane grumbled. “The one good thing about this upgrade is that each dish will now be on a wireless network, so we can test it in the field. We won’t have to drive miles back to the control room to make sure everything works. We’ll even be able to fire the pulse transmitters and access the receivers from our field computers. The IT people have set it up so the network ties into the Internet. That way, with the proper authorization and login, I can access each antenna from my home computer.” Duane eased up in his chair as the smell of dinner filled the room.

“I’d like to see how that works,” Beldon said.

With renewed energy, his father told him, “If I don’t fall asleep in the meatloaf, I’ll give you a demonstration after dinner. We have two units fully converted. They’re sitting on the remote service track waiting on the upgrade to the others. We can’t use them with the older systems until all the units have the upgrades installed.”

“I’m going to need your help again tonight, Beldon. I have a ton of data files to convert and analyze,” Mom called as she headed to the master bedroom to change from her office clothes.

“Sure Mom, I’ll start running the conversions after dinner. The first one can run while Dad shows me what the new system can do. I’ve finished a new program I want to try on some of the data files. It filters for signals that could be coming from an intelligent entity, and then analyzes the ones that look like they might be some form of communication.” Beldon called in a raised voice so his mother could hear as he squirmed in his chair trying to relieve the itching and pain from the wounds on his back.

“That’s fine, but make sure you do the normal conversions first. I need to have these files ready to send out tomorrow, or we’ll be eating beans and living on the street when I get fired.”

#

Beldon entered his bedroom and shoved his backpack off the far side of the bed as he settled crosswise on top of the Star Wars bedspread. He lay staring at his computer desk and bookshelf overflowing with computer manuals, programming books, and science fiction novels.

Sandy tapped on Beldon’s door. “Bel, you got a minute? Can I come in?” She didn’t wait for a response just walked in carrying a handful of cotton balls and the bottle of antiseptic the family used for cuts and abrasions. “Take your shirt off and I’ll put some of this on your cuts.”

“I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“I figured you would tell me about it if it was serious. So how’d it happen?”

“Billy caught us and shoved me into a hedge,” he told her without filling in the details of the reason Billy was waiting for him. Beldon jerked as the sting of the antiseptic caught him off guard.

“What happened to Terrie? Why had she been crying when you came home?”

“That moron Billy Breathsword pushed her into a parked car and ruined her backpack when he was finished with me.”

“She’s just a little kid, Bel. You’re her big brother. You need to protect her from the school bullies.”

“Who’s going to protect me? You’ve always been popular. The school idiots don’t pick on you. How many times have you been stuffed in a locker or forced to do some dipshit’s homework?”

“You just have to stand up to them, and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Why do people who’ve never had to deal with bullies always say that? Don’t you think I try to stand up to Billy and Danny? If they don’t get what they want, they just hurt me worse. And don’t tell me to go to the principal. He plays golf with their dads. Who’s he going to believe, a nobody student or the sons of his close friends who got him the job in the first place? It doesn’t help that Mr. Wilkins is dad’s boss. I turn Danny in, and his dad takes it out on ours. Besides, I don’t see you waiting around to walk home with Terrie...or me.”

“I have things I need to do. I don’t have time to wait for the other grades to get out of class,” Sandy said while she studied the back of her right hand, unable to meet Beldon’s accusing stare.

“It’s only ten minutes. What’s so important you can’t spare ten minutes?”

“You’ll understand when you grow up,” Sandy snapped as she put a bandage on one cut that was still oozing a little blood.

“Yeah, it’d cut in on your time at the petting zoo.” Bel’s name for the sheltered alcove used by the older kids for clandestine meetings and tonsil hockey. “I’ve seen you rubbing all over Brad Donner. I wonder what Mom and Dad would say if I told them I saw Brad trying to suck your tonsils out while his hand was under your blouse,” Bel said with a smirk.

Sandy glared at him as she stormed out of his room.

“Thanks, Sis. I appreciate your concern,” Beldon called to the closing door.

He activated his computer and plugged in the first of the twenty data modules his mother had given him. Bel launched the analysis program for the radio telescope data, and then went on the Internet to pass the time until his dad arrived to show him the new VLA system capabilities. He was so tired that his eyes kept closing. He almost fell out of the chair when he dosed off.

“Hey kido, how about I show you what this new system will do?” Duane said as he paused in the doorway thirty minutes later.

“Sure, Dad, that’d be great.”

“I heard you and Sandy yelling. Are you and your sister at it again?”

“You mean
still
, don’t you. It’s funny how she thinks she has all this authority and no responsibility, but wants me to take responsibility with no authority. Somehow, I just don’t get it.”

“You know we depend on each of you to take care of the others. Things will get better when this upgrade is finished and your Mom’s workload slacks off a little,” Duane explained as he replaced Beldon on the computer chair.

“Yeah, Dad,” Beldon said with just a hint of disbelief in his voice. “Nothing has changed in the three years since you guys got jobs at the NRAO, and we moved to Socorro. I know it’s an hour commute from here to the observatory and that really cuts down on the family time, but I feel like we’re growing up without parents. The five ten-hour days are brutal, but isn’t there some way to cut back on the stuff you bring home at night, so we can have a little family time together? Don’t you have some vacation time coming?” Beldon asked with a wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “We could go camping and fishing, like we did before we moved here.”