He sighed, heavily. “I’m not saying you’re my father coming to
whip me out of bed. But give me a
moment.” He dragged himself out of the
clutch of pillows, pulling his trousers on completely, fastening his
cuffs. He didn’t feel terribly guilty
about leaving her to sit outside while he put himself together because Agador
had designed the overhang and waiting area of his little cave pocket. He hadn’t cared much as long as the machines
left his refuge alone but the tiny lip of rock hid a miniature pool and a place
to sit and more Earthan green plants than would normally have sprouted here by
themselves. It was a tiny puddle of
shade, green and cool.
He slid out of the pile and stepped to the
door, barefoot, running a hand through his hair to push it back off his
face. That was one thing he missed from
home. In the back garden of the
townhouse there was a carefully tended patch of green grass, smooth and
clipped, just for the express purpose of walking on, barefoot. Only in private though. He wiggled his toes
and just couldn’t make himself drag anything over them.
“Come in,” he said grouchily.
“Thank you,” she said and stepped through
the mist wall that blocked that strange, glaring light. Another thing. Surely the sunshine was the same… but on
Xanadu there was so much green it was possible to rest one’s eyes. Here everything was sullen orange,
eye-searing yellow, tear inducing white, a red strong enough to make one
sneeze. She was wearing a cool looking
blue-green veil that was very easy on his eyes and her eyes over the edge of it
crinkled at him as she smiled. “Terence. I’m so sorry that we can’t let you work
through your discomfort with our life here.”
He closed his eyes and waved at a
cushion. “Please, do sit down, Haraklez,”
he said firmly, even as his head ached with how different everything was. “I quite understand that your fathers need me
to be ready to subvert Station if I can.
Surely they don’t need my actual presence until the attempt to actually
get me to the Station…” he hesitated. “I
mean you’re not ready to send me up now are you?” He looked around a little
frantically. If that was the case…
“—No! Oh no, Terence, we’ve just come up
with a couple of possible ideas… actually Mom proposed them. If they work I’m sure we’ll test them
tomorrow. We won’t be ready for any kind
of attempt for at least two days!”
“You realize that is phenomenally fast
development of something so complicated,” he said. “Two days?”
She shrugged. “That’s why I came to get you. We don’t want to just do this and set you into
Mom without having any kind of input into the whole process.”
He stared at her and then just flopped back
onto the cushions from where he stood. “Set
me into Mom… just strap me in and away I go…” he chuckled at that… the image of
him being bundled into the emergency vehicle as though he were a drunk being
hurried into a carriage just suddenly tickled him.
“All right.
I’ll get ready and come with you.
I have no argument with any of that… oh… that murderous child. Is she?”
“The school has her locked down tight.”
Hara tried not to twitch at the thought of Alissa. “Amardad has recovered enough to begin
finding out what kind of lessons she’ll need. Apparently she’s absolutely
enamoured of Homa, and keeps giving her what she thinks are sweet little bone
toys.”
“Oh dear.” He really didn’t want to think
of the monstrosities the child was apparently building, even cut off from the
planetary programs as she was. Hara’s
absolutely smooth tone told him more than he wanted to know. “Well…” he couldn’t manage to pull on his
boots over sweaty feet. They were riding
boots for horses anyway. What did he
need them for? To hurt his feet on the
roads and sand and rocks here? Sandals. His sandals would do. And his hat.
He set the overly warm thing on his head, snapped his sun-goggles over
his eyes. “Shall we go?”
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