Parental Guidance

Ryan hated being in the hospital.

He hated the smell of the place, stinking of antiseptic. He hated the sounds, muffled beeps of machinery, the hush-hush-hush of nurse’s shoes, the smug tones of doctors. The whole place made him sick to his stomach. You didn’t have to be Dr. I-Have-a-PhD-and-I’m-Not-Afraid-to-Use-It Vasquez to get the irony of that, or to know why.

So when he woke to pale golden walls, the sound of his heart monitor, and someone saying, "Don’t wake him up," he was less than happy.

His last clear memory was of going up to the windmill on Singh Point. Lately, he’d taken to going out there, climbing it to a point halfway up, and sitting on a crossbar looking at the sea until he felt more like himself. He’d tried to grab the bars three times, but his fingers felt like marshmallows, and on the third try, he’d staggered backward and folded up on the ground. Once there, it seemed like a good idea just to close his eyes against the light that stabbed his eyeballs like giant needles.

Then it was all a jumble of fever and pain, hideous light, blessed darkness, and memories so clear he could almost taste them. Once or twice, he’d felt his mom stroking his hair back and whispering to him, comforting nonsense words. He didn’t know if that was a memory from when he was younger or something that had really happened. He wondered if it was babyish to wish that it was the latter, and thought probably it was.

He realized belatedly that the hospital was flooded with light, and he didn’t have a headache. He experimented with that, closing one eye and then the other, opening them both, shutting them both. No headache. He wiggled his fingers and toes, and felt no tingling or numbness. Whatever alien disease it had been was gone.

Before he could start plotting his escape, though, his mother’s voice forced itself into his ears.

"He doesn’t even know about the implant yet. He’s barely conscious."

What implant? Had they put something in him? That could be bad.

"He should be awake soon," someone else said. It sounded like that one doctor, the hot blonde who’d just broken up with her pilot boyfriend. If Ryan were a few years older, he would totally be making a try for some of that. "His heart rate was rising."

Ryan became abruptly aware of the beep-beep-beep of his heart monitor. He breathed deep, held it, and let it out, trying to slow the rate of the shrill beeps.

"Look, I’m not asking him to run laps." Ms. Adair. Miz Boss-Lady, more like. "Just answer a few questions."

His mom again: "He’s scheduled for brain surgery tomorrow afternoon. Can’t it wait?"

"Brain surgery?" Ryan yelped without thinking. He slapped his hand over his mouth and slid down in the bed. Moron, moron, moron!

But still--brain surgery?

When he looked up, Hot Doctor, Miz Boss-Lady, and his mom were all coming toward his bed. His mom got there first. "Ryan? Honey? How do you feel?"

"Fine," he said, ducking away from her hand as she tried to rest it against his forehead. "I don’t need surgery."

"Actually, you do," the HD said. "We did a scan today, and we found something."

Ryan’s heart jumped into his mouth. "Wh-what’d you find?" he asked, barely noticing his mother taking his hand.

"It’s a chip." Hot Doctor touched the back of her head, halfway up. "About here. We believe it’s been making you--do things. But we’re going to take it out, don’t worry."

Ryan lifted his free hand to brush it across the back of his head, where a little patch of stubble was just growing out from being shaved about a month before. "What, that? That’s not a chip. What are you, blind?"

He got three very sharp looks. "You knew it was there?" Miz Adair asked.

"It’s my head," he said. "But it’s not some kind of brainwashing chip, okay? You can leave it in."

Predictably, his mother ignored that. "What is it, then?"

"It’s a--a thing, okay?" He fumbled for words that wouldn’t get him creamed. "A health thing." It kept him healthy, right?

His mom said, "I never heard about this."

At the same time, the Hot Doctor demanded, "Where did you get it? Who implanted it?"

Miz Boss Lady just frowned at him.

"It’s fine, all right? Real doctors put it in. It’s not like I got some guy from school to cut my head open."

"Who put it in, Ryan?" Now his mom sounded dangerous.

"It’s for science," he said. "I was helping science."

That went over like a lead balloon, from the looks on their faces.

"It was an experiment," he mumbled. "They said I could have it free if they could collect the data from me. I blew off school and went down there and they put it in."

"When was this?" his mom demanded.

"Before we left. Two weeks. You were at the hospital. Lynnie was having a thing." He’d had to take a pill just to get brave enough to go to the clinic, and when they’d let him come back, he’d burrowed under his covers and slept away two days, waking only when his mom came in to scold him for coming home hung over or stoned--his perceived condition wasn’t too clear to either of them at the time.

"Why did you agree to it if you knew we were leaving?"

He shrugged, playing with the edge of his blanket. "The price was right. And they didn’t know I was going. I didn’t see any reason to tell them."

Hot Doctor let out a whoosh of breath. "Why would you get it in the first place, free or not? What did it do for you?"

Ms. Adair said suddenly, "Brenda, Julia--give me a moment, would you?"

They looked at her blankly.

"I’d like to talk to him alone."

Ryan got suspicious. Talk to him about what?

Hot Doctor said, "Devon--"

Ms. Adair said, "Julia."

The doctor frowned at her. It looked like Ms. Adair mouthed something to her, because her eyebrows quirked a little bit, as if she were surprised. "Brenda," she said, smoothly flipping sides. "Let’s go to my cube. I think we should talk a little more about this surgery."

"I’ve heard about all I can stand," his mom said immediately. "I want to know what’s going on with my son."

"Well, that’s a first," Ryan snotted.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"If getting sick was all it took, I shoulda done it earlier," he fired back.

"Stop it!" Ms. Adair put herself between the two of them, her back to Ryan. "This will get us nowhere. Please leave. Or we’ll be all day at this."

Ryan could feel his mother looking over Ms. Adair’s shoulder at him, but he didn’t look up. Let her stew. It suited him fine.

Finally, he heard two sets of footsteps, retreating. He looked up, but Ms. Adair still had her back to him. It looked like she was staring out the window, at the low humped beehives like an infestation of small volcanoes out on the edge of the stubbly bluegrain fields.

He thought, Maybe I could just sneak off. Climb out of this bed and go.

Just then, she said, "They said you could fuck whoever you wanted, am I right?"

His hand, sneaking down to pull away the corner of his blanket, froze.

"There wouldn’t be any pregnancy, no STDs. This implant was a free pass. You’d never have to think about consequences again, ever."

Ryan couldn’t speak. The words were all blocked up in his throat. He thought, My mom is gonna kill me and how’d she know? and whoa, she said the f-word.

For some reason, the last bothered him the most. Grown-ups did not drop the f-bomb. It was a kid word, one his friends used, not a word adults actually used to refer to the act of, well, fucking.

Although he still hadn’t said anything, she turned to look at him, then smiled a little twisted, unhappy smile. "You know, that con has been around since I was fifteen."

"So, the Dark Ages," he said, making a feeble, brittle joke. Then, "Con?"

"There’s no such thing as a neural prophylactic implant."

"They said it was experimental," he reminded her. "Like, top secret. You wouldn’t’ve heard about it." But his stomach started to hurt, like it always did when he was slowly realizing that he’d done something really, really dumb.

"That’s what they said to me. Except that I paid over ten thousand credits for the privilege of getting a useless piece of metal inserted into my body. And you got it for free. Did you ever ask yourself why, Ryan?"

"They said it was science," he said. "They said--" He looked down at his lap. "I didn’t care why. It didn’t matter why." He frowned. "You mean you--"

"Did you ever meet anyone else in the experiment? How were you supposed to send in your data? Why wasn’t it being carried out through a major university? Why didn’t they make your mother sign?"

"How do you know it’s not real?" he whispered. "How do you know it’s a compulsion chip instead of--what they told me?"

The ferocity went out of her stance. "Ryan," she said, her voice very gentle now. "Would you ever sabotage an entire ship?"

"What?"

She sat down on the end of his bed. "I talked to your mom. She said she found you wandering around on the crew level, the morning you woke up on the Virginia. And we’ve recovered footage. The ship was sabotaged, and you did it."

"That’s bullshit! Why would I--My mom and my sister were on that ship!" But even as he blustered, he remembered waking up and not being in the bed where he’d fallen asleep, twenty-four years before. At the time, he’d thought it was some side effect, like amnesia. Now he remembered wiping crud off his hands on his pants, when there shouldn’t have been anything on his hands at all.

"That’s what I’m trying to say. You would never do that on your own. Something compelled you to do it."

He took in his breath, then let it out, along with all his illusions. "The chip," he said.

"And the virus--we recognized it. That came from the chip, too."

"It made me sick?"

She nodded. "It needs to come out."

"What happened?" he said.

"When you sabotaged the ship?"

"No," he said. "To the other person. The one who had the chip when you go here."

She stiffened, just a little. "I never said there was another person."

"There had to have been," he said. "The Roanoke went down in flames. You recognized the virus. If there was never anybody else with the chip, you wouldn’t know now. What happened?"

Ms. Adair looked down at him. "She died."

He gulped, hard. "It killed her?"

"The virus killed her. We vaccinated you and killed the virus. But do you really want to take the chance of finding out else it has in store?"

"No," he said. Damn. Brain surgery it would be, then. "Why me? What’d ever I do to anyone? I mean, I get in trouble a lot, but who would really give a shit except my mom?"

"It wasn’t you," she said. "You were handy, that’s all."

"For who?"

"Ryan. Listen. Where did the surgery happen?"

"Some clinic. Some free clinic. I don’t know."

"Who runs the clinics?"

He got annoyed. "What is this, Twenty Questions?"

"You’re smart, Ryan. Figure it out. Who runs the clinics?"

"The government," he said.

"And the government is run by--" she prompted.

His eyes narrowed. "Why doesn’t the Council want us here?"

"Why do you think?"

Ryan looked out the window, at all the open space. "They can’t run our lives here," he said. "They can’t tell us what to do all the damn time."

Ms. Adair said, "They don’t like that."

"Fuck ‘em then," he said.

She smiled wolfishly. "My sentiments exactly."

"Wait," he said. "You got the implant. The fake one, I mean. When you were my age."

For a moment, he thought she was going to blow him off again, pretend she hadn’t heard. Then she said, "Yes."

"Why?"

"The same reason you did," she said. "Free pass."

He attempted to picture a young Ms. Adair, screwing her way around the upper levels. Euwwwwwww. But he pushed his luck. "How did you figure out it was a fake?"

She smiled a little, a strange smile that didn’t seem happy or sad. "I got pregnant."

While he was digesting that, she got up. "I need to talk to your mom. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "I know." She’d have a fit, he thought. She’d probably yell at him. He couldn’t get out of it, though.

Ms. Adair went off, and Ryan slid down in the bed. Thoughts were battling in his head. They’d made him do it, he thought. He didn’t have any choice.

He was such a fucking moron.

He forced his brain away from that, and it landed on Ms. Adair instead. On what she’d told him.

Ms. Adair. Wow.

It was so weird to think about grownups being kids once, doing dumb things, making stupid choices. Regretting things.

It made him sort of think that he was going to get through all this too.

* * *

John needed both hands to carry the bulky laundry basket, loaded down with laundry that had been in the drying shed since before all the excitement started. It was probably baked to a crisp now. The thought didn’t bother him, although True would probably growl and storm. Right, like that would be such a change from the past day.

He managed to wedge the basket against the door jamb so he could get a hand free for the knob. As he reached for it, though, it opened from the other side. He muttered, "Thanks," and hoisted the basket again before he realized the person facing him was Rob Ketchum.

"Danziger," Ketchum said, sounding just as surprised. "I was coming to look for you."

John felt his shoulders tighten up. Looked like another diatribe on what a rotten dad he was. He said, "Found me. What is it?"

"It’s about True. And Molly."

"Look," he said. "If you’re going to give me a lecture on what a juvenile delinquent I’ve raised, you can save it. Your wife already gave me an earful." He’d given her one in return. Nobody got to rag on his kid but him.

"No lecture," Ketchum said. "I wanted to thank you."

It surprised him so much that all he could say was, "Me?"

"True’s a brave girl, and strong-willed."

The words John had in mind were reckless and headstrong, but he didn’t say them.

"Molly never would have had the courage to talk to the Terrians without her. And without that, Angie would’ve--" He stopped.

John looked away, hoping like hell that the other man wouldn’t cry. Or if he did, that at least John could pretend he hadn’t seen it.

Ketchum got himself together. "You raised her like that. Not to be scared of anything, not even you. You must be proud of the way she turned out. So thank you. For both my girls."

All he could think to say was, "You’re welcome." They stood there awkwardly for a moment before John hoisted the laundry basket in his arms. "I have to--"

"Yeah," Ketchum said. "Yeah." He turned and went out the open door, and John continued on to his own room. He got to the door and leaned against it for a moment, thinking hard.

Finally, he bumped the door with his elbow. He wasn’t about to set this basket down just to open it. "Hey. True. Open up."

For a moment, he thought she was going to let him stand out there. But after a moment, the door swung open. She looked at the laundry basket and rolled her eyes.

"Yes," he said, and put it in the center of the floor. No-man’s land. "We’re even going to fold it."

They folded in cool silence. For once, John was able to ignore it, since he was still turning Ketchum’s words over in his mind. Finally, though, the way True snapped the shirts and pants as if they’d personally offended her got to him. He was on the point of telling her to cut it the hell out when she suddenly said, "I don’t care what you say, Dad, I was right."

He paused with a single sock in his hand. "About what?"

"Nobody else would have found the Grendlers in time. Angie might have died, even. And Uly-- I was right."

He rooted around until he found the match to the sock he held. "When did I say you weren’t?"

She stared at him for a good couple of seconds, her mouth hanging open, before she got herself together. "When you hollered at me and grounded me."

He folded the socks together and lobbed them at a crate. They bounced off the edge. He went to retrieve them. "Okay," he said. "Yeah. I lost my temper. I do that when you put yourself in danger. But I didn’t ground you for what you did, baby. I grounded you for how you did it."

"Don’t call me baby," she said automatically. "I’m not a baby."

"Yeah, well, you’re not a grown-up, either. There’s a lot of things you’re old enough to do, but taking off without a word to anybody, driving seven miles down the coast, trading with an alien species, and dragging Molly along with you-- No. You’re not old enough for that."

She looked at her toes. "Nothing happened," she said in a very small voice.

He reached over and tugged up her sleeve so they could both see the red scar on her forearm.

She pulled her sleeve down. "I did that myself."

He crouched down so they were eye-to-eye. "But there’s a lot could’ve happened that you wouldn’t’ve done to yourself."

She bit her lip.

He sat back on his heels, debating over his next words. Finally, he said them. "On the other hand, seeing what needed to be done, and doing it--yeah, you’re old enough for that."

She looked up at him for the first time. "Really?"

"What you did--you’re right. It saved lives. Angie’s definitely, and probably others, even Uly. And for that, I’m proud of you."

Her eyes widened. "You are? You’re proud of me?"

He didn't say stuff like that too often. He figured she knew he was always proud of her, no matter what. But looking at her incredulous face now, he wondered if she did know. "Yeah."

She took a few jerky breaths that might have been sobs a couple of years ago. "You didn’t say that before."

"I’m saying it now," he said.

"So--um--" She stopped, digging her heel into the floor. "Am I ungrounded now?"

"Hell no."

A smile started up. "But if you’re proud instead of mad--"

"I can be both," he said. "And you’re still grounded."

She said, "Aw--"

"For the next three days."

She stopped whining. "That’s it? Three days?"

"As long as you don’t steal any more ATVs."

Molly’s mom said they were going to leave.

Every time Molly thought of it, the words thudded in her head like doom. She didn’t want to leave. Every time she thought of getting back on that ship and leaving G889 behind her forever, she wanted to scream and cry and hit things. No more True. No more sky and sea. No more smell of the ocean in her nose. No more trees to climb, no more running through the tall bluegrain, leaving it swaying behind her like another ocean. No more sun, no more sea, no more dreams.

How could she exist in a world without even one of those things?

But Molly’s mom said, and Molly’s dad didn’t say anything, and the ship was almost fixed. That was the really sucky thing about being a kid. You just didn’t get a choice about anything.

She was with her dad today. They’d been assigned to the bluegrain fields, which had been harvested, and now there was an expanse of stubble that needed to be raked under.

Molly worked in silence for most of the afternoon, raking away in one of those heavy, dull depressions that happened when you felt helpless. Her dad saw her wince, then told her to get the blister taken care of. She went to the first-aid box in the barn to put a pad on it.

When she came back, her dad was crouched down studying the ground. Molly thought he’d found something interesting, until she saw him reach down and run his hands over the turned-up soil, stroking it like he would stroke Angie’s hair back from her forehead.

He looked--she searched for the word for several moments, and was surprised to find that it was happy.

For the first time, she wondered if she was the only one in the family who loved this place.

"Dad," she said.

He looked up.

"Why can’t we stay?" she asked.

The happy look disappeared under a resigned one. He stood up, unwittingly taking a fistful of silky soil with him. "It’s complicated."

"No, it’s not," she said. "It’s simple. I want to stay here. You do, too, don’t you?"

"Molly, you’re old to know, you can’t always have what you want just because you want it." The soil trickled through his loose grasp and drifted back to the ground.

"I’m not talking about getting a candy bar, Dad." She spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the field and everything beyond. "I’m talking about this!"

"I’m not going to get into this argument."

It was what he always said when his mind was made up, and nothing would move him. Molly’s shoulders sagged, then she grabbed her abandoned rake and turned her back on him. They worked the rest of the afternoon in silence.

Every so often, Molly had to wipe her cheeks dry.

* * *

At the end of the afternoon, they had to wash up. Her dad got in a long conversation with Mazatl about clearing. She fidgeted and sighed until he said, "Molly, your mom’s with Angie. You can go meet her there."

She didn’t give him a chance to change his mind, but bolted. It was the first time she’d been allowed anywhere without supervision since the day before, even for such a short distance as the bathrooms to the hospital.

In a piece of pointless rebellion, she went the long way around and stopped by Ryan’s bed. He was sitting up, staring out the window, chewing absently on a stylus. His datapad lay forgotten in his lap. The only evidence of the surgery they’d done just after lunch was the dressing high up on his neck and the white patches of the brain-wave monitor that hid in his hair.
She’d expected to get all gooey. But she could barely remember how she’d felt before they left the stations, the thrill if he talked to her or looked at her, the dive into depression every time he ignored her. The hours of tears that followed every time she found him with some new girl.

Now he was just Ryan, somebody she’d been friends with for years before she got so silly all of a sudden.

"Hey," she said.

He looked around. "Hey, Moll." He smiled at her, and her heart sort of hiccuped. But not so big as it would have been once upon a time.

Then he said, "Discuss how early twenty-first-century American culture was impacted by religious fundamentalism. In at least five pages."

"No," Molly said in disgust. He did this all the time, then said it was because she was smarter than him anyhow. "We're still on the age of revolutions. Do your own homework."

He shrugged. "Had to try. You wanna sit?" He seemed eager for company.

She sat in the chair he pointed at, her annoyance dissolving. "I guess the surgery went okay."

"You heard about that?"

"Everybody heard about it."

He scowled. "I bet everyone thinks I did that stuff on purpose."

"Um--no, not really."

"Liar." But he said it amicably.

"They took away your sign-in," she told him. "I tried to use it to find out how Angie was doing and it wouldn’t let me in. Nobody else either."

"I know. They said it was a security risk. Who’s risking?"

"Are you gonna make another one?" she asked.

"Of course not," he said loudly. But he held his crossed fingers where only she could see them and grinned.

She grinned back, but it faded quickly. "I’ve got to go see Angie," she said. "I’ll see you later."

"Hey, wait. Before you go--I heard about what you did," he said. "Getting the medicine and all that."

"Oh," she said, wondering if he was mad at her about the Terrians too. He’d yelled at one, that first day when they’d come into the hospital.

But he said, "So I guess that means, like, you saved my life. Kind of."

"Oh," she said again, struck by this. "Well, it was True’s idea."

"But she couldn’t have done it without you. So thanks."

"Um. No problem."

"Listen, can you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"I need you to talk to the Terrians for me."

"No," she said.

"What? I just need--"

"No," she said again. "My mom won’t let me."

"Screw her," Ryan said impatiently. "Listen, Moll, what’s the problem? You’ve already done it once."

"I’m not doing it anymore," she said. "Don’t ask me."

"You gotta," he said.

"No, I don’t. Uly can. He’s not sick anymore, he can do it. Don’t ask me." She started to go, then sighed and turned back for a peace offering. "Gay rights, terrorism, and the evolution debate and you should be fine."

Ryan said, "Don’t think that’s going to make up for it," but as she turned away, she saw him scribbling.

Her sister was still unconscious, her body attempting to repair itself from the ravages the virus had wrought in the short time between infection and when she’d gotten the medicine. Molly touched her sister’s hand, thin and pale against the bright colors of the woven blanket. It was very cold. The beeps of the heart monitor told Molly her sister was still alive, though.

Still alive, because of her.

I did this, she thought, with a sense of dawning wonder. Me.

Her mother’s familiar footsteps sounded on the floorboards. "There you are," she said. "I’ve been looking for you."

"I came right here," Molly said, only lying a little.

They sat together for a moment, Molly’s mom looking between all the monitors and Angie’s still-pale face. She let out her breath. "The doctors think she might come out of it tomorrow or the next day."

Molly didn’t say anything in answer. Looking at her sister, she couldn’t see how Angie would come out of this coma in a year, much less a few days.

They sat in silence for several moments. Finally, Molly couldn’t bear it any longer. "Are you still mad at me?"

"I told you to keep away from those creatures. I understand that they got into your dreams, and you couldn’t do anything about it--although I wish you’d told me. But to seek them out--"

Molly still held her sister’s hand. "Mama, Angie would’ve died."

"It wasn’t that bad," her mom said.

"Yes, it was," Molly said. "It was that bad. She would’ve died if I hadn’t talked to the Terrians and gotten the medicine."

"It didn’t have to be you."

Molly ducked her head, staring at the blue tinge under her sister’s fingernails. "The thing is," she said, in a voice that echoed oddly in her ears, "I kind of think it did."

Her mother’s voice, when it came, was harsh and strained. "We are going back to the stations, Molly Ann, and that’s final."

Molly looked away deliberately, but the only place to look was outside the window. The woods were a blaze of color, all reds and golds and beautiful. There wasn’t anything like it on the stations, not anywhere. Molly bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.

Her mother said, "This is for your own good. I only want what’s best for both of you."

This was too much. Molly turned on her, tears spilling down her face. "No, you don’t," she said. "You just want to go back where you think it’s safe. If you really wanted what was best for us, you’d stay here, no matter how scared you were."

Part Eighteen

Part Twenty

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