Displaced

Timber - Forty-Eight

Paul dropped Monique and Vance off, like he usually did. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, I felt as if a lot had changed overnight. Already, I was looking at the kids differently, and that probably made me a horrible person. Monique was Paul's daughter. Talk about pressure. I don't get why he trusted me so much he'd give his own child to me. The guy had guts, let me tell you. As for Vance, I had to keep reminding myself that he was not his mother.

None of it sat well with me. As I grabbed Monique, letting Vance run past me to go play, I tilted my head toward the dining room for Paul to come in and take a seat. I was getting a lot better at multitasking.

"So you warn me to stay away from Rumor, and then give me her kid to watch," I said, casually. "I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to pick your brain on that one for a few minutes before you go off to do your work."

Paul sat in a chair, placing his hands in his lap. "That wasn't intentional. There is no hidden lesson or agenda, I promise. Bad luck, I suppose. Or maybe good, depending on how you want to look at it. He needs a steady male role model until he can see his father again."

"His father who's an Undesirable," I pointed out. "Something tells me there won't be any happy family reunions coming up any time soon."

"That remains to be unseen for the time being. Rumor is a tricky one," Paul said.

I huffed and went to grab a snack. My blood sugar was off, I could tell. It was going to be a long day if I didn't nip that problem in the bud fast. "She is, yes. It just caught me by surprise and I don't want her to use him to get to me."

"Then don't let her."

"With her, I have a feeling that is going to be easier said than done."

He chuckled. "Think of it as a good training exercise on how to deal with difficult people in a tactful manner."

"Does he ever see his dad?" I asked quietly, subtly pointing at Vance who was busy playing with some blocks on the living room floor. The kid was oblivious. I envied him. He probably had no clue anything was wrong to begin with. For all I knew, he was born on the ship. Rumor gave the impression she'd been around for a while. If that was the case, then to Vance, Earth didn't even exist. What would growing up on a spaceship be like?

Paul slowly shook his head. "Their last meeting was about a year ago. She doesn't like him seeing his father much. It confuses him, apparently. I've been doing everything I can to maintain some kind of contact between the two. Send pictures, letters, videos, that sort of thing. The whole situation is a mess. I blame myself for that. She's good at manipulating everyone, you see. His father should probably not be with the Undesirables."

I swallowed. If Rumor could play Paul like her fiddle, who else could she play? "I can see why you want more help with your job. Must be hard, having to deal with all of the issues of a group of people. Have you thought about trying to establish some form of government system here? Then you could delegate the issues more instead of taking on everything on your own."

"I've proposed it, and that's when I was told I could take on an apprentice." He looked pointedly at me. "I've been waiting for a long time for the right person to come along. I'm sure they were hoping I would choose a woman, but my wife is the female perspective I use when needed. She has a lot of pull as well. Surprisingly, I have more at this point in time. My goal is to ideally apprentice someone who has a similar partnership with his chosen companion, as I do with mine."

"And then what?"

"We'd work on dividing up the tasks and territories of the ships needs. Ideally, I will have at least three apprentices, three higher couples so to speak, and then perhaps smaller divisions throughout the ship. The government system you desire to have. It has to happen slowly, carefully, or the Achlivans will see it as a threat."

I rubbed my forehead, trying to get rid of an oncoming headache and opened up my stick of cheese so I could take a bite. It helped, a little. "They don't like different things, do they? Have they read our history? Do they know that if they don't work with us to try and maintain what we're familiar with, that we'll revolt until we get our way anyway?"

"They know. Is what they're doing any different than what some of our governments have done to other nations? How many times has a country gone to another in the name of justice or religion, and forced its ways on a foreign people? Not many complained about it on Earth so long as the person doing it was seen as ethically more moral, or more intelligent."

"Why do you always defend them?" I clenched my fists, squashing the remainders of my cheese.

Paul noticed, and chuckled again. "You don't need to get so upset you ruin your snack. I'm playing devil's advocate, nothing more. Whether you want to admit it or not, the Achlivans do have us beat in the intelligence department. Someday, I'll show you around the ship and you can see just how advanced their technology is. As for morals, that one, I'm on the fence about. Sometimes the aliens are too technical to understand emotions. The point I'm trying to make is, our respective natures are similar. Does the United States of America negotiate with terrorists and people who revolt?"

"Not usually," I mumbled, picking the cheese out of my fingernails.

"I wouldn't expect the Achlivans to do the same. Change needs to happen slowly, subtly. I consider my position a big leap for our species. Are you ready to take even bigger jumps with me?"

My appetite was gone, now. I had to choke down the rest of my food, and the only reason I did was to keep my body from getting out of whack. Sometimes stress impacted my hypoglycemia. What Paul was suggesting stressed me out a lot.

I couldn't look at him, so I gazed down at Monique in my arms. "Being the head of a revolution isn't something I'm so sure about. Would they listen to me? Would anyone? I'm just an actor. A pretty boy with not a lot of life skills - that's what people think when they hear my name. No one is going to take me seriously."

"You were an actor. I worked the drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant before I came here. Of course I was a lot younger than you, but I think you understand my point. You have life skills. Don't sell yourself short just because of what other people might believe you to be back on Earth. Here, you can be whatever you put your mind to."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I whisper. "I'm probably keeping you from something important."

"You're fine."

I laughed. "That was my polite way of kicking you out, Paul. No offense, it's great to have you around to chat. I just need some time to think on my own. That's all. You're proposing a lot of uncomfortable things."

If he was insulted, he didn't let on. His smile softened, and he stood from his chair. He gave Monique one last kiss on the forehead. "Of course. We'll take this apprenticeship at your pace. If you need some quiet, and they won't nap for you, I suggest going for a walk down in the Garden."

"Thanks..." I walked him to the door, then closed it behind him with a sigh. The extra vote of confidence was great to have, but it all still scared the crap out of me.