Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2) (18 page)

Chapter 20

“It is better to travel well than to arrive.”
— Buddha

I took the lead when we entered the spaceport’s passenger terminal so I wouldn’t have to look at Professor Pericles Agamemnon Jones. Pomy walked between us as a buffer. She’d seen how angry I was, for myself and for the years of hell he must have put Poly through. I would have happily teleported the Professor into interstellar space if we’d been at the Jackson Nexus instead of the spaceport. No, scratch that. My personal ethics and respect for the rule of law wouldn’t allow me to do such a thing, but it felt wonderful to
think
about it. Pomy was making small talk to diffuse the tension.

“Mother is coming in on Gate K-42,” she said.

She looked at the terminal map we were passing on our right.

“That’s down at the far end of the K Concourse,” she said.

“All arriving flights you’re meeting are at the far end,” I said, slowing my heartbeat. “That’s one of the corollaries of Murphy’s Law.”

“Another of your technological superstitions?” said Professor Jones.

“Shush, Daddy,” said Pomy.

No wonder she was getting her doctorate on another continent.

The specific gate didn’t matter much to the three of us. The only implication of Pomy’s mother’s ship landing farther out meant there’d be more of a delay as Dr. Barbara Lowell Keen, CEO of Keen Travel Publishing and author of Keen’s Guides to the many planets of the Galactic Free Trade Association, walked to baggage claim, then stood in line for Terran customs.

Barbara Keen had a PhD in Linguistics—she’d met her “charming” husband when they were both graduate students at Harvard. Shortly after First Contact, Dr. Keen had gone off-planet to start compiling English translation dictionaries for Dauushan, Orish, Tigrammath, Nic
ó
sn, P
â
kk dialects, Pyr speech and more. She sent back travel advice to her friends, telling them about the best restaurants, sights to see, and places to stay. She also wrote about other species’ social mores and things to avoid, like showing fear on a P
â
kk planet. Her friends passed them around and they proved popular, so Barbara self-published them as
Keen’s Guide to Dauush, Keen’s Guide to Nicós, Keen’s Guide to the Ruins of Old Pyr,
and so on. She took a leave of absence from her academic appointment at Harvard and rapidly became the head of a multi-million galcred travel publishing empire.

Later, she branched out and created species-specific guides to Terra. Dauushans and Musans have quite different concerns, for example, and face different challenges. The chapter on cats in
Keen’s Musan Guide to Terra
is forty-seven pages long.
Keen’s Dauushan Guide to Terra
has one section on the dangers of low overpasses and another on how to avoid stepping on native sapients.

We found a place to wait with a good view of the wide, well-lit hallway leading from Terran customs. Pomy and her father found seats, but I excused myself to locate a men’s room and get away from Dr. Jones for a few minutes. The man was an unmitigated ass. I splashed cold water on my face and went through a dozen repeats of
Tallis Canon
on the soundtrack in my head to calm myself down. If Poly had invited her father to her graduation and was willing to try opening channels of communication, I didn’t want to get in her way. I also didn’t want to end up in jail. It might reflect poorly on Xenotech Support Corporation’s reputation.

When I got back to Pomy and Perry, Pomy’s phone was buzzing.

“Mom just sent me a text. She finished going through customs and will be here any minute.”

That old
go to the bathroom if you want something to happen
trick still works.

I could have picked Barbara Keen out of a crowd even without memorizing her photo from the back of my copy of
Keen’s Guide to Orish.
She had three times the poise and twice the
savoir faire
of any other passenger in the corridor. Poly and Pomy’s mother had a lithe build, like her daughters, but was only five foot five. She was in her mid-fifties, but her hair was still Poly and Pomy’s gorgeous auburn color, cut in a short, professional, easy to care for bob. She was wearing a well-tailored navy pantsuit and carried a medium-sized purse over one shoulder. Three feet behind her, staying close in “heel” position, rolled a smart, Follow-Me brand self-guided suitcase about the same size as one of Pomy’s large bags. Two smaller suitcases were neatly stacked on top of it. Barbara Keen didn’t look up from her phone as she walked down the corridor.

“Mom, Mom!” shouted Pomy.

She had to yell one more time before her mother looked up and smiled. The two women, mother and daughter, met where the hallway opened up into the waiting room.

“Hello, Pomy,” she said, giving her daughter air kisses on both cheeks. “How’s Daddy’s little girl?”

“Nice to see you, too, Mother.”

“Pericles,” Pomy’s mother said to her husband, nodding slightly.

“Barbara,” said Pomy’s father with a minimal bow.

The warmth between them seemed on a par with the temperature of Pluto’s nitrogen atmosphere, and with about as much chance of thawing. I hoped Poly knew what she was doing.

“Where’s Poly?” said Pomy’s mother.

“She’s finishing up a research paper and asked me to pick you up,” I said.

Barbara’s manner changed when she realized that I wasn’t a random stranger. She looked me over and must have found me at least minimally acceptable, then turned to Pomy.

“Who is this handsome young man?” she said, now in full polite meet-and-greet mode.

“Jack Buckston, mother,” said Pomy. “Poly’s boyfriend.”

“Is he, now?” said Barbara. “In that case, I’m
very
pleased to meet you, Jack.”

“Very pleased to meet you, too,” I said.

We shook hands. Barbara’s grip was firm, but her hand wasn’t warm.

I wanted to ask if Poly had told her a lot about me, but I knew that Poly and her mother didn’t talk and was too polite to rub it in. I wasn’t going to take out my anger at Poly’s father on her mother. It looked like her parents were doing a good job of directing their emotions at each other, anyway.

“Did you have a nice flight?” said Barbara to Pomy. The words were right, but the tone was distant.

“Flights, Mother,” said Pomy. “There was some turbulence over the north Atlantic and a baby crying in Italian in the row in front of me—the poor thing’s ears wouldn’t pop and she was miserable for most of the trip.”

While Pomy was talking, Barbara had pulled out her phone and was staring intently at something on the screen, ignoring her daughter.

“How did you figure that the baby was crying in Italian?” I said, trying to fill the awkward silence.

“I thought you said your flights were fine, Pumpkin?” said her father. “I wouldn’t think eight hours of sitting behind a crying baby would count as ‘fine’ for anyone.”

“Compared to what I was expecting when I arrived in Atlanta, my flights
were
fine,” said Pomy, who was staring at her mother. Barbara Keen was still checking messages, or sales figures, or her horoscope.

“I really want to know,” I said.

Pomy didn’t change the direction of her gaze, but answered.

“The vowel sounds are different. Italian sounds musical, even when people are speaking. There’s a reason it’s the first language of opera.”

I thought of the Rossini music that my phone had used to wake me that morning.

“So a baby’s ‘waaaa’ and ‘maaaaa’ in Italian sound different from the equivalent in English?”

“Uh huh,” said Pomy. “Italian babies’ vowel sounds are more pure, somehow. Let me show you.”

Pomy pulled out her phone and started typing, imitating her mother. Her father decided that it was a good time to visit the men’s room and walked off. Wise move.

“Here,” said Pomy, holding her phone where we could both see the screen.

She turned it sideways and I saw a split screen with babies, perhaps three months old, centered in each section. An American flag was below the one on the left and an Italian green, white and red tricolor was under the one on the right. Pomy pressed the Stars and Stripes and I heard the American baby cry. Then she pressed the Italian flag and I could hear the difference. The second baby really
was
crying in Italian.

“Fascinating,” I said.

“You can compare babies from lots of different countries,” said Pomy. “You can easily tell if an infant is from a country that speaks a tonal language.”

At my request, Pomy gave me the URL of the babies cry comparison web site and I made a mental note to check it out. She played me a northern Chinese baby crying and the American baby crying again, to illustrate her point. A small child walked near us, clutching his mother’s hand, and started crying himself. It was part of that same sympathetic magic that makes yawns contagious. His mother gave us a dirty look and hurried by.

“It’s clear you’re the daughter of a linguistics professor,” I said.

Pomy just looked at her mother, who was still heads down, focused on her phone. My new friend shook her head back and forth, resignedly.

“Is she always like this?” I said, indicating Pomy’s mother.

“Ever since her company took off,” said Pomy. “Before then she was a great mom. She read us stories, baked us cookies, took us to the zoo, built us a tree house, and was even our Brownie troop leader. She had her own research and was serious about it, but she was always there for us.”

I smiled at the thought of little Poly and Pomy in Brownie vests climbing up to their tree house to eat cookies or tugging their mother this way and that at the zoo.

“When did things change?”

“After Keen Travel Publishing broke three million.”

“Units, or galcreds?”

“Does it matter?” said Pomy.

“No,” I said, shutting up to let her continue.

“Mom was spending all her time on the company. I was eleven and Poly was twelve when we got a live-in nanny and housekeeper. Then Mom started taking Poly with her on her trips off-planet and I had to compete with grad students for Daddy’s attention.”

“I’m beginning to see why Poly spending all her time with James had the effect on you that it did,” I said.

“That’s still no excuse,” she said.

“Tell it to Poly.”

“I will.”

“Why didn’t she take you with her off-planet, too?”

Pomy looked thoughtful.

“I don’t really know. Looking back on it as an adult I wondered if my mother and father hadn’t worked out some sort of dynastic deal. Mother would get Poly to train as the next CEO of KTP and Daddy would groom me to be the next holder of the Marcus Aurelius Endicott chair.”

“That’s exactly what we agreed to,” said Barbara, who was putting her phone back into her purse. “There, that’s done.”

“It was a formal agreement?” said Pomy, surprised that her mother had noticed our conversation.

“Not in writing.”

Barbara looked around.

“Where’s your father?”

“He went to the men’s room,” I said.

“I hope he can find his way back,” said Pomy’s mother. “He’s easily distracted.”

Pomy and I shared a glance and she rolled her eyes. Barbara was looking directly at me, so I just nodded.

“You and Daddy decided to split us up like Solomon and the baby?” said Pomy.

“Hardly,” said Barbara. “There was no bisection involved. You were separate people. It made sense for each of us to take one of you.”

“But Poly and I were so close. It felt like you
were
ripping us in half.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Pomy. You two girls needed time apart.”

“But it felt like you loved Poly best!”

“Nonsense. Your father and I love you both equally. We flipped for it.”

“Who won?” said Pomy.

“At present, it seems like your father did,” said Barbara. “You’re getting a doctorate in classics from Oxford and Poly and I aren’t speaking.”

“About that… “ said Pomy.

“I’m back. Now we can go,” said Dr. Jones, who had just rejoined us.

“My van… “ I said.

“Will be waiting at the curb,” said my phone.

“Follow me,” I said.

We got passengers and luggage into my van without incident. Barbara sat up front with me and asked me prying questions that I sidestepped by providing a running travelogue on the city of Atlanta. Professor Jones sat in the back talking with Pomy and didn’t offer any additional disparaging comments on my chosen profession. We’d be at the Ad Astra complex in an hour.

Then Poly would join us—perhaps to supply the blasting caps to go with her family’s collection of high explosives.

A week in Maui was looking more and more appealing.

Chapter 21

“We put on formal wear and suddenly
we become extraordinary.”
— Vera Nazarian

I dropped Barbara, Perry and Pomy off at the Star Palace, Ad Astra’s most luxurious hotel. Highly efficient bellhops removed their luggage from the back of my van and didn’t try to take the octovacs. I got out and gave Pomy a quick hug, but her parents ignored me and left for the lobby. I was glad to see their backs.

“Thank you, Jack,” said Pomy.

“For what?” I said.

“For being a good guy—and a friend. My sister is lucky to have you.”

She touched her phone to mine to exchange numbers.

“Call me if you have any updates on what we’d talked about.”

She gave me a gentle peck on the cheek and followed her parents into the lobby.

Tension drained from my body like a bathtub whose plug had been pulled. I felt so limp that I was surprised I wasn’t a puddle of protoplasm on the expensive bricks of the hotel’s porte-coch
è
re. Somehow I managed to get back in my van. It was only a few minutes after five.

“Home, please,” I said.

“Seat belt,” said my van.

“Override,” I said, too tired to do one more thing.

“As you wish,” said my van in a reproving tone.

“Okay, okay,” I said.

I buckled up and was asleep before my van had gone a hundred yards.

I woke up when two octovacs delivered me and my backpack tool bag to my apartment, carefully carrying me to my bed and tucking me in.

Thank you phone, thank you van, thank you octovacs.

Hello, Morpheus, my old friend. Long time, no see.

* * * * *

“Jack, Jack, wake up, Jack.”

It must be my phone imitating Poly’s voice to get my attention, I thought. It seemed like I’d only been asleep for a few minutes. Then I felt warm human fingers stroking my cheek. It really
was
Poly.

“Hi there,” I said in a sleepy voice. “Nice to see you.”

I raised myself up on one elbow. Poly sat on my bed. I held her hand.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be sleep-deprived,” said Poly. “What’s your excuse?”

She looked as tired as I felt.

“I picked your family up at the airport,” I said.

“How did it go?” she said, with feigned nonchalance.

“Wonderfully,” I said. “Your parents are charming and your sister is a delight.”

“Are you sure you picked up the right family?” said Poly.

I sat all the way up and gave her a stern look.

“You owe me,” I said. “This went way beyond earning boyfriend points and into combat pay.”

“Thank you, Jack,” she said. “I just couldn’t face them. Not all together. Not all at once.”

My expression softened and I drew Poly into my arms and held her until some of the tension unwound in her body. Then we sat up and held hands.

“You’re so brave,” I said, squeezing her hands reassuringly.

“I wasn’t brave at all. I let you pick them up on your own. I didn’t even meet them at the hotel.”

“You’re
very
brave,” I said. “You were courageous enough to invite your family to your graduation ceremonies. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It took me
days
to find the strength to push the send button,” she said.

“But you sent it.”

“I did. But I’m scared,” said Poly, “really scared I’ll lose it and take my sister’s head off, or get in a shouting match with my mother so loud that people three floors away will call hotel security.”

“After meeting them, I don’t doubt they’d deserve it,” I said. “And your father?”

“My father,” she said.

Her eyes got cold, then her expression changed and she looked at me and smiled.

“Do you love me enough to post bail for me?” she said. “And hire me a good criminal defense lawyer?”

“Sure,” I said, “If I’m not in the cell next to yours. I’ve met your father now. He’s a piece of work.”

“He’s a piece of…”

I kissed her. It caught her by surprise. We both laughed, the worst of our stresses released. I kissed her again, slowly and tenderly. We held each other, sitting close together on my bed, alternately kissing and laughing until our mutual senses of equilibrium were restored.

“Maybe I can get through tonight and the next three days without resorting to homicide after all,” said Poly.

“For you it would be patricide,” I said. “It’s only homicide if
I
kill him.”

She laughed, and her laugh wasn’t as brittle as it had been minutes earlier. Then she saw me get a serious look on my face.

“What is it?”

“Why didn’t you tell me anything about your parents and your sister and what you were going through? We’re partners now. We can help each other through rough times.”

“I tried to warn you,” said Poly.

“Yeah, but you never actually shared specifics,” I said.

“Sorry about that.”

She really did look contrite.

“You’ve only been in my life for the past six weeks,” she said. “I’ve been carrying my anger at my father around for most of my life. My sister and I haven’t spoken in seven years, and my mother and I in three. I’ve been so used to holding it all inside.”

“Shared pain is lessened,” I said.

“Shared joy is increased,” she said.

“Let me help.”

“Okay.”

She kissed me this time.

“I know
one
way you can help me,” said Poly.

“What’s that?”

“I’m sure my mother expects me to come to their suite and change for dinner there, but I can’t deal with my family right now,” she said. “I just can’t. I’m not ready for the drama. May I change here?”

“Sure,” I said. “You didn’t need to ask.”

“Thanks. There’s a duffle with all my stuff by your dresser.”

“I may even scrub your back in the shower,” I said.

“Some other time when I can really appreciate it,” said Poly.

Her eyes sparkled. She’d get through this.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey?”

“About your sister…”

“What
about
my sister? She didn’t try anything with…”

“No,” I said, fingers mentally crossed. “We got off to a rocky start but then things got better. She asked me to tell you that she loves you and she’s really sorry. She wouldn’t say about what, just that she wanted you to give her another chance.”

Poly didn’t frown or seem upset, just thoughtful.

“I did invite her,” she said, after a few seconds of contemplation.

“And you’ll have an opportunity to connect with her if you want to,” I said. “Your mother is going to try to talk you into staying in their suite for the next few days. She wants you to share a room with Pomy.”

“She wants us to bond again, like we did when we were kids,” said Poly. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“I’ll be close by if you need to escape,” I said. “Unlimited hugs.”

“Maybe I can do it on that basis,” she said. “Let me have a free sample.”

I hugged her.

“Thank you, sir, may I have another.”

I hugged her again.

“I’m glad you’re in my life, Jack Buckston,” she said, tenderly.

My phone chirped.

“Ahem,” it said, “It’s six fifteen and you need to pick Poly’s family up at seven fifteen to be at the Teleport Inn on time.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said.

I looked at Poly.

“You can have first dibs on the shower if you’ll help me with my tuxedo,” I said.

“Sounds good,” she said, “If you’ll make a pot of extra strong high-caffeine tea. We’ll both need it.”

“I can do that,” I said, “and I’ll get your dress from the living room.”

I gave Poly one more hug, then went out to the kitchen to start a kettle of water. I moved the box with Poly’s dress from the coffee table in my living room to my bed and left my bedroom, closing the door this time. I could hear water running in my shower. I moved to the far side of my living room, close to my wall screen, and sent Pomy a text.

“I did my part,” it read. “You may have a chance to do yours. Poly and I will meet you and your parents out front at seven fifteen.”

I got a short reply.

“Thank you. We’ll be there.”

The kettle was whistling, so I walked to the kitchen and turned the burner off. I took my yellow smiley-face teapot down from its place in a cupboard—
I’d bought it at a First Contact Day street fair two years ago—and put in eight bags of Midnight Obsidian Black Tea, the strongest kind I had.
The bushes it was made from had been genetically modified to enhance their leaves’ caffeine content, so it was nearly as strong as coffee. I poured hot water into the cheerful teapot and inhaled deeply to appreciate the rich, warm scent of
Camellia sinensis espresso,
then pulled two large, plain white mugs from a shelf.

The few minutes later the water stopped running in my shower and shortly after that the door to my bedroom opened part way and Poly stuck her head out.

“Your turn,” she said, looking more awake.

“On my way.”

“Mmmmm… what smells so good?”

“Midnight Obsidian Black,” I said.

“That will put hair on my chest,” said Poly.

“I hope not.”

She smiled and pulled her head back into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar.

When I entered my bedroom, Poly was wrapped in “her” large white towel. She had removed her new dress from its box and protective tissue paper wrappings and was holding it out to admire. The Orishen morphic silk shimmered through a rainbow of colors. The dress was psychically sensitive and would change color to match Poly’s mood once in full contact with her body.

“It’s lovely,” I said, “and you’re not even wearing it yet. It will be twice as beautiful once you are.”

“Awww, you’ll make me blush,” she said.

Looking at the top edge of her towel I thought I might be having that effect already.

“Keep it up, Lover Boy, and you’ll make me wish I’d taken you up on having you scrub my back in the shower.”

“You had your chance,” I said, smiling. My walk-in closet connected my bedroom and bathroom. I stepped in, closed the door, took off all my clothes, and dropped them in my laundry basket. Then I continued into the bathroom and hopped in the shower.

“Earl Grey, hot. Make it so,” I said.

My intellectually challenged shower A.I. complied and I enjoyed the jets of warm water. Then I heard the bathroom door open.

“I need to dry my hair and put on my makeup.”

“No problem,” I said. My glass shower door was translucent, not transparent, and all steamed up, so I didn’t have a clear view of Poly. I could hear her, though. Electric hair dryers make a lot of noise. I drew a large heart on the inside of the shower door so that Poly would see it if she turned around. I was ready when my Earl Grey shower program switched to its cold needle spray and didn’t scream like a hungry Orishen nymph. I opened my shower door just enough to grab my towel and dried myself off, then wrapped the towel around my waist and left the shower. I kissed Poly in the middle of her upper back—after making sure she wasn’t applying makeup at that moment—and beat a hasty retreat to my bedroom, the business end of the hair dryer pointed at my groin.

“Go, get started,” she said. “I’ll help with your studs and cuff links when I’m done.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I put on clean underwear and an undershirt from my chest of drawers and rescued my Orishen pupa silk shirt from the laundry basket. Columbia Brown was still out there, and the shirt supported my sore ribs. Then I slipped on the unfamiliar, thin, black, formal socks that came with my tux. They came up over my calves, like tall athletic socks, but weren’t as comfortable. Next, I put on one of the starched and pleated white shirts. It was stiff and hard to button. I knew I was doing something wrong, but hoped that Poly would know how to fix it. I didn’t even
try
to make sense of the French cuffs.

I got the pants for my fancy outfit from their hanger in my walk-in closet and stepped into them, then looked at myself in the mirror. As soon as I stopped holding them up, they were down around my ankles. I smacked my palm against my forehead and remembered the suspenders on my dresser. I took the pants off and tried to figure out how the suspenders fastened on. Wait, aren’t they called
braces
for tuxedos? Who knew? There weren’t any alligator clips, so it took me a minute to puzzle out that they were attached to buttons sewn into the waistband of the pants. I fastened them and put the pants on again, sliding the
braces
over my shoulders.

“One of them is twisted,” said my phone from its vantage point on the charging station on my nightstand.

I took the pants off again, corrected the problem, and put them back on.

“All systems nominal,” said my phone.

I think it was getting a charge out of watching me get dressed while it was getting a charge for its batteries.

Then all systems
weren’t
nominal. My attention and my hormone levels spiked. I considered the consequences of being late for a dinner with the Queen of Dauush. Poly had just entered my bedroom wearing only her underwear.

“You should warn a guy when you’re going to give him a heart attack,” I said, grinning and appreciating.

“Sorry,” said Poly in a teasing tone, “but what a way to go.”

“Should we tell Terrhi’s mom we can’t make it?”

“That would not be advisable,” she said. “Put your shoes on while I sort out all your accessories.”

I sat on my bed to put on the shiny leather shoes and admired Poly reviewing the various items on top of my dresser. I wondered if I’d ever wear the shoes enough so that they’d feel broken in. It only took me a minute to tie them. Poly turned, holding a small plastic bag filled with studs and cuff links.

“Stand up,” she said, “and unbutton all those buttons.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I knew I’d screwed something up. After I finished unbuttoning, Poly stood close and refastened the shirt properly, using the tiny silver and black onyx studs as they were meant to be used. I watched carefully, but still couldn’t figure it out. I was spending too much mental energy on
not
putting my arms around her and incurring Her Matriarchal Majesty’s royal wrath.

“There,” said Poly, finishing with my shirt front. “Right wrist.”

I dutifully presented the requested body part. Poly adjusted the folds of my French cuff and inserted a silver and onyx cuff link that matched the studs.