“Hel-lo!” Trudy said, pulling the word out into several syllables. “And who might you be, and where have you been all my life?”
She’d thrown her shoulders back, raising her right hand to toy with the closure on her flight-suit, ostensibly because she was warm-out on the field, Anders could see that Toby and Chet had already divested themselves of their suits-but in actuality to draw attention to what she clearly thought of as irresistible assets.
Those bouncing breasts were quite remarkable, especially on someone who was probably not much more than sixteen, but Anders thought the approach rather simplistic-and even sort of sad. What a pity she had to offer herself as if she was some sort of appetizer. Anders realized, though, that he must have been more distracted than he wanted to admit because the question still hung in the air between them.
“I’m Anders Whittaker,” he said. “I’m new to Sphinx. My father’s in charge of a team of xenoanthropologists here from Urako to study the treecats.”
Trudy clearly had to think about what that might mean to her. After consideration, she apparently decided that just because Dr. Whittaker was here to study the treecats, that didn’t mean Anders was interested in them.
“How deadly for you,” she purred, coming up next to him and somehow slipping an arm through his. “Your father really must talk to my father and brothers on the subject. After all, a balanced view is important, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” came the voice of Dr. Richard from behind them. “However, Anders has been very politely waiting for the rest of you before getting something to eat. Here’s the plan. Grab a snack from the buffet, then go in and change. Oh! Save some room for dinner. We’ve made some very special dishes.”
The mention of food caused a general rush, in the course of which Anders managed to get free from Trudy. He made his way over to Stephanie just as they all reached the buffet.
“Happy Birthday!” he said. “That was quite a landing.”
“I think Dad’s going to have my ears,” Stephanie said, forcing a laugh. “Lionheart has already chewed me out. I’m not supposed to do things like that.”
Anders shrugged. “Hey…It looked terrifying, but I never thought you were in trouble. Can you tell me what’s what on the buffet? I haven’t been on Sphinx long enough to know the local delicacies.”
Stephanie giggled. Not a contrived girlish giggle, just a laugh that invited him to share a joke. “You won’t find a lot of this stuff anywhere else. Some is Meyerdahl-influenced. Some are my mom and dad’s creations. They both love to cook.”
Christine, who had been spreading something orange and pink on a cracker, halted in mid-motion. “Creations in her kitchen or her lab?”
Marjorie Harrington laughed. “Kitchen and lab-but all the stuff from the lab has been cleared for human consumption. You probably have most of it in your cooler at home.”
Christine bit into the cracker and looked blissed-out. “Not this. Definitely not this. Can I have the recipe?”
Chatter became general after that. Anders had more than Stephanie helping him select treats to try. All the hang-glider club members vied to get him to try river-roe and ice-potato paste, toasted near-pine nuts, and other oddities.
Adults were arriving now. Anders was delighted to meet Scott MacDallan and Fisher, “his” treecat. MacDallan proved to be the red-haired man he’d seen rushing toward what had seemed like Stephanie’s inevitable crash-not a big surprise, since he was a medical doctor. The stocky woman with brown hair proved to be both Scott’s wife and Karl’s aunt, Irina Kisaevna, a very nice woman. Ranger Lethbridge came, making apologies for his partner, Ranger Jedrusinski, and saying that he couldn’t stay for dinner.
“We drew straws for fire watch,” he said, “and she lost. I’ve promised to bring her a dry crust or two for consolation.”
“We can do better than that,” Stephanie promised, and immediately started piling a plate with finger foods to set aside. “Mom won’t want me to cut the cake yet, but I’ll bring you both some tomorrow.”
One by one, the members of the hang-gliding club emerged, each dressed in some interesting variation on formal wear. Karl, it turned out, actually owned a tuxedo, and looked very dashing in it. Toby’s outfit consisted of flowing robes made from a pale golden fabric that set off his dark skin and flowing black hair to perfection. He seemed momentarily shy about his attire until Christine and Jessica started gushing about how they wished Star Kingdom clothes were as elegant. Chet wore something less flashy, but still quite respectable.
The girls all looked pretty good, Anders thought. Trudy-predictably, he thought, although he’d only known her for something like an hour-wore a pink-and-lavender gown with both slit seams on the sides and a plunging neckline. She claimed it was an ancestral costume from Old Earth itself.
Christine and Stephanie both wore slacks and blouses, a simpler variation on the Star Kingdom tuxedo. The cummerbunds showed off trim waists and made an asset of their relative lack of busts. Jessica emerged arrayed in frothy layers of silk and taffeta in pale yellow and green touched with hints of white lace.
“It’s actually my mom’s,” she explained shyly. “Neo-Victorian was all the rage on our last planet.”
Talking about clothing inevitably led to discussion of birthday customs. Toby admitted that his culture didn’t even celebrate birthdays.
“We celebrate Saint’s Days instead. Mine is Saint Tobias.”
Christine, Chet, Karl, and Trudy all proved to have been born on Sphinx.
“My father was one of the first children born on Sphinx,” Trudy boasted. “For a while, his birthday was practically a planetary holiday.”
“There were problems with childbirth initially,” Scott MacDallan agreed. “The heavier gravity and air pressure made it difficult for women to carry to term. However, now, between nanotherapies and wider use of counter-gravity, more and more pregnancies are successful.”
Karl added. “I remember when Scott was delivering my little brother Lev. A treecat showed up at the door all beat up. Scott ended up going to the rescue.”
“And leaving your mother to suffer?” Trudy sounded genuinely shocked.
“It wasn’t quite like that,” Scott MacDallan said. He might have explained further, but Irina called to him from the house.
“Scott! We need a surgeon to carve the roast.”
Most of the adults seemed to take this as a summons to dinner but, perhaps because Stephanie stayed outside, perhaps because there was still finger food, the younger guests lingered near the appetizers.
Trudy took a step toward Stephanie, but her gaze rested on the males in the group.
“There’s an important Star Kingdom tradition we haven’t followed for our birthday girl’s special day,” Trudy said, her voice filled with teasing laughter. “She hasn’t had her spankings…”
Something in the way Trudy said “spankings” made Anders feel she’d said something a lot more risque. Maybe it was the way she winked at him when she said it.
“In my family,” Trudy continued, “the guys hold the birthday girl and then the girls give the whacks-one for each year. If she can take it without crying out, then she’ll be lucky all year.”
“My family doesn’t do that,” Christine protested.
Karl looked uncomfortable, so Anders was willing to bet that his family practiced some variation of the rite. Chet was shifting restlessly from foot to foot. Clearly, Trudy might be overselling her point, but she wasn’t flat-out lying.
“Well, you may have been born here,” Trudy said to Christine, “but your family is relatively new. Mine is tough, pioneer stock. We don’t have any use for wimps and pansies. I’m sure Stephanie doesn’t either. After all, she goes around slaying hexapumas with her bare hands, if we’re to believe the stories.”