"It's never been applied to a whole planet. No matter how I rule, it'll be certain to come up for review."
"Georgia, you said that you have to rule on this case based on what's best for the children. That overrides both the mother's claim and the father's. Remember the father has a viable custody action too. I'm asking for both of those to be set aside on the grounds that the Earth no longer represents a safe environment for these children, and that the custody cases are therefore irrelevant until such time as both parents are available to this court to present their claims. In the meantime, I'm arguing for assignment of custody to the only parent who is available."
Georgia frowned in thought. "If I even entertain that theory in court, you know it'll go right up the ladder of appeals, Counselor. And that's not a direction I want to go. And even if I were to find for the children under such grounds, I'd still have to compel residence until such time as the appeals played out. Do you really want to pursue that course?"
Olivia came right back at her. "Georgia, these are children, for God's sake! Do you want to send them back down? You heard what Mickey said. Maybe he's wrong—and maybe he isn't. But what if he isn't? What if the whole thing is finally coming apart?"
"And what if you were on the other side of this case, Counselor? What would you be arguing?"
"I'd still be arguing for the children."
Georgia gave her a skeptical look. "Olivia, you and I are like sisters. We have argued about everything that two human beings can possibly argue about. We're both passionate about justice. And we're both passionate about finding the laws that will guarantee it. And sometimes we both get passionate about finding ways around the laws. I don't even have a problem about that either, when what we're in search of is justice. But I do have a problem with this case. A big problem. Where's the justice in this one? I don't see it yet. And we're not going to find it in precedents or emergency acts or anything else. I'm terribly afraid that this is one of those cases where there will be no justice for anybody and everybody is going to end up hurting. We're already quite a way down that slippery slope, and I'm not going to sleep very well tonight, and I don't think you are either. Now, if you'll please—?"
Olivia stood up and pulled her chair out of the way. Georgia wheeled backward and swiveled toward the door. "Mickey, give me a hug. Nice meeting you, Douglas, Charles, Bobby—under different circumstances, I might say the same thing to you too, Max. See you in court tomorrow." She wheeled out and the room was painfully silent.
Nobody looked at me, but it was my fault. What I'd said to Georgia hadn't been good enough. I'd screwed up everything. Again.
PLANS
I said a word. The word. The word that Dad keeps telling me not to use, and I keep using anyway. "All right," she said. "Let's try something else." She went back to her console, while Mickey began clearing the table. Douglas got up to help him and the two of them exchanged sad smiles.
Stinky had fallen asleep on the couch. The monkey was beside him—picking its nose, pretending to examine imaginary boogers, and then flicking them at me. Ha ha.
After a while, Dad got up and walked over to Olivia's desk. "Now what?"
She looked at him, almost startled, as if she'd forgotten we were all here. Then she snapped back to reality and said, "Okay, we go back to Plan A. We get your ass off this station as fast as we can. You'll have to fire me—sign that—and then you can hire Mickey as your agent instead. The placement will be on his license and he'll collect the fee. I'll be out of it. Here's his authorization, only don't date it until tomorrow. Otherwise, you'll be putting him in violation of the law when you leave the station."
Dad looked at me. And Stinky. "What about the kids?"
Olivia shrugged. "They're your kids. You know them better than I. Will they be all right with it? Probably not. They're going to have a lot of anger to work out—just like before—only this time you'll get the brunt of it."
Dad didn't answer that. He just nodded in acceptance of the truth. Finally, he said, "I suppose I should tell you that I really appreciate what you're doing for me, but—"
"I'm not doing it for you," Olivia snapped. She looked up from her keyboard. "I'm doing it for the children."
She stood up to look Dad straight in the eye. "I hate cases like this. I hate family kidnappings. Even when they're justified. And this one isn't. This one is about you being selfish enough to think you know better than everybody else. The fact that I agree with some of your conclusions about the Earth and about what's best for your kids still doesn't mitigate the appalling selfishness of your actions. So even though I'm your attorney—until you fire me—and I'll fight like a pit bull for you because Mickey asked me to, please do not make the assumption that I am doing this for you, or even because I agree with you. And certainly do not assume that I even like you. I don't. I'm doing it because I'm your lawyer and it's my job to represent you. It's also supposed to be my job to keep you out of trouble, not get you in deeper, and I'm doing a lousy job of that too, thank you very much. I just don't want to see your kids thrown back down the Line. That's the only thing you're right about. There is no future left down there. Everyone knows it's all coming apart." She glanced up. "Mickey? How long will it take you to pack?"
"Huh?"
"You said you wanted out. Well I've got six reservations on the midnight elevator, and Betsy is holding reservations on the next lunar shuttle. Make up your mind, right now—"
"Uh—" Mickey looked to Douglas. Douglas didn't look like Douglas anymore. He nodded shyly. Mickey turned back to his mother. "I'll go."
"Good. Then that'll settle the Dingillian placement too. I'll file it right now." She looked to Dad. "You're a lot luckier than you know. You'd better spend some serious time thanking Douglas and Mickey." She dropped back down onto her chair and rolled up to her keyboard. She started typing immediately, and whispering instructions to Betsy as well.
"Where are we going?" Douglas asked Mickey.
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute—!" said Dad. "It's my turn now."
Olivia stopped and looked at him. "Is there a problem?"
"I think I'm going into overload," said Dad. "With everything that's been happening—and it's all been happening very fast—I want to get straight on a few things."
Olivia looked at her watch. "Fifteen minutes."
"This is getting out of control."
"What is?"
"Everything. I violated the terms of a custody agreement in Texas. Now you want to put me in violation of a court-ordered hearing at Geostationary. And what's going to happen on Luna? I'm leaving a trail of angry lawyers behind me."
"Why should you care? You're not coming back."
"This is not the example that I want to set for my children. We don't run from our problems."
Olivia raised an eyebrow at Dad. She gave him the look. Definitely a 10. "Excuse me? You should have thought of that forty-five-thousand kilometers ago, back in Texas, when you violated the first custody agreement."
"I saw what she was doing to the boys. I had to get them out of there. And when Douglas told me about—well, I just didn't want anyone messing with his brain. So yeah, maybe I had a lot of good justifications—she was grinding us all down."
Olivia looked at her watch impatiently. "And your point is ... ?"
"My point is, all I wanted was a way to sidestep this mess, not make it worse. You said you were going to set all that Earth stuff aside. This is a higher court and all that? Remember? Now you're going to have us running from one more jurisdiction—and how far does the reach of this one extend?"