Playing at Grown ups

A Pink Dormouse Production

Chapter Ten

Vila

First Snow came three days before Winter Solstice that year. Vila bought two roast cherryfowl to feed to his stray cats; then headed down to the spaceport end of the market.

Wandering through the extraneous traders who had set up in the market over the past fortnight, he pulled his collar up and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. A lot of the goods on offer were virtually unavailable for the majority of the year so he ignored the chill and browsed the stalls, hoping to pick up some new reading material and maybe a few odds and ends to brighten up their attic rooms.

He was debating the likely longevity of a small blue and red cactus from Arnos Two, when his wrist chrono began to beep insistently. He glanced down at it, decided to spare the cactus from a shortened existence in the flat and jogged back to the top of the market-square. He slowed to a walk and headed nonchalantly towards the black and purple draped stall whose banner read,

‘Hand Painted Tarot Cards. Readings by Appointment Only’.

Storme looked up from her sketchbook; she claimed Native American ancestry and wore her raven hair in two leather-braided pigtails.

"Almost late, Vila."

"I’m never late: I just have different degrees of punctuality."

"Whatever. Ermine, look after the stall, please." Storme’s daughter was a lighter skinned miniature of her mother. She sat down in the chair the woman had vacated and started to straighten the wares arranged on the table.

"Let’s talk in the cafe, it’s too cold out here." Storme remarked as she slipped a battered deck of cards into her jacket pocket.

"You’re telling me. Any chance they’ll do me a hot chocolate with extra cream an’ a slug of brandy?"

The cafe was crowded and noisy which suited him well enough: everyone was too wrapped up in their own business to eavesdrop and they were unlikely to be spotted by passers-by. Meaning Avon primarily: he was somewhat disapproving of Vila’s interest in the fortune-teller, and would possibly be more so if he came to know of her former occupation.

"Still think they coulda found a slug of brandy for me." Vila shuffled the cards and laid three face-up in the centre of the table. Storme hardly seemed to consult the cards when she was reading for Vila but he’d never quite dared rig the spread just in case.

"Typical Vila. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you round the market as much this month."

"Too cold an’ too busy wi’ tourists. Mac’s got us all workin’ extra shifts an’ all. ’S calming down a bit now most of the regulars are off home for the holidays. Even Marianne was rushin’ off to see her brothers as soon as she arrived. She just had time for a double espresso then she was gone before I’d said two words to her."

"She’ll be back with an ox for the bonfire though?" Vila nodded. "You’ll have plenty of time to catch up with her news then. But that’s not what we’re here to discuss; you’re worrying about Avon?"

"I’ve hardly seen him lately: he’s busy with this new Tech Dev Co most days. Then when he’s not doing that he’s off on little jobs for other people."

"You think he’s taken too much on?" Storme asked.

"Not sure. He’s never had a problem with long days and it’s not exactly stressful compared to what he went through the last few years. Maybe it’s too soon though."

"Hmmm..." Storme appeared to study the cards; "this doesn’t have anything to do with Dariel’s involvement, does it?"

"Not from where I’m sittin’." Vila answered hastily. "Don’t know ’bout Avon though. He might want to prove himself all over again and any project Dariel’s backing is bound to give him extra points." He laid another card down. "Guess I’ll have to let him deal with it an’ hope he knows when to take a break."

"You’re getting good at this, Vila. I’ll have to show you the new deck I’m designing- you might want it for yourself."

"Dunno. I might be able to read cards but I’ll never have all your years of specialist education."

"Now, Vila, what did we agree about mentioning that?" Storme was very touchy about how much Vila had found out regarding her past, although he suspected he was actually impressed that he’d bothered to read her PhD thesis once he’d tracked it down.

"Sorry." He gave her a sheepish grin. "So apart from getting Avon to take a day off occasionally is there anything else I need to worry about?"

"What do you think?" Vila turned another card over and studied it...

Avon

Discussing plans in the flat was far from ideal but the pub was too busy, even this early in the day and the SCorp’s Meeting Room was being used as rehearsal space by the bands that were to play after the ox roast. There was a knock from downstairs and he went to let Tay in.

The Technology Development Collective’s nominated future Sys Admin was a tiny thing even when wearing platforms, which she currently was not. Avon always thought she looked far too young to be a responsible parent to one child, never mind the half dozen youngsters who made up her family in conjunction with two other Primaries. The sides and back of her head were shaved, with the remaining hair currently dyed shocking pink; she shrugged off her fleece-lined jacket to reveal a jumper in exactly the same colour. Avon took the jacket from her before she could throw it over the back of the nearer sofa and hung it neatly on a peg by the door.

"I’m going to throttle that Primary of yours next time I see him!" she exclaimed in mock seriousness. Avon raised one eyebrow.

"And what, pray, is Vila supposed to have done this time?"

"Only got me on the back of my neck with a snowball."

"Well now, I thought he had a big poker game this morning."

"Nah! He’s down the market looking after Storme’s kids while she does some last minute shopping."

"And being suitably immature, I gather."

"Relax! Everyone gets bored with snow after the first week or so. And it is Winter Solstice after all. I built some wicked snowpeople while you guys were having a meeting yesterday." Tay giggled; Avon gave her a disapproving look.

"I though you had to stay home because the lambing shed had been damaged in a blizzard."

"Oh, that’s Lori and Pel’s department. I had to keep the rugrats out of the way while they were rebuilding the end wall. It was essential- the geeps are far to close to time to let them get a chill. That sort of thing won’t happen once we’ve got the Centre built ’cos I can always bring the kids with me and put them in the creche. What happened at the meeting anyway?"

"Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it. I have fresh coffee if you want it."

"Excellent!" Tay bounced onto the sofa. "Black with two sugars, ta."

Avon fetched the mugs and sat down on the other sofa.

"The main focus of the meeting," he began, "was on where to focus research and development whilst the Centre is under construction. Not particularly relevant to our roles in the organisation but of interest to both of us as shareholders. It was decided to concentrate on communications equipment for the time being, as that is relatively small-scale work, but to push ahead with defensive equipment once the labs are up and running.

"More interestingly," Avon set his mug down on the coffee table, "I now have the architects’ finished drafts for the Centre."

"So that’s what you’ve dragged me here for!" Tay would have to learn to curb her enthusiasm if she was to become a typically jaded Systems Administrator.

"I take it you want to see them now?"

"Fuck, yeah."

Whatever possessed me to give her more caffeine? He keyed the relevant code into the remote control and a three dimensional schematic of the building appeared above the coffee table, rotating slowly around the vertical axis. "That is approximately how the whole building will look. The individual floors," he pressed another series of buttons and the image split into three separate slices, "will be laid out like this."

"That’s the Mark 5.5 holo-imaging projector isn’t it?" Tay interrupted. "When did you get one of those?"

"I borrowed it off Dariel." Avon assured her. "It will be some time before I can justify the expense of buying one for myself."

"It’s wicked though- I’ve only seen the Mark 4 in action before. So where’s my office going to be?" Tay asked.

"I thought I’d leave you the choice. Either here:" Avon indicated a room in the centre of the first floor, "or here," he pointed to a room at one end of the ground floor factory section. The first allows easy access to all departments but you may find people overly willing to drop in and pester you with their problems. The other is further from your main users so you may have a little more peace to work on your own projects but it can be irritating to get back there only to have to walk all the way over to the other end of the building again."

"I’ll have the central one- I like to be in the thick of things."

"Don’t blame me if your users do nothing but pester you with trivia."

They spent the next couple of hours discussing networks and operating systems, Avon tolerating Tay’s exuberance because she had a good understanding of the network he had planned and was an accomplished programmer. Besides, she had plenty of time to calm down and gain some perspective.

She was not intending to stay in town for the whole afternoon so they strolled down through the market together.

"The two eldest kids are pestering for a puppy," she explained looking through a series of animal studies on an art stall, "but I’ve persuaded them to wait for spring when Marianne’s brothers will have a couple of litters of mastiffs to trade. I’d quite like a retriever of my own but it just isn’t practical right now. I bag more leverts than pheasants anyhow."

"Pheasants? Aren’t they earth birds?"

"Yeah. Rich people used to breed them for sport-shooting before everyone lived in domes." Tay paused. Not a native of Astbury, from what Avon could establish, she seemed to know little of Federation society either. "I guess some of the early settlers thought they’d make better moving targets than cherryfowl. I’ve got my rifle with me today- thought I’d see what I could kill for our cold-store while all this snow’s making the game easy to spot."

"I expected you to have come in a flier," commented Avon.

"Not today. Got something much better for snow." She grabbed his hand and dragged him down to the far side of the spaceport’s local transport lots. "See: my brother picked up a batch of skispeeders from a polar expedition on one of the uncharted planets. They’re hopeless below minus forty but great for our winters. Surprised Marianne hasn’t been showing off on hers yet."

The speeders were basically a solo-transport vehicle with room for luggage or a passenger behind the main seat. Most of the front-end weight was counterbalanced by the small powerpack on the rear potion of the ski but it still looked distinctly unsafe. "What time do you make it?" She started the motor.

"Fourteen hundred hours. You should have at least two hours of daylight to get home in."

"Excellent. You want to have a go at shooting leverts? I can skin and gut them if you don’t want to do it yourself. Here." She unchained her hunting rifle from the side of the skispeeder and handed it to Avon. "See that tree over there? Try and shoot the old nest out of the top branches to get a feel for how it fires."

Avon felt the weight of the gun then raised it and sighted along the barrel...

No! He lowered the weapon. "I’m... sorry... I have... somewhere I should be." He handed the rifle back to the girl.

The same reaction as when Marianne offered to take me out looking for buck... He went to the arcade at least twice a week and could get a highly respectable score, shooting with either the Derringer, or with the blaster he habitually wore around town but anything bigger and that internal warning voice stopped him. He filed the experience with all the others he was unwilling to deal with just yet.

"May the Powers be favourable for you!" Tay called after him. Now was not the time for him to point out that the Powers meant as little to him as the warrior gods Dariel claimed to revere.

Dariel

"Marianne!" He greeted her as she walked into his office. "You’ve been away far to long- Vila has been pining for you."

"Not pining," she laughed, "just miffed ’cos Avon’s been attracting most of the outside interest. I heard all his news on my way over."

"Hmmm, I never saw Vila as the jealous type, a trifle over-protective maybe..."

"His ego’s a bit bruised but I’ll soon sort that out." She hung her jacket on the back of a chair and sat down, straightening a tangle out of her ponytail. "Where are your boys?"

"Upstairs. Nils and Mylo can be so... energetic when they get together."

"Feeling old?" Marianne got away with that sort of teasing in a way that other people did not.

"Certainly not," he retaliated. "I have business to attend to so I left them to wear each other out a little. So what news do you have for me?"

"Mostly what the boys will already have told you. The Federation’s pacification program seems to be collapsing now ex-Commissioner Sleer is top of their most wanted list-"

"I must find out if Avon had anything to do with that woman’s downfall. Un-suppressed citizens make for a far more profitable recreational pharmaceuticals business."

Dariel had a sneaking suspicion that Avon had done more to test the new network, notably the external communications link, than was strictly necessary. So long as nothing untoward was traced back to the SCorps or its leader, he was quite happy to tolerate such behaviour from his tame computer expert.

"Now that woman’s out of the picture they seem to be concentrating their resources on the battle fleets," Marianne continued. "I got caught in the tail end of some of the action that made the idea of a full crew look tempting for the first time in years. Wouldn’t be like our glory days though, I haven’t met a fully satisfactory navigator since Monique..." she trailed off. Dariel knew what was coming next.

"And Roal was the best weapons tech we ever had. You can mention his name, Marianne, I know he is waiting for me in the Great Hall."

"You know that’s not what I believe." Marianne seemed angry at the suggestion.

"It’s Winter Solstice, let us save such arguments on belief for another day." Dariel soothed.

"If you insist. On a happier note I met up with an old girlfriend, Jayrel."

"I thought she was dead. If not then I am very glad: I always need good pilots."

"Apparently she had a particularly bad relationship break-up, decided to drop out of circulation for a while."

"Well you must put her in touch with me: I have some consignments needing delivery that would be just up her street. I could offer them to you but if you were to get caught... such a shame to throw away a clean record."

Dariel liked to keep his various business interests separate and having someone reliable whom the authorities had never caught up with in the old days was a distinct advantage at times.

"Don’t worry about it, I’m raking it in right now: lots of honest freighters have been scared off certain routes by the troubles and it’s looking like I’ll have hardly any time to come home in the coming six months."

"If you ever need a larger ship-" Dariel began

"Thanks but no thanks, the Sappho’s done me perfectly well all these years and I wouldn’t ditch her now."

"Your defences up to scratch?"

"More than adequate, and the Tech Dev Co’s prototype comms monitoring system should put me another step ahead of the troubles. What’s this I hear about the SCorps? Mylo tells me you plan on reducing the fleet presence in the Betafarl sector."

"It no longer seems necessary to tie up so many ships defending the allied planets there. The Federation seems more concerned with defending their current territory than with hostile expansion and I hear rumours that they plan to use the Betafarlian fleet in defence of some of their more important systems. I think it is time I put out some feelers to these upstarts who are so inconveniencing the Terrans: they may find the SCorps very useful."

Dariel’s political ambitions had always extended beyond his home planet but being outlawed by lifestyle choices was more of a disadvantage than past acts of piracy (which could be easily erased from the computers) or current grey areas of business (which could be conveniently hidden in subsidiary companies). If Astbury were to join any union of worlds it would be one in which equality was for all and not just for the conventionally moral.

"You’re sending Mylo to broker a deal with the rebels?"

"Why not? We have your boys here to offer advice on who best to negotiate with and Mylo is a seasoned negotiator as well as an exemplary tactician."

"My boys?" Marianne raised her eyebrows. "You may be presuming too much there."

"You brought them here, I assume you feel some form of kinship towards them."

"Love them to bits. Just not sure what they make of it all."

"I’m sure they adore you- who wouldn’t?"

On to Chapter Eleven

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