Friends in the Stars Read online

  Friends in the Stars

  Mackey Chandler

  Cover by Sarah Hoyt

  Fifth book in the Family Law series

  Friends in the Stars © 2019

  Chapter 1

  Lee was having breakfast on the balcony and enjoying the view, waiting for Eileen and Victor Foy to join her. The city was waking up, the traffic increasing and pedestrians visible along the nearby streets. Derfhome wasn’t like a big Earth city that stayed busy all night. The Old Hotel was only four stories high, with her suite on the top floor at the desirable north corner. That was one floor higher than most of the other buildings in the capital, at least in the old city. That meant she wasn’t surrounded by larger buildings cutting off the view. The capitol was spread out before her like an old-fashioned panoramic map and she liked that. She could see some new taller buildings dotting the ridge across the valley about six kilometers away. She had a friend in one of those towers and had enjoyed the view looking back across the old city from that side.

  The balcony was at the north corner of the Hotel and she picked the west leg of the wrap around balcony to be served. The season was advanced far enough near summer that the day was warm enough to be comfortable already and she didn’t want to sit in the sun. If her guests joined her on the sunny side, somebody would end up squinting with the sun in their eyes. There was no sort of awning to let down. Lee made a mental note to look into getting one.

  Lee didn’t need to live in a hotel, she was welcome at the Red Tree Keep. She and her step-dad Gordon were always given a guest room when they visited on business. They were family and clan so the Mothers would never think to charge them. However, she didn’t want to live there, or even too close, because there would be other costs. The clan Mothers would undoubtedly keep finding things for her to do and integrate her into the day to day life of the Keep until they took over her life bit by bit. Maintaining a little separation seemed like a good thing. She and Gordon both had considerable income off the discovery of a class-A habitable planet and more coming soon from other exploration. They could contribute to the clan and fund various projects off the interest without being in any danger of touching the principal.

  With that level of income, living in a hotel wasn’t any significant expense. She had another condo home on Fargone she rarely used and intended to build a home on the living planet they’d discovered, Providence. Despite citizenship and homes on two planets, Lee wasn’t all that fond of them. She’d grown up on a family explorer ship and felt planets were nice places to visit occasionally. Especially planets full of too many people.

  Lee didn’t wait for the Foys to arrive to start eating. That was just one of the little social graces she refused to take up from Humans. The Foys were Humans from California and had gone through a long and harrowing effort some years ago to abandon that place and immigrate to Home, the habitat at L2 out beyond Earth’s moon.

  The Foys were still filling in details of that early adventure on Earth for Lee every time they visited her. It was a safer topic than their more recent life on Home and their eventual move to Central on the Moon. Besides Eileen being an ambassador and voice of her lunar sovereign to the Derf, they were allies of a sort now. They were assigned to Derfhome as more than a diplomatic mission, they were a military presence to protect it. They’d had opportunity to do so once already, diverting an unwelcome USNA ship to New Japan.

  Too many things about their recent life were still secrets from people not sworn to their Sovereign Heather. That could make conversation awkward when the topic took a turn that ran up against something they couldn’t reveal. Old stories were a much safer area of conversation than recent events.

  The sun behind the hotel illuminated the town below with a strong yellow tint while it was still low in the sky. The buildings were oriented all different ways, to gain a preferred exposure to the sun for one or the prevailing wind for another. The modern human habit of laying everything out in grids oriented to the compass points, as if the buildings existed for the benefit of the roads, never got started with the Derf. Instead, the lots tended to be laid out round, and Derf felt crowded much easier than Humans. The spaces between them were public right-of-ways and open to utilities. The ugly abomination of the utility pole never got started here.

  The door chimed softly, and Lee checked the hall camera in her spex and told the house computer to let them in. “I’m out on the balcony, come on out,” Lee invited directly to their spex rather than use the house speakers. It was easier and she’d recently grown more aware it was possible to disturb the neighbors with too much noise. The hotel was a historic building and lacked some of the noise canceling ability of newer construction, but she still liked it. With Derf sized rooms and tall ceilings the place had character. It was a change from the cramped quarters necessary in ships and station.

  The shower, for example, was Derf-sized, and a waste of space for her, but done in pre-Human contact marble with bronze controls that didn’t feel they had to apologize for the metal with chrome plating. However, the shower did have a pressure regulator added because it was designed to blast through the heaviest Derf coat to the skin. If accidentally started on the high setting Lee found the hard way that a Derf shower could knock her off her feet and leave a painful water jet abrasion. The doors were similarly wide to Derf-scale, like a palace, so what was a small home for Derf was open and spacious for her.

  Lee heard her guests come out the other door and Vic say, “Where is she?”

  “She must be around the corner on the shady side,” Eileen guessed. She looked around the corner and verified that before Lee could even call out to them.

  “Make yourselves comfortable. Here’s the address to order breakfast,” Lee said and sent the link to their spex.

  “Is there a menu?” Eileen wondered.

  “If there is nobody ever offered it to me,” Lee said. “I just tell them what I want and, so far, they’ve been able to serve me. But then my tastes run to ship fare and Derf dishes. If you want some exotic Earth thing nobody has heard of they may not have it.”

  “Like strawberries?” Eileen asked.

  “Oh no, that’s no problem. Gordon has a big bowl of them with cream sometimes.”

  Vic and Eileen ordered quietly and Lee didn’t strain to hear.

  The tricuspoid shapes that predominated between the bigger properties were sometimes large enough for green spaces. Pushing your lot edge out, narrowing the road was severely frowned on. From the balcony Lee could see a few oddly shaped lots where two or three properties had merged, producing a lozenge or clover-leaf shaped lot. About a half kilometer away was the near edge of an open space with the least regular outline to be seen, a huge open-air market with scalloped edges where the tiny figures of merchants were still setting up booths and tables to sell this early in the day. Lee zoomed in with her spex to see the action, but they couldn’t resolve much at this distance. A good telescope to clamp on the handrail might be fun.

  The fact that the roads weren’t laid out in grids had bothered Vic at first. One of his first questions when they first took a cab together in the city had been, “How do you know who has the right of way?” The pattern hadn’t been obvious to him and it seemed like a potential demolition derby with cars merging by rules not obvious to him.

  “The vehicle coming from your left has the right of way. It’s simple. The driver’s seat is on the left so you can see the merging traffic on your side better. If you had to look over your right shoulder through the vehicle windows to see traffic that wasn’t going to yield to you it would be chaos and carnage,” Lee assured him.

  “It’s like an endless chain of roundabouts,” Eileen said. “You have no straight through roads where you can relax
a little. But I admit neither do you ever need to sit stopped waiting for cross traffic.”

  “It’s near chaos,” Vic muttered.

  “You mean traffic circles?” Lee asked, not sure of the other name for them. “I saw a few of those on Earth, and more in videos, but most of the time I was on Earth was in a very rural area. They only had a few right in town. It seems like you should know how they work then,” Lee said.

  “In theory, needing to apply the theory in real time every few hundred meters is another matter. I never thought I’d miss expressways, but I’m starting to see their appeal. I think I’ll stick to something simple, like flying starships,” Eileen said.

  Victor had quietly nodded agreement. As far as Lee knew the Foys still used the automated system in the city after being in residence for two months, instead of attempting manual control. The auto-cabs drove like old men, and traffic flowed around them, but they had a very good safety record.

  “It’s pretty up here,” Vic said, taking the chair that let him see it better. Eileen was indifferent to the scenery and faced Lee squarely, back to the view. “I know we needed a higher level of security, even temporarily, but I can see why you’d live here. You have this great view and having a kitchen on call and housekeeping without all the hassle of hiring staff is convenient.”

  “All the services in the hotel are nice,” Lee agreed, “but surely Heather gave you an allowance to run the embassy and will expect you to have staff. It’s not going to be coming out of your own pocket is it?” Lee asked.

  “She did, but it’s the hassle of advertising and interviewing people when everything is finished on our building. I’m not looking forward to,” Vic explained.

  “I wouldn’t even try,” Lee told him. “I’d ask the Mothers to send somebody to do it. It would be their job to fill the lesser positions.”

  “We are already committed to having Red Tree supply our security force. We don’t know yet how much we’re committed to paying for that. They said their supervisor will get settled in during the construction to keep the site secure. Then, after he suggests to the Mothers what we need, we can discuss paying them to put it in place. How much do you think the Mothers would charge us for that kind of domestic help on top of security? Would they even want to lose another very useful person from their own service?” Vic wondered. “I’m nervous we’re putting all our eggs in one basket.”

  “Red Tree Clan has a special relationship with you. I think maybe you don’t appreciate how special. You saw the plaque they gave Talker for the Badger embassy. I’m sure as soon as you move in they’ll provide the same public notice that you are under their protection. I realize you are here to protect the planet, the whole star system actually. But down here on Derfhome the Mothers’ protection has long-standing respect people won’t automatically extend to you. Most of the public have no idea what you are doing for us. The Mothers haven’t made a point of advertising why you are here.

  “Very few would decide to mess with your building or people after seeing their sign. I doubt they would name a set wage for a supervisor in either security or housekeeping, because that’s a service in-kind given your duty to guard our system, but if you send a stipend to the Mothers for the managers they probably won’t turn it down. The clan is not so poor the Mothers feel compelled to put a price on every little act and service. They will probably feel free to name a wage to you for the other workers such as a janitor and groundskeeper. The Mothers will bargain on the set wages for the people they send to town to work on a fishing boat or a lumber mill, but they don’t have any special or even permanent relationship with Red Tree like you do.”

  “So, the manager would probably use all Red Tree people?” Eileen asked. “They wouldn’t hire any townspeople?”

  “Absolutely, how else could they control your security if they didn’t use people they have known since birth? They might hire an electrician or a plumber for a small repair instead of transporting somebody from the Keep, but a trusted person would watch over them from when they walked in the door until they left. As far as putting all your eggs in one basket, why would you fail to use the strongest basket you know will do the job?”

  “That kind of security is almost impossible to have on Earth, and we only had it at Central by virtue of almost total isolation,” Eileen said.

  “That kind of security might be possible in the Middle East on Earth, in an isolated and repressive tribal society under a warlord,” Vic said. “People don’t know each other in the western countries. In the cities, they often don’t know their next-door neighbors.”

  The Mothers are definitely tribal, and not afraid of war, but they’re really working on the repression part, and we’re trying to help them,” Lee said.

  “It might seem ungrateful to characterize them as repressive, and yet take advantage of the benefits of their tight control,” Eileen gently suggested to Vic.

  “Don’t worry that I’ll say anything,” Lee assured her. “I have a lot of things I’d like to see changed about Derf society, but I don’t want to start a civil war to do it.”

  Lee had a sudden thought, furrowing her brow. “When you finish up all the interior work and can move into your embassy, you should ask for somebody who can drive for you. Then you won’t have to crawl along slowly in an auto-cab.”

  “Perhaps they can even give me driving lessons,” Vic said, but seemed embarrassed.

  “Where are all your things?” Lee wondered. “I remember you had a huge freight container you left in orbit when you had to go turn away that USNA ship.”

  “We had it brought down a bit at a time and put it in storage. Lifting it in Lunar gravity was one thing, bringing it down to Derfhome in this gravity and atmosphere grappled to our ship is a trick I’d rather not attempt,” Eileen said. “The empty hull is parked up there with a bunch of other odds and ends that collect near any station.”

  Lee seemed distracted for a moment with her spex, and announced, “Breakfast is here, your stuff and a second serving for me.”

  The cart that eased out on the balcony was pushed by a Cinnamon Derf in the sort of green vest that hotel workers wore to identify themselves and provide pockets. Lee didn’t know this worker but assumed it was a female by her size. There was a cloth over the top, which was wise given the aggressiveness of the little native bird analogs.

  “We can serve ourselves,” Lee assured her. “You’re new to me. Do you have a customary name?”

  “I just started yesterday. Humans call me Cybil if it pleases you, Mistress.”

  “I’m the First daughter of the Third love son of the Four Hundred-Seventy Third First Mother of Red Tree, by the Hero of the Chain Bound Lands, Second line of the short-haired folk, of Gordon - Lee Anderson,” Lee declared very formally. “But I am happy to be known as Lee to both Humans and Derf. I don’t need any titles please.”

  “That will save some time,” Cybil quipped. That was nice she could crack funny about the length of traditional Derf names.

  “Did you choose a customary name from a Human you admired?” Lee asked.

  “Yes, there was a Cybill Green who produced a long-running video series in the last century of your… of Human history,” she corrected. “It featured all sorts of instruction for the gracious hostess to entertain and create an attractive tasteful home. It wasn’t aimed at the hospitality profession, but I intend to learn what I can at the hotel, and in the fullness of time apply my experience and the lessons I liked from my namesake to the sort of business Humans call a Bed and Breakfast.”

  “You’re ambitious. I very much approve,” Lee said. “I don’t think anyone in Derfhome has opened an establishment on that business model. Call on me when you reach the point of actually doing it if you need investors.”

  “Thank you, it will be some time, but I’ll remember,” Cybill promised, and withdrew.

  “Town Derf?” Eileen asked when Cybill was gone safely out of hearing. Derf hear better than most Humans as Eileen had learned early on
.

  “Oh my yes,” Lee agreed. “Either she left a clan early or is town born. She would never have had access to a reader or old Human videos living in a Clan Keep. They control technology tightly and keep their people far away from any distractions that might slow down their work. Keep Derf have no aspirations of owning their own business. The whole idea is foreign to them. If they want that sort of life they have to strike out on their own by going to town. Gordon told me he never had any money, not even pocket change until he walked away and went to town to make his own way. It’s only recently the Mothers have given very small monetary rewards for exceptional service. There still aren’t any regular wages.”

  Vic cocked his head at her and lifted an eyebrow. “And yet, he’s welcome back at the Clan now, and treated very well.”

  It wasn’t a question, but his tone made it one.

  “The Mothers are controlling, but they aren’t stupid enough to slam the door in the face of a millionaire who has volunteered to send funds home, just as if they’d sent him to town to work in a tannery or a glass making shop. The English expression I heard used was to cut off your nose to spite your face. They’d look stupid to do that after he proved he had more value to them exploring than making barrels and furniture the rest of his life. If they were critical of his decision he’d have cut his donations off. He wanted a good relationship but wasn’t desperate enough for it to take abuse.”

  “There was a time or two when I wished I knew how to make a decent barrel,” Vic mused. “It has to be near a lost art on Earth, except maybe among the Amish or Mennonites who do a lot of things the old-fashioned way.”

  “Ask Gordon,” Lee suggested, amused. “I bet he remembers how.”

  The breakfast cart was parked between Lee and Eileen, its back to the rail. Eileen had the cloth folded back opening the side to them and was setting some things in front of Vic, who was beyond reaching them.

  There were three little fliers, smaller than one’s hand, perched on the rail, watching every move greedily, but much too cautious to try to snatch anything.