“They’re so necessary, you know,” she drawled to Becky Morowitz. “I mean, vets and botanists…We must be polite.”
Stephanie had felt Lionheart pressing against her leg, offering support if needed, but she was surprised at how little Trudy’s comments bothered her.
Anders told us when he went hiking the other day that he had thought Trudy was a complete zip. I knew he wasn’t dumb enough to get blinded by her physical charms. I wish he hang glided…I bet he’d look like an angel against the sky.
Another change was that Jessica Pheriss was definitely “out” of the Trudy circle. She came in for more than a few catty comments, mostly about her clothes. Stephanie had never noticed before, but Jessica did seem to have a more limited wardrobe than the rest of them.
I guess if I even noticed, I thought she didn’t choose to vary what she wore for hang gliding-and most of the time, I’ve seen her in her flight coveralls anyhow.
To say Jessica was indifferent to the teasing would have been wrong. Her cheeks burned when Frank Camara made a particularly nasty comment about how Jessica had to wash her panties each night or go without-and implying that he had first-hand knowledge to confirm.
However, Jessica ignored the comments and went on chatting with Christine and Chet-who were, now that Stephanie bothered to notice, definitely on the way to being a “couple”-as if someone else was being grilled.
I wonder, Stephanie thought as she adjusted her counter-grav and spread her wings to take advantage of a rising air-current, who the zip really is-all the rest of them or me for being so deliberately blind?
“Bleek,” said Lionheart softly from his new harness, but whether his comment was in reaction to her thoughtful mood or in anticipation of the coming flight, Stephanie couldn’t know. The warmth that came through their link made her pretty sure she was being teased.
Later on, Richard Harrington came trotting across the field to where Stephanie and the other members of the Blue Team were discussing their strategies for the obstacle course relay race that would end the day.
“Steph, I just got a call. The Lins’ herd is showing signs of something nasty. I can’t wait. I hate to pull you from practice, but Mayor Sapristos says he has a meeting this evening, and your mother is hours away working on planting a field of that new range-barley hybrid she’s been working on.”
Stephanie knew her dad already had the Vet Van with him-he never went much of anywhere without it, which was why she’d thought her using the family air car wasn’t unreasonable. However, this was not the time to try and score points.
Dad was really worried. The Lins’ herd was crucial to the future of Sphinx’s dairy industry. On such a heavily forested planet, grazers didn’t flourish-there simply wasn’t enough open land. The Lins’ capri-cows were a new strain of browsers, based largely on goats, but with genes that enabled them to give creamy milk that didn’t pick up the flavors of the strong-tasting leaves of the native plants.
Immediately, Stephanie started shrugging out of her glider, but before she could get more than a few straps undone, Jessica Pheriss cut in.
“Dr. Harrington,” Jessica said very politely, “I have my folks’ car. I’m supposed to do some grocery shopping after practice, but if you don’t mind my doing that, then dropping the stuff off, I could take Stephanie back.”
“Your parents won’t mind?” Richard said.
“I’ll call,” Jessica said, taking out a uni-link that Stephanie-with her new insights into Jessica’s probable economic level-realized was an older, refurbished model. “Right away.”
In less time than it would have taken Stephanie to stow her glider, Jessica had confirmed that it was fine if she took Stephanie home-as long as she dropped off the groceries first. Richard Harrington thanked her and, after giving Stephanie an abstracted kiss on the forehead, hurried off to do his best for the Lins’ capri-cows.
The Blue Team lost the relay race by a few points. However, Stephanie didn’t feel too bad about it. Trudy and Stan had pulled a few moves that were definitely outside of the rule book. To Stephanie, at least, that made their victory pretty hollow. From the look on Mayor Sapristos’ face as he did his post-game analysis, he agreed, but didn’t feel he had enough evidence to register a complaint.
“I’m parked over there,” Jessica said when they’d finished going over the game with their teammates. She indicated a strip off to one side, partially sheltered by some particularly thick spike-thorn bushes.
When they reached the vehicle, Stephanie guessed that Jessica had chosen the parking space deliberately, so as not to draw attention to the air car. It wasn’t a wreck. In fact, when Jessica started it up, the engine caught smoothly. But even an effort at a plaid pattern couldn’t disguise that the seats were patched with fabric-tape. And nothing would ever hide that it was definitely an older model.
Jessica fitted their two hang gliders into the trunk with an ease that spoke of lots of similar experience.
“We’ll stow the groceries in the backseat,” she said. There was a forced casualness to her words that told Stephanie she was embarrassed.
“You’re lucky to be allowed to fly the family car,” Stephanie said as she got in on the passenger side. “I know I only got my provisional license a couple of days ago, but nothing’s changed at home.”
Jessica brought them around smoothly. Stephanie had always figured they were close in age, but now she wondered if Jessica was actually a bit older.
“You’re a really good pilot,” she said. “I mean, you fly like you’ve been doing this for years.”
Jessica laughed, but there was something painful underneath the sound. “I have been. Trebuchet, the last system we lived in, had a much lower age requirement. My folks both work and I had to do a lot of the routine piloting, like today. Then my mom got me a job where she was working. Trebuchet is known for a remarkable number of plants with proven medicinal properties. However, some of them have to be harvested by hand. They’re just too fragile for anything else. I went to some really out-of-the way places on that job.”
“By yourself?” Stephanie asked.
“Oh, no!” Jessica laughed. “I took a couple of my younger brothers and sisters. They could help with the picking, but they weren’t old enough to pilot.”
She sighed as she brought them down by a big warehouse Stephanie had seen but never been in. It didn’t look in the least like a grocery store. When they went inside, she realized it wasn’t. Instead, it was a storehouse for damaged goods. Jessica’s mother had apparently already done most of the purchasing over the net, but Jessica negotiated for a couple of boxes of ice-potatoes that were going brown around the edges.
Stephanie frowned to herself as she helped load the groceries into the car. She’d seen her mother throw out vegetables in a lot better condition than these, but then the Harringtons did have extensive greenhouses. Maybe she was a bit spoiled by all that bounty.
“Mom’s going to be thrilled with these,” Jessica said as she loaded the boxes of ice-potatoes. “We’ve planted near-lettuce. The house we’re renting has a good stand of near-pine with the nuts coming on, but we haven’t been here long enough to get anything like ice-potatoes in.”
Stephanie tried to think of something to say, but she simply was too honest to rejoice in partially-rotted vegetables. As she got into the air car, she finally found what she hoped was a safe comment.
“How will you cook them?”
“Mashed,” Jessica said, as she set the car to rise and entered in navigation coordinates. “We’ll cut out the bad parts first, of course. Mom uses almond oil instead of butter to bring out the natural nutty taste of the ice-potatoes themselves.”
“We use sesame oil for the same reason,” Stephanie said. She wanted to be a good guest-after all, Jessica was doing her a favor-but she really didn’t know what was polite to say. “Were you born in the Trebuchet system?”