The Space Spinster (on HOLD)

Log 14. The Homecoming Surprise

Time Stamp: 13th of the 5th month, year 2696 CE, 10:35

Location Stamp: Domicile Cluster 9, Compound 106, Planet Mars, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy

***

I paced the communal living room. Wasabi's luminous eyes followed me from a dark corner. "Really, Wasabi? A girl goes away for a few standard months, and you give her a stranger's treatment?"

"Forget the darn cat," Daddy Oliver called from the bowels of Gorelko's compound. "I want to know if you beat Mikado's ass."

"Nope," I said. "He got away with his scheme Scott-free, but it'll come back to bite him one day. I'm done with him."

I just had to delete his unanswered, unread message from my comm.

"But you are feeling well?" Oliver asked like he cared. "After his paralyzing mods?"

The soft bangs of the opening and closing drawers in his room didn't slow down.

"Yeah. And I even got over the space-sick faster than ever. Maybe Mikado threw in something extra into my cryopod cocktail for that."

"I don't trust the spacers' drugs," Oliver called. "No matter what the Intergalactic Transportation Board says. It's unnatural!"

"Yeah, but what can you do?" Without the spacers' cocktail, only a handful of humans would be tough enough to survive being on a spaceship. And even that handful would have required expensive, prolonged training.

"So, all in all, another glorious Stellar Cruises voyage, kiddo?" Oliver said.

"Yup. We've burned it back to Ven-Mar at the maximum allowed G's all the way. Tons of tips. Pleasant trip."

Of course, it would have been even better if the Martian authorities had spine instead of jelly, and arrested Var'Rar and his Variel cronies.

"Nice!" Daddy Oliver hollered. After another bang of an empty drawer, uncomfortable silence descended over the apartment.

It would also have been nice not to come home to Oliver moving out. I imagined Dad standing in the middle of the bedroom, surveying his handiwork with the satisfaction of a job well done.

"Your room awaits," he called out. "Come and unpack."

"Yours, you mean," I muttered. "Shit, dad, you could have told me you were leaving before I tripped over your duffel at the threshold."

"Don't sulk, Vera." He came into the communal den, cradling a large box in both hands. "You are 20% me, and we both look dog-ugly when we frown."

"It's not how genes work, so I'll sulk wherever and whenever I want to. It's my right enshrined in the Ven-Mar constitution."

Oliver set his box on the floor and tried to ruffle my hair out of an old habit. My cornrows were not exactly suitable for such niceties, but he managed to at least pat them affectionately.

I leaned away from his hand. "Just get out already, if you want to leave."

"You're killing your old man, kiddo." Oliver dropped into the armchair. "And you are my favorite genetic project too."

"I'm your only one!" The words popped out far hotter than I expected. It was a while since I'd screamed at any of my parents, the first time since I did my time with the army therapist.

Oliver studied his toes. They were a worthwhile subject for examination, since they executed complex spirals on the soundproof flooring material. "Ahem."

"You... you didn't!" I gasped. "You said that you'd never purchase the second child's rights!"

But he did it. His face said it.