13 Degrees of Separation (68 page)

Kringer hesitantly told him about his mother, how she had
been killed by an ape man under the orders of a human. The humans had watched,
laughing and cheering at the sport. He had fled into the swamp and had survived
there.

Teela was disgusted that Adam took care of the tiger, even
letting him sleep with him in their room on the floor. She was inhibited with
an audience, occasionally she would wake to find the cat staring at them from
the foot of the bed. They hadn't had sex since Adam had found the dratted cat.
The three places the cat avoided, the machine shops, the space port, and the
gun range were all filled with people. It'd be fun to ambush Adam in a closet,
but she didn't like getting caught, it was embarrassing.

The cat was afraid of
everything
. Loud sounds set
him off, and she couldn't help roll her eyes in disgust over his terror of
thunder. Sure her first experience with it had spooked her, but for a minute!
Her disgust didn't help the situation, the cat picked up on it and reacted.
That drove a wedge between her and Adam.

“He's a
kid
Teela, treat him like a child. Treat him
like shit and he reacts to that. He's a person, not an animal, and not an
adult. A kid. He's a scared lonely kid. Put yourself in his shoes!” Adam
growled at her when she'd gone off on a rant.

“But...” she saw Kringer growling at her.

Adam noticed the growl as well and went over and sat down
beside the cat. Teela looked hurt as Adam stroked the Neocat. “Calm down kid.
It's okay. We're just having a spat. Parents do that sometimes.”

Kringer yowled softly, looking at Adam lovingly. He finally
settled down, crossing his arms.

That comment about being a parent, that made Teela stop and
think. “You...” her communicator beeped, interrupting her. “Yes?” she snarled.

“Teela? This is Duncan. Got a minute? I could use your
help,” he said.

She frowned. Her eyes darted to the cat, now drowsing in
the sun in Adam's lap. “Sure dad, be right there,” she said and left.

She made her way to her dad's office and stopped at the
sign on the door. “Duncan Na. Cute dad. Just let the bad guys know where you
live,” she said, shaking her head. She knocked then entered and flopped into a
chair. Her dad looked at her, reading her body language. “Problem on the home
front? Adam being lazy?”

“No, just... I don't know. He coddles that damn cat!” she
got up and threw her hands in the air. She related the story to her father and
then paused when she noticed he was thoughtfully looking at her, even smiling
in amusement. “What?”

“He's right. You're a parent, even though you didn't want
to be one,” Duncan said. “A grandson. A little Na. What did you say his name
is? Kringer? Kringer Na Prince?”

Teela rolled her eyes. “We're not married
yet
dad,”
she said. She turned away, unsure if they ever would be now. Things had changed
drastically. She now regretted getting him to come here.

“No, but eventually. Unless you find some other boy toy to
play with,” he teased. Teela had set her sights on Adam and she kept them
there. She never strayed, and she became intensely jealous if any women fawned
over Adam. Suddenly she realized that and blushed. She was getting jealous of
the cat. For the wrong reasons too, she thought. It was actually good that Adam
was showing some parenting interest. That spoke well of the future, she
supposed, biting her lip. Maybe she'd taken the wrong approach to the entire
thing.

“He's a child,” Duncan said. “So being a little
understanding could help. He's in a new environment, new people, scared. No
family, no support.”

“Okay dad. I'll try to be... more understanding.”

“Do that. Try something to bond with the cat. Some common
ground. It might help.”

“Okay dad,” she sighed, sitting on the edge of his desk.

“Hey, it helped with you,” he teased. She poked him. He
chuckled. “You turned out okay.”

“Gee thanks dad. What did you need before I wring your
neck?” she asked.

He chuckled, eyes twinkling then leaned over and pulled a
tablet out from under a sheaf of papers. “I've been working on this map of the
city, trying to plug the holes in our perimeter, and well, I'd like another set
of eyes on it...”

Teela leaned closer, frowning as she got into the job at
hand.

<=={----------

Meanwhile, Adam's parents and friends were busy working on
rebuilding the city and space port. Fully functional, the space port would be
one of three on the planet, and the only one on the equator. His mother Marlena
Glenn Prince focused on the space port, as a pilot she had a natural draw to
that. Her shuttle had been recalled to the station but she kept the landing
field cleared and it's small tower manned at all times. It was also one of the
few places that had a satellite link as well as a series of radios.

Randor oversaw the clearing of roads to the city and to the
fusion reactors, then the beginning of the restoration to the fusion reactors.
Without power the city would be a ghost town. There was more than one fusion
reactor, there were actually six tokomak style reactors laying on their sides.
Each looked like a cluster of cylinders laid out in a neat bank of rows. They
were half buried in the hillside. Cables were buried underground. Many of the
superconductive cables were past their impedance points, part of the problem
with the reactors, their loads had been shifted to other cables over the years.

Recently the native Antiguan's had tried to set up overhead
power poles, but the native vines climbed the poles and then draped themselves
along the power lines. Moss grew as well. In less than a week they could
festoon a transmission line, in another week they would blossom with leaves to
catch the sun. A week after that and the vines would either breach the cable
and cause a short and fire, or they would suck up so much water from the humid
air that they would bring the cables down by their own weight.

One of the reason's Randor had been brought on board was a
fresh set of highly trained eyes. Some of the leaders suggested beam power,
using microwave beams that Tribecca Electrical & Gas Company had set up to
supply ground installations with power from the solar farm Yard Dog's Inc had
built recently. That was still being brooded about, but Randor was against it
for local needs.

He patiently explained in public and town council meetings
that they first had to look after themselves, get the town self sufficient,
refurbish and open the space and water ports, then they could look into
exporting power. The only export the island currently had in trade was jungle
plant goods. Many medicines, vanilla, chocolate, and other things like spices
were harvested and exported.

Duncan put a lot of what he had learned on Kiev 221's last
run with the admiral to work for Randor. He focused on security and main
engineering systems while Randor focused on infrastructure and communications.
Marelena's focus on transportation rounded out their set. The three of them
made a good team.

Duncan had his work cut out for him, there were constant
raids on the island. Farms were being hit, some were being muscled. Any
shipment crossing the island needed heavy escort to get through unmolested.
Attempts to catch the raiders had so far failed miserably. He didn't have a
full assessment of the situation but he made some changes right away.

One of the first thing's Duncan did was reorganize the
militia and police force, he created a separate unit when he noticed pay offs
going to the sheriff and deputies. He outfitted his crew with modern weapons
instead of the gunpowder weapons that the sheriff and deputies had. He also
made certain they had body armor.

Adam and Teela served as his lieutenants. Adam drafted his
Neotiger friend to help. Together the three of them taught basic classes on
hand to hand combat. Teela set up a firing range and enjoyed spending her time
there, shooting up paper targets. She had to be coaxed into training new students.
Her sarcastic teaching methods hampered her students ability to learn. She had
little patience for fools, men who came in and drooled all over her got a quick
course in paying attention, usually from the ground looking back up at her in
dazed confusion.

Mrs. Prince took an interest in medicine, education, the
space port, and other things. She overhauled the tiny school house by setting
up a solar panel and giving each of the students tablets. The interactive
devices lightened the load on the single school's overworked and underpaid
school teacher. Getting her better facilities helped as well. She received a
pension and took on two understudies to act as assistants and to teach some of
the basic classes. Getting her to lighten her load and take less of a hand in
teaching let them focus on new methods and less on her bad habits.

Mrs. Prince also set up the first library and overhauled
the utilities when she became disgusted with the quality of the water and
progress on that end. Randor had spent so much time in the fields improving the
food quality he had neglected the water. She became so dirty and tired her
husband finally stepped up to get it done. A snappish comment from her had him
scrambling to get additional people involved. The men folk were amused, but
they quickly learned Mrs. Prince might talk softly, but there was steel in her
voice and eyes.

<=={----------

As the first shipments of parts arrived, the fusion reactor
was repaired. Eternia soon had a massive power budget from the nearby fusion
reactor. The spires were uncovered, they had been overgrown by vines and jungle
growth. Also Eternia was the most modern city in the southern hemisphere, in
fact it was the only ancient city remaining on the planet. Even the capital had
been founded after the Xeno war.  Zap and several power utility companies sent
delegations to negotiate power contracts. The Zap delegates acted like they had
it in the bag, smug and so self assure until they picked up rumors that the
Umbrella corporation might have an inside edge. The Prince family traded
aggressively in getting education and tech to schools, good medical, the works
for their people, playing one side against the other in order to get the best
deal.

 Adam ran into the Vinatelli family. Some cousins to Leo were
working as managers of the fusion reactor. One was admittedly clueless, trading
on his family name to get a cushy job. Adam recognized it right off from the
dumb look the guy gave him. But he didn't call him on it. Adam realized a lot
of the family were like that, trading on the name rather than their skills.

He sat at dinner with them, talking about what it was like
to be a spacer. Kringer was on his best behavior, lapping at a bowl of cream.
He took some interest in the robot bird Jane had, but it flew off.

Jane Vinatelli the teenage girl was the exception. She was
like her brilliant cousin Leo but actually took pains to hide her intellect.
She wanted to be normal. She was lonely though, outcast by others of her own
age who thought of her as a tinkerer and a nerd. She was socially inept and
shy. Adam picked up on all that after seeing how she was ignored by her family,
despite having the robot.

She kept her intelligence mostly to herself, finding that
being on the outside made it much easier on her. The family focused their
efforts on training the boys in the ways of all things mechanical and
scientific, she just loved to tinker.

To help herself she found and repaired a bunch of robots
she had found in the city. Some were basic machines, house hold cleaners. She
got rather good at repairing the tiny vacuums and floor scrubbers. It was a
side business, she traded or gave them away when they were repaired. One, a
robotic bird pet she adored and kept to herself. The bird she named birdie, was
a robotic parrot analog. It had silver and gold plumage. It spoke a bit, but
mainly communicated as an animal would, with whistles, caws, and bird song. At
night it would sing her to sleep. By day it went with her wherever she went,
sometimes singing to her from outside a window. Adam took an interest in her
work.

Adam was impressed with her cybernetic skills. She had a
bit of a crush on him. That died when she saw him with Teela. “It was nice to
be noticed though,” she murmured to birdie.

<=={----------

John 'Pope Skeletor' Keldor nodded to his lieutenants Lynn
Evil and Trap while they watched his team shake down another farmer. He was
careful to keep them on a short leash, no sense killing the goose that fed them
after all. If they burned the farm it would also draw attention, attention he
didn't want.

He'd taken over the mountain years ago. It had seemed like
the thing to do, a nice quiet place to set up shop, build an army of
cutthroats, then go out and plunder. It hadn't quite worked out as planned,
he'd been stuck on the island, but it had gotten lucrative lately. Ever since
that station had been found anyway. He just needed to find a way to cash in
before the authorities got wise.

He also needed a way to complete his mission. He had under
a year to do it if central stayed to the time line they had given him. He was a
criminal, he'd made his name on the mainland robbing trains and raiding farms
before he'd gotten too popular with the Pinkertons and bounty hunters. Eternia
had seemed the place to lay low for a few years until the heat died off, which
it did. He'd just settled in and never gone back. Instead he'd used the base to
create and distribute drugs to the surrounding area. Pope organized his forces
into a make shift army and Calvary and even raided Eternia at night once a year
ago.  He had dozens of informants in the city, all addicted to what only he
could provide.