I have several short stories I wrote years ago for my sister in which Danziger runs off from New Pacifica with any variety of women other than Devon. I am not anti-Devon as much as a nonbeliever in a D&D relationship. My sister is a huge D&D fan and I just like to bug her with stories like this.
This is the Julia one. I decided to post it because of the unexpected interest readers have expressed in the John/Julia thing I thought I would stick into my blog story as a surprise. ("9 Weeks")
I also have a Mary one, a Bess one, a Denner one, a Magus one, and a couple of colony women ones. They all start out the same, but diverge from the point where John tells True his plans.
They need HTML written out and when that's done they'll be posted.
A TIME TO REND
R. Salway
It was by far the most difficult decision John Danziger had ever made in his life, but it was a choice he felt he had no option but to take. What was more, there was no time like the present to start to act upon it.
...Leaving the New Pacifica governing complex, a series of wedge-shaped rooms arranged in a ring around a central great meeting hall, Danziger squinted his eyes against the noonday sun and began to search his pockets for his sunglasses. He walked briskly away from the place as fast as he could and had reached his destination before locating his glasses in a hip pocket.
...Hooking them onto the collar of his shirt, he opened the door of the smaller building across the way from the complex and went inside.
...The lobby, if one could call it that, of the S and B Charter Flight Service was empty. A handwritten schedule of flight departures and arrivals hanging on a wall opposite the door was of no interest to Danziger. He stalked past it without a glance. He was looking for his daughter and had an idea where she was.
...True Danziger, now almost fourteen years old, acted as a secretary of sorts for the Solace and Baines enterprise whenever she had the time. She would soon be starting her apprenticeship as a medical student with Dr. Julia Heller, but until then she occupied her time helping Alonzo and Jake operate their flight service.
...Danziger had taught her how to fly a landing craft soon after the colony ship had arrived, and she sometimes acted as an extra pilot for S and B when business was hot. This was not one of those times.
...He crossed the lobby in five long strides and ducked a little to go through the door to the back rooms - one of the drawbacks of using old cargo pods welded together for a building. He could hear his child humming softly to herself in one of the offices. He made a beeline for the small room at the end of a short hall.
...Danziger stopped just outside the low doorway and rapped on the doorjamb lightly. "Hey, True sweetheart. We have to talk about something important. It won't take long. Can you spare a minute?"
...True looked up from where she was sitting and playing with a VR unit and she smiled as she swung the eyepiece away, ending her game.
..."Okay," she said, and as was her habit after so many years of life on G889, she looked at him shrewdly and tried to guess his business. "Does it have anything to do with all the plans that you have piling up in your workroom at home?"
..."In a way it does," he acknowledged. He ducked through the doorway and went to sit on one corner of the desk she was using. She was supposed to be scanning frequencies for messages from the landers in flight. He launched directly into what he wanted to discuss. "I've been thinking about making some changes in my life for a while now, and the time has come to do something about it. I've decided to leave New Pacifica and go to live at the biodome."
..."What?!" True jumped to her feet and stared at him as if he'd suddenly turned into a monster. "Dad, you've got to be kidding me! I can't leave now! I'll be starting my apprenticeship with Julia next year! Until then, I have to keep up my studies with her at her school. I thought you
wanted me to be a doctor, Dad!"
..."I still do, sweetie. I want you to be whatever you want to be. I didn't say you had to come with me. You can stay here."
...Her surprise turned to horror. "You were planning to just leave me here?!" Placing her hands on her hips, she glowered at him, horror turning to indignant anger.
...Danziger sighed. He might have known she would take that part of it the wrong way. He tried to give her a patient look. She wasn't buying it, but he pressed on.
..."Of course, not. I'm not abandoning you, True! The house above the beach is still ours. You can stay there. I'm the one who'll be moving out," he said and added quickly, "but I'll be coming back whenever I'm needed here for something."
...True waved one arm dramatically and glanced toward the window and back at him as she spoke.
..."You're needed here all the time, Dad! What are you talking about? You can't leave New Pacifica. Who's going to take care of you way out there?"
..."Sweetie, believe it or not, I can take care of myself. I'll be fine. There is something I've always wanted to do, and now is the time to do it - before I get too damn old and over burdened with useless jobs to care anymore."
..."Who will take care of me, Dad?" The anger had passed and True was beginning to get the picture. Her father was serious.
..."You and I both will," John said, making his tone as assuring as he could. "I'll be coming back to check up on you, to visit you. You'll still have Julia and Alonzo close by. Devon and Uly will always be here, and so will all the others. They'll look out for you. You know that."
..."I want you to look out for me, Dad! I can't let you go out there by yourself."
..."Of course, you can. We'll just be a day's flight by hovercraft from each other."
...A worried look had come into True's eyes and she frowned slightly. She stepped closer to him and reached to take one of his hands.
..."I don't want you to go, Daddy. Please don't."
..."I have to, True." He squeezed her hand gently between both of his. "The settlement is growing and coming together on it's own now. The colonists are getting used to the planet, and they don't need to be led around by the hand anymore. This is turning into a damn town, for pete's sake! If I can't go back to the stations, I want to go back to the biodome. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the first real home we had on this planet, True, and that's where I want to live the rest of my life. It's close enough to commute back and forth, and just far enough away to be my little corner of the planet."
..."Are you sure this is what you want? We can move into the hills like Tim and Diane did."
..."A few kilometers inland is good enough for them, but not for me. Now that the colony ship isn't going anywhere, and we're never going to leave this planet, I want to live my life at a place where I think I can be happy."
...With tears in her eyes, his daughter nodded her head and threw her arms around his shoulders. "You aren't going anywhere without me."
..."We'll talk about that later. You're supposed to be listening for calls from the landers, not playing VR games."
...True pulled away and gave her father a disgusted look. "Don't try to change the subject. If you think you're leaving here alone, you're crazy."
...She nonetheless returned to her chair at the desk. Seated once more, she looked up at him while turning up the volume on the comm unit. "Have you told Devon or Julia what you're planning to do?"
...It was Danziger's turn to look at her as if she'd just grown another head. "Are you kidding me? No! I had to fight with them for seven months just to build our house half a klick from town!"
..."Dad! You can't just leave without telling anyone!"
...Danziger looked down at his hands and took a deep breath. Their roles had reversed somehow. As long as he lived, he would never figure out how True was able to do that to him.
..."Well, I just talked to Devon," he said. "Don't look like that! I did! After the meeting I actually got her to sit down long enough listen to me, but she just brushed me off, like I was telling a bad joke or something. She wants the school up before winter comes and that's all she has on her mind now. She said we'd discuss my plans later."
..."But, you aren't going to wait for later, are you?"
..."Of course not. If I don't leave now, I never will."
The colony town, laid out in two oblong rings around the meeting hall and the hospital, looked like a big, flattened wagon wheel from the air. Six wide streets leading away from the center like spokes in the wheel provided easy access anywhere in the town. True Danziger left the CFS building and ran across the dusty street to the hospital at the other end of the flattened hub it shared with the meeting hall.
..."Julia!"
...True Danziger rushed into the doctor's work area, and stopped short just inside the door.
...Julia Heller looked up from her data pad and raised her eyebrows. True was supposed to be looking after business at Alonzo's office, but. . . The girl looked as if she'd been crying. "True! What's wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Is something wrong with your father?"
...The girl shook her head and took a step into the small laboratory. "Dad's leaving New Pacifica, Julia. I just talked to him. He's going to move back to the biodome and live there from now on."
..."He's what?" Julia immediately got to her feet and walked around the desk to stare at True.
...The girl looked back at her helplessly. "I can't let him go by himself, Julia. I have to go with him."
..."I can't believe this. Are you sure that's what he meant? He's not just going there for a short time? He's been doing a lot of research on something lately. Are you sure he..."
..."I know what he meant, Julia!" True said adamantly, and started pacing. "He said he always liked it there and he wants to go back. If he can't go back to the stations he wants to live the rest of his life at the biodome, the only other place he ever felt at home."
..."Oh, my god. Um...come with me. We'll go talk to him. Is he at his shop? Uh...wait a minute. I'll call Devon and have her meet us at his workshop."
..."It won't do any good," True said softly, but Julia was already snapping on her headset.
..."John, what are you trying to do? You've got both True and Julia scared half to death that you're serious about this biodome nonsense. Does this have anything to do with our talk earlier?" Devon demanded, as she marched into Danziger's workshop with Dr. Heller and True following closely behind her. She stopped in front of the work table and crossed her arms, expecting an answer. Now.
..."Nonsense?" Danziger said, putting down the circuit board he was trying to put into a com unit. He straightened up and looked at the three women. "Why is every idea I have ever had
nonsense?"
..."Well, I can't believe you're serious about moving more than a thousand kilometers away from New Pacifica just when True is about to start an apprenticeship with Julia, and when we're about to start building the new school complex! The buildings you helped lay out and design."
..."Doesn't mean I have to build them!" he said and looked into his daughter's eyes, letting her know in a silent exchange what he thought of her bringing his two biggest adversaries to try to talk some sense into him.
...Julia stepped in front of True. "Okay, maybe nonsense wasn't the right word to use," she said pointedly, looking at Devon.
...Devon gave her a brief look of annoyance, but conceded the point. She willed herself to calm down and speak in a less forced tone of voice. "Okay. Okay. You want to move farther away from the colony than you already are. All right. Can you tell me why you want to get away all of a sudden?"
..."It isn't all of a sudden!" he answered with an impatient wave of his hand. "I've been trying to bring up the subject for a long time now."
..."Today was the first time I heard about it."
..."Today was the first time I made you listen! Then what did you do? You brushed it off."
..."I didn't brush it off! I told you we'd talk about it later, and I meant it."
...He sighed. "I know you did, but I can't wait for later. Summer's almost gone and I need to be on my way if I'm going to go at all this year. I need to settle in before winter comes."
...Devon stared at him. He was serious.
...Julia stepped into the silence. "What are you planning to do at the biodome that you can't do here? John, I know you've been restless lately, but that's no reason to make such a drastic change. Alonzo and Jake have been more than willing to take you on as a pilot with them between construction projects."
..."And if I wanted to be a pilot I'd take them up on it, but I'm not interested in that." He walked to the side of the table and hooked one leg over the corner and leaned against it much as he had with True's desk. He clasped his hands together on one thigh. "Look," he began, "It's just that I don't feel at home here anymore. In the beginning, setting up the colony was enough work to stay occupied. After the colony ship arrived, getting the colonists who survived the flight settled in kept us all busy. Now, the colony is a full-fledged settlement. It's a community and all the work I can do is done. All the work the ops crew can do is done. We're all getting restless. Don't tell me you haven't realized it yourself, Julia, because I know you have. Alonzo spends as much time looking at the horizon as I do."
..."Well, that's different! He has the air service. He likes flying. It's as close as he'll ever get to space again."
..."Not all that different. Adair dragging our asses across the planet to get here changed us all. If we'd gotten back to the stations, I probably would have become a sleep jumper like Alonzo and Jake just for the change in environment. The only thing I really know is - even though I would have denied it at the time - I liked the life we had at the biodome. When I started thinking about moving away from the settlement, I thought about moving into the hills, like some of the others did. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I really wanted to go home. Since home at the stations was out, the only other place where I ever felt at home was at the biodome. I've been trying to find plans or blueprints in the library for building another one like it."
..."So that's what you've been doing," Devon said. "With all the maps you've been making and
poring over, we were all joking you might have found buried treasure, or a gold mine."
..."In a way, I have," John said with a small smile. "There's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, ever since the crash. It's stayed in my mind through everything, but I never really had a chance to follow up on it until now. All the free time I've had recently has enabled me to research and plan for my future. It's going to be my base from now on."
..."A base? A base for what?" Julia asked, intrigued despite her opposition to his plan.
...Before Danziger could answer, Devon cut in sharply, holding her hands palms out to both of them. "Wait a minute, both of you. John, I'm sorry if you've been bored lately, but leaving the colony now is out of the question. You know how big the school complex is going to be. We need every available hand to work on the foundations and the support structure. We need to have the walls up by winter so we can work inside through the cold weather."
..."You have enough people. The last of the injured colonists from the ship are out of the hospital and ready for work," he told her.
..."You're our construction foreman."
..."Walman can take over."
..."You have the organizational experience."
..."We aren't building a station, Devon! Just a school and a couple of other small buildings!"
..."I know! It's going to be hard work and we need you to keep the work moving. You've supervised the building of the entire colony, John. Like it or not, that's your job."
...Danziger raised one hand and rubbed his forehead, grimacing at his palm as he did so. That was the whole problem. He was getting tired of his job. When he lowered his hand, his expression was all patience.
..."All right. All right. You win. I won't talk about it anymore. Chalk it up to another harebrained Danziger scheme."
...Devon looked exasperated, shaking her head and sighing loudly. "I never said it was a harebrained scheme, and you know it."
..."Harebrained, nonsense. Same difference," he said.
..."Stop being difficult," Devon told him mildly and patted his arm reassuringly. "I didn't mean it, and you know that, too. You caught me off guard."
...It was a classic John Danziger feint, contrition and mock embarrassment to throw Devon off. True knew this tactic and opened her mouth to say something, but her father's look in her direction stopped her cold. Her shoulders slumped. They would be moving to the biodome as soon as possible. Maybe that very night.
...The three adults talked for a minute or two longer and then the women turned to leave, walking out together and talking softly about something.
...John watched them go. Besides, he thought and looked away, I want a little bit of what Julia and Alonzo have before I'm too old to care anymore. Or for anyone to care about me.
...When they were gone, True let out a breath. "What are we taking with us?"
...Danziger roused himself from self pity and smiled.
...Crossing the loosely graveled main street in the direction of the governing center, Julia slowed her footsteps. She squinted against the sun to look back at Danziger's small workshop.
...Devon stopped walking, too, and leaned her head to one side. "Don't look so worried, Julia. John isn't going anywhere. You heard him admit it was just a silly idea."
...Julia looked at her. "No. I heard you say it was nonsense. He just said he wouldn't talk about it any more."
..."Julia!" Devon said with a laugh. "You don't really believe he's actually going to leave and take True so far away, do you?"
..."Don't you?"
..."Of course not! You know John. Once the building of the school gets under way, no one will be doing anything right and he'll be all over the site giving instructions and threatening to do it all himself!"
...Julia sighed. "I guess so. You're probably right."
..."Absolutely. Thanks to that attitude the hospital will probably stand for a thousand years."
...Julia laughed. "It probably will. I'll see you later. I have a few things to do before calling it a day."
...Devon smiled at her. "All right. Thanks for calling me, by the way. I really should have taken the time to talk to John after the meeting. Anyway, I'm glad it's settled."
..."Yeah. So am I."
...It was early evening and Julia was in her office at the hospital recording the facts of her last medical case that day - a young woman with an insect sting on her inner arm just below the elbow. Diagnosis and treatment were simple enough. The Advance crew had experienced any number of such stings and bites in their travels across the continent.
Travels across the continent...
We're all getting restless. Don't tell me you haven't realized it yourself, Julia, because I know you have.
Those words kept going through her mind.
...Julia shook her head and finalized her report and sent a copy of it to her colleague, Dr. Vasquez, whose office was on the other side of the building. She looked at the calendar on her office wall.
...Calendars were the first products off the printing press Morgan Martin built a year ago, and one hung across from her desk, letting Julia see how her life would be unfolding from day to day. There were days set aside for her duties at her small clinic; days set aside to teach the volunteers here at the hospital more about their duties as medics and assistants; and, the most important of all, days set aside for Alonzo's next homecoming - as well as all of his departures. The departures matched the homecomings and the clinic days matched the teaching days, all letting her have one day off a week. The calendar told a story of her life she didn't like acknowledging.
...Getting up from her chair, she took her gear unit from her pocket and put it on her head. She pulled the eyepiece forward and, after a long time and a couple of false starts, she began to speak and record her words. When she finished, she took the gear chip out of the unit and put it on her desk. She took a sheet of paper from a drawer and wrote Alonzo's name on it, then put the gear chip on top of it.
...Ten minutes later, Dr. Julia Heller entered the children's playroom of the hospital and she spoke quietly to the young medics overseeing the nursery at night. Afterward, she went into the nursery and quietly walked among the sleeping children in their tiny beds. She approached the small cot of a sleeping boy who was just over a year old. An orphaned child who had lost his family as a result of the sabotage aboard the colony ship, he had been born healthy on the stations where an older brother had not.
...Julia and Alonzo had talked of adopting the little boy, but always the final decision was put off for one reason or another: he would go away on another cargo pod hunt, or a freight run for food or materials, and when he returned days or weeks later, the subject would be forgotten and brought up later to the same result.
...It was now half a terrian year since Julia first brought up the idea of giving the baby a home, and now, she was making the choice alone.
...She lifted the sleeping baby from his bed and wrapped his blanket around him. He stirred, whimpering a small protest, but he quieted immediately when she whispered to him in a hushing tone.
...One of the student medics in the outer room had a small bag stuffed with clothing, food and other necessities when Julia came out of the nursery ward with the little boy.
...The young woman smiled. "I had a feeling you would be along to get him soon," she whispered and helped Julia hang the bag by its strap on her shoulder. "You and Mr. Solace will adore him."
...Julia nodded. "I already do. Thanks for getting the bag ready so fast."
...The student smiled wider. "We've had it ready for a long time. I just had to put milk into the bottles. We all knew how much you wanted him."
...A second student touched Julia's arm. "What are you and Mr. Solace planning to name him?"
...Julia leaned her head to one side. "My father's name was Michael. I think it would be an appropriate name for him."
...She left the hospital wing and carried the child through the fading sunlight toward the cabin she and Alonzo shared. If anyone had been watching, they would have been surprised to see Julia walk past the rustic little cabin and onward to the long, low hangar for the landers and the hoverlifts.
...Julia knew the Danzigers would be there preparing a lander for their departure from the colony site. It was obvious John had made up his mind about leaving and he wasn't about to let anyone stop him - not even the interference of his daughter.
...Just before going inside the hangar, Julia paused long enough to look back at the softly lighted windows of the prefab and stone and wood buildings that made up the colony.
..."All right, Michael Heller the second," she whispered to the baby and the cooling night air. "Let's go with John and True and find a place we can all call home together, shall we?"
THE END
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