A Planet For Emily

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Rods had been put on his bed, repaired leg up on a pillow. Eve had taken out the bullet, set the fracture and given him various injections, clucking that she did not have this or that piece of advanced medicine. None the less, she declared, Rods would make a full recovery. There would be some pain but he was a big boy. With that she left, and Suzanne came in to sit on the edge of the bed.

While Rods had been unconscious, Eve had reassured her that no one from Stacy’s or any other potential cruise director applicant had shown their face on the ship.

“Are there any more of the Clark clan to be rescued at great personal and financial cost to myself?” demanded Rods.

“We don’t know about our other relatives,” said Suzanne smiling. “I can find some in trouble if you like?”

“No, thank you. Looks like Hoss will have to pilot The Max for a few days, and Igor can help you keep any passengers in line, if you can spare any time from breaking out of dungeons and causing mayhem in alien clan houses – good job by the way.”

“Thank you.” Suzanne appreciated the compliment, “but I didn’t want to be a vessel. That’s what they wanted me to be, a vessel.”

“Always helpful if the rescuee can do some of the job for herself. But now we have to get back to making a living and that means going straight to pick up a load of colonists to take to Fermat. Quite a crowd, we’re packing them in.”

“Does that mean I’m not fired.”

“I may have spoken harshly at our last meeting – okay, I’m sorry I won’t hold words said down an alien mound as we were running for our lives, against you.”

“And I am sorry I was so dismissive of you when we were down an alien mound running for our lives, Rodney.”

“I’m not a Rodney, I’m a Graeme. They started calling me Rods at the academy because I was good at doctoring up cars that used petrol to take part in street races, when they still had such things. Hot rods is a racing term.”

“I see. This is a revelation.” The ladies on Fin’s Reef had told her they thought his first name must be Rodney. “Can I call you Graeme? I never really liked Rods.”

“I never minded Rods but it’s time to go respectable, I guess.”

“You had a record somewhere coreward?”

“A member of The Max’s crew before it was mine was found to be smuggling drugs. Under the law of the time in that region, all the crew members – me and another guy – also got convictions. We didn’t draw jail time but running The Max in respectable areas proved impossible. The other guy sold out to me and I came out here.”

“I’ve found out more about you in this conversation than I have in months.”

“It’s the drugs. I’ll go back to being taciturn later. But while we’re into revelations, I was in such a bad mood when I met you..."

“You were in a shocking mood.”

“.. that I never told you I met your dad once.”

“What? You did?”

“Sure. My first day as a junior engineering officer aboard The Artic – the old region series, now those were ships.”

“Dad was mate on that.”

“The captain was off the ship so he did the meet and greet for the new, engineering cadet officer. Jovial guy, I remember, completely shaven.”

“You did meet Dad.”

“He walked with me back to the engineering section. Introduced me to others. Friendly guy. I only saw him that time and when the crew farewelled him just two days later to go to command The Africa.”

“The ship he was killed in.”

“Well, yes, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No problem, it happened. But how come you never told me until now you knew Dad?”

“I had enough trouble getting you to pay any attention to me as it was. What would have happened if you had realised you had status as the daughter of a former shipmate, however briefly.”

“I would have paid careful attention to all you said, as I always did.”

“Careful attention my rear after burners.”

“If we’re still into revelations, why did you get thrown out of the navy?”

Suzanne thought she should find out what she could from this new, sharing Rods, while he was still drugged up.

“I hit an admiral who wanted me to throw one of my boxing matches. I boxed for the navy and won against the marines in the heavyweight division. Best time of my life.”

“Which admiral did you hit?”

“Mitchell. Guy who got your Dad killed.”

“And your fiancé?”

“Ex-fiancé by then. She dumped me when I got thrown out of the navy, and the only job I could get was on The Max.”

“Hard for you.”

“Maybe, but I lived and the rest of the navy didn’t. While we’re on the subject of survival, let’s delete the Oid planet from all our future itineraries?”

“Agreed. It’s gone.”

“And warn other ships. Don’t say what happened, just that there were unfortunate incidents that gave rise to misunderstandings or whatever. Refer anyone who wants details to me and I’ll tell them not to be nosy – or they can go to the Oid planet and be, what was it?”

“A vessel.”

“Yes, a vessel, and we’ll notify their families. Tell Eve and your mum to shut up too. I’ll tell Hoss and we’ll take all digital records offline.”

“Won’t the Oids say something to their own government?”

“Those guys are outlaws. Doubt if that’s a problem.”

“I just thought of it – you know the Oid that shot you, and I guess Igor shot.”

“Guy with colourful robes lying in the doorway?”

“That’s him. I was taken to see him when you and Igor were looking for me on the base. He said he was once very great.”

“He was the clan chief? Well, with any luck he is now very dead, and once the clan chief goes the whole thing falls apart. That means no one is going to be interested enough to piece together what we did, and we won’t say anything and that’s the end of that.”

“Sounds very fair to me, so then I’m to continue as cruise director?”

“I didn’t get you back to fire you – although the thought may tempt me soon. What I do want is for you to drop Eve on Fermat with my best wishes.”

“Oh, but she has to look at your leg again.”

“Yes, yes, but we’ll be back often and I think she would be much happier doing her medical stuff. She’s good at that. Can’t say she’s good at cruise directing, and when I snarl at her she folds. Most annoying.”

“You can snarl very convincingly.”

“You never found any problems with my snarling. You just snarl back.”

“I do not snarl. I reply in a correct, if abrupt, manner.”

“Ha!”

“Ha!”

They smiled.

“But if I am to continue as cruise director, shouldn’t there be some arrangement concerning pay?”

“Pay?”

“Of course I’m grateful. More than you know. It’s just that I wouldn’t want you to think that this was a cheap way to get a cruise director.”

“Cheap!” spluttered Rods sitting up. Suzanne gently pushed him down again. “Cheap!” She kept her hand on his shoulder and he put his hand on it. “Haven’t I already paid to cart assorted Clark family members half way across the galaxy and back again? And did I tell you how much those gold coins you threw at the guards are worth? And that’s just the start. Cheap indeed!”

“I understand all that,” said Suzanne, “it’s just that I have to buy clothes if I’m to look presentable as cruise director of a respectable ship and there are other expenses. We should also have a ground car to run errands on our home planet, which I now assume is Fermat.”

“Ground car? There are now a few roads on Fermat for these errands, Cruise,” said Rods, “with strictly enforced speed limits,” he added hastily seeing her eyes gleam.

Rods took the hand still on his shoulder in both of his. She did not object or remove it.

“I never thought of this exercise as a cheap way of getting a cruise director.” He turned her hand so that one hand curled around hers and she grasped it. They both smiled. “In fact, I think, in the end, this will be a very expensive way to get a cruise director.”

Then they rolled back the carpets and danced until dawn. There have been weddings since, but the neighbours always said that ours was the best.

On Our Selection, Steele Rudd, 1899.

M. S. Lawson is Mark Steven Lawson, a retired business journalist who now cares for his elderly father in Melbourne, Australia.