The Way to Freedom

You could identify such people on sight as "Anglo," "African," "Hispanic," or "Oriental"-although Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and so on, were harder to guess. They'd managed to retain their identities, genetically as well as culturally, by keeping determinedly to themselves on their own segments of the home-world's surface.

Those of us whose forebears headed outward to the stars, who established homes for themselves and their offspring on other planets, lost those distinctions long ago. Marc and Tasker and I were (and of course still are) all typical examples of our kind; with skin tones in varying shades of brown, eyes that can be any color, and hair that can be brown, black, or deep auburn. Seldom will you see blondes among us, and almost never what a native Terran would call a "redhead."

Did Reiko Ballantine's ancestral-world upbringing, and privileged adult life, contribute to her obvious naivete about the mission for which she was volunteering? Perhaps. But most civilians were pretty damn clueless, so she probably wasn't that much worse than the rest. I'd been expecting more from Rudy Tasker's wife, that was all.

Anyway, Marc had just administered a first dose of reality therapy to our well-meaning friend; and I was grateful. He'd administered enough of that unpleasant tonic to me, after all, during the years of our professional association-which started when Survey Central put him on the first team I ever "bossed," expressly to serve as my nursemaid.

Sometimes he still plays that role in my life, all these years later. I squeezed his hand, since I was still holding it, and I said, "Good thing Rudy's not off on a mission. At least he's available so he can lend us a hand! How about giving him a call, Reiko? And then hauling him in here, so we can get this caper planned while Keren's big ears aren't listening?"

* * *

"I had an idea it'd come to this." Rudolf Tasker was well past thirty now. His wife, Reiko, I knew to be slightly older; but you couldn't see it by looking at them together. He'd lost his boyishness long ago, and I could remember exactly where and how. That was when he lost his first wife, the 8055 colonist/modern human hybrid girl in whose honor I gave Keren-Happuch Mira Cranshaw Falconi the second of her given names. Her first, of course, being that of both my Mum and Grandmum.

"So what've you got in mind?" I asked him, as he stood at the window of the hotel room he and Reiko shared. We'd had to get out of the borrowed office at the hospital when its regular tenant wanted it back. But Keren, who'd been strong enough to go to school today, wouldn't need someone to welcome her home for hours yet; so the change of scene shouldn't be a problem. And if she got sick, as she often did part-way through the school day, her teacher could find us anywhere. As long as we wanted to be found.

"I'm on transition leave right now, so going with you's not a problem. I can get us a long-range shuttle, and supplies for it, too. Nothing's really that hard, when you're an incoming sector boss." Tasker turned slightly, just enough so he could look at the rest of us over his shoulder. "The rest of us" defined as Marc, and me; because Reiko hadn't arrived from the hospital yet. She'd been hauled into an emergency consultation, the kind that a physician's oath precludes turning down, just as we were all trying to get out through the door.

"Rudy! Congratulations, that's wonderful!" I turned him around so I could hug him.