How Did It Get So Late So Soon

Posted on Sat 5th Oct, 2019 @ 12:58am by

842 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Deck 635, Scent of Love
Timeline: MD 4, 1100

Fortunately, there was no one in the shop at the exact moment that Flavia's eldest two children burst in, filled with news. Otherwise, they might have burst entirely. As it was, they had a few minutes to unburden their souls of news their mother had missed.

"Mom, Mom, it was so exciting!" Alerio burst out as his front foot hit the floor just inside the door. "You missed it all. The Commodore was there! She's really stellar isn't she?" Everything with Alerio was stellar this month.

"She's quite good at what she does," Flavia said, putting the paper whites back in the bucket of water and preparing to listen. The bouquet could wait a bit.

"No, but you should have seen her, Mom! She had on this formal uniform, and - oh, wow, the people coming off the ship! They all look alike, Mom!"

"Well, not all of them," Herodia said repressively. "But you could tell families, because within a family they all look alike."

"One family had seven girls, mom, all exactly alike. They didn't even have a brother!" Alerio really didn't understand how anyone existed without a brother.

"Lucky them," Herodia murmured.

Flavia concealed her smile. "You know you don't mean that."

"Maybe, maybe not," her daughter answered, winking at her mother.

"What impressed you the most, Herodia?" Mrs. Smith asked.

"Their Governor Wildrose," she said promptly. "She was ... regal, I guess. I don't know that I ever understood that word until I saw her walking down the ramp, with their anthem playing. Then they announced her name, and I thought it fit perfectly. She was like a rose with thorns. I mean that's the feeling I had from her."

"I don't think I'd want to meet her on a dark night or be on her bad side," Alerio said matter-of-factly. "She looked frighteningly competent, and I'll bet she had a weapon on her somewhere. But the really scary one was the woman behind her. Well, five women, really, and they were smaller than she was, but one of them was wearing an eye patch, and her face was all scarred on one side. I'll bet that was quite a fight!"

Flavia opened her mouth, but Herodia was there first. "Don't be silly, Alerio. That is one of the Commodore's special friends. She was injured when a pirate ship blew up almost on top of them." She turned to her mother. "I heard about it in The Early Edition."

"You know I don't care for that programming," Flavia said. "They don't always get their facts right. If you want to know what actually happened, check Caroline Post's Noonday News in a little while. If there's anything to know, she'll report it accurately."

Herodia nodded, "I know, but I like to know the rumors, too."

"But, Mom, that's not important," Alerio interrupted. "You should have seen everyone bowing to each other and being all nice. And then people started coming off the ship. And they kept coming and coming and coming! All these look alike families. It was so weird, mom. Why do they all look alike?"

"I suppose for the same reason you and your father look so much the same, except that you are younger," his mother said.

Alerio thought that over and then shook his head, "Maybe, but I think it's more than that. Can we study them, mom? Can we?"

"You make it sound like they're bugs we'll put under a microscope!" Herodia exclaimed. "We can learn about them, I'm sure, but we aren't going to annoy them or trap one and keep it under observation, you know. They look different from us, but they're just as human, and they have rights, Alerio!"

"Are they human, mom?" he asked, ignoring everything else his sister said. "Their eyes are so big!"

"They are human ... or they were at one time in the past. They would have looked like anyone in our family, but they've adapted to a different planet, a much heavier planet, and I suppose perhaps darker, but I'm not sure. Their eyes have adapted for that, and I'm sure other things have, too. Now, it was an exciting historical happening, and you need to remember I allowed you to go to the overlook and watch because it was a bit of history being made. This is the first colony the Besm have started off their home world."

"For once, history wasn't boring!" Alerio exclaimed. Herodia merely rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Hiding another smile, Flavia said, "Go home, have some lunch, and then start on your essays explaining why today was a landmark event on our starbase."

"Yes, Ma'am," both children replied.

"I'll be in at fifteen hundred to help with orders," Herodia said, as they left.

Watching them go, Flavia had a sense of passing time. Where had fourteen years gone? Her daughter was a young woman, displaying many teen traits, but still so family oriented, and so helpful. Her oldest son was caught somewhere between irrepressible boyhood and the shadows of maturity.

 

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