“It seems like forever,” Alper said with a shiver.
Peters nodded. “About ten hours, and over half of that was creepin’ up the valley at a walk. Truth is, some places walkin’ would’ve been faster.”
“Not to mention safer,” Donald said tartly. “You must be hungry as bears. Anything I need to know before I start dishing out venison stew?”
“I don’t know of anything,” Peters said, and met his grandfather’s look with a spread-armed shrug. “On Llapaaloapalla we pretty much ate from the same pot. There’s some things don’t agree with both species, but then I get the hives from hazelnuts and none of the rest of us has any problem.”
“You do know that raises some pretty hard questions,” the old man commented.
“I didn’t at first. I reckon I spent more time tryin’ to figure out Faye Wisenant than I did listenin’ to what you was tryin’ to teach me.” Peters repeated his palm-up shrug. “I ain’t got no answers, and neither does anybody else I know.” Then he grinned. “To either question, to tell the truth.”
“Hunh. Well, at least it means I can feed you. Sit down, all of you. There’s been nobody in this kitchen but me for ten years, and I can do better without help.” Donald began dishing out stew; Peters noted with an inward smile that Khurs got the first portion, whether as a mark of favor or to keep her out from underfoot he couldn’t tell. Thick chunks of bread, just at the point of near-staleness perfect for sopping up stew liquor, finished out the meal, and to drink they had a choice of clear spring water or a dark-amber ale cloudy with suspended solids and tasting of health, growth, and fertility.
Donald Peters served himself a glass of ale and stood leaning against the kitchen island, sipping and watching as stew disappeared. “How long can you stay?” he asked when spoons started reaching mouths with less urgency.
“Four days, no, three now.” Peters grimaced. “I got to be in Washington on the fourteenth.”
“I’d hoped for longer.”
“I’d planned for longer.” He looked up. “I’d intended a week, maybe ten days, like I told you in my first letter. Then the damn Navy needed two weeks to decide whether to give me a medal or throw me in jail. They’d still be at it if I hadn’t told ‘em I was leavin’ with or without paperwork, an’ they’d better shit or get off the pot.”
“You probably didn’t make any friends.”
“Hunh. That kind of friends I don’t need… then I had to go to south Texas, an obligation I took on myself to see my buddy Todd home and buried.” He took a sip of ale, then twisted his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with the drink. “Shit. Poor bastard got his heart cut out by a chunk of flyin’ debris, and been froze solid for six months, and there wasn’t nothin’ for it but to thaw him out and do an autopsy.
“Didn’t get that done with ‘til last Friday, and then we had to wait ‘til the banks opened Monday morning, followed by another two days while the assholes ran around like chickens with their heads cut off tryin’ to figure out how to give his heirs access to the money he’d made on the ship.” He took another sip, then set the glass on the table. “The whole time couldn’t none of us turn around without trippin’ over a Fed with a form to fill out and ‘just a few questions, Mr. Peters, I won’t take much of your time.’ Has it always been this bad? I done bought and sold a spaceship that’d take you from here to a star you can’t see in ten days or less, and it took less time, and a Helluva lot less paperwork, than openin’ a bank account in Port Lavaca, Texas.”
The elder Peters shook his head. “I’m just surprised you were able to get it done that quickly. No wonder you were anxious enough to get here to fly in a howling blizzard. But to answer your question: no, it hasn’t always been this bad. When I was a kid, and even into my twenties, you could still move around pretty easily, especially if you had a little money. Then it started getting tighter and tighter, but nobody really noticed, because it was still possible to get things done if you worked at it.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “Your daddy had some caustic things to say about me setting up this place, and hardly a day went by that I didn’t wonder if he was right. Then came the Year of Our Lord Twenty-Twenty-Three.”
There was silence for a long moment. Khurs asked softly, “What happened in the Year of Our Lord Twenty-Twenty-Three, Donald?”
The old man had been staring into space, gazing at old memories; he turned his head quickly and gave her a grin of pure savagery. She straightened and put her hand to her mouth, taken aback, and Donald converted his expression to a real, if forced, smile. “Why, in 2023 the world fell apart, and the Federal Government didn’t,” he said, keeping his tone light. “Since then, anybody who tries to fix things up gets cut off at the knees by Federal Regulations.” He made a sideways chopping gesture, cutting off further discussion. “Enough of that. Johnny, have another beer and get started talking. You’ve told me some in your letters, but now I want details.”
Alper was yawning, and Ander had fallen asleep in the crook of his arm, before Peters had even gotten as far as the attack by Grallt pirates. They put the two women to bed in the room that had been his parents’, under a double-wedding-ring quilt handed down from his mother’s family, and Donald announced that he was going to shut down the generator. “I hadn’t really intended to keep it going this long,” he apologized. “At this rate it’ll be out of fuel by midnight.” He lit candles and went on the errand.
When he returned Peters had rummaged in his backpack. “Present time, Grandpap,” he said, and handed the old man one of the fist-sized zifthkakik he’d bought on Jivver. “Think of it as a battery that don’t run out,” he suggested as his grandfather looked dubiously at the shiny ovoid. “Fifty kilowatts, more or less, and Schott told me how to jigger a power-pole transformer to make it work with house wiring. We’ll get it done tomorrow.”
“What is it really?”
“I guess you could call it an engine. Hook it up right, and it’ll lift about ten tons and move it around at pretty much whatever speed you want.”
“Spaceship engine.”
“No, this model don’t make atmosphere or the shieldin’ you need for a spaceship.” Peters grinned. “Be kind of fun to install it in the Vette, but then you wouldn’t be able to run the house lights with it.”
“Hunh… what’s something like this worth?”
“I paid—” he stopped to think “—call it five thousand eagles for it. Here? You tell me.”
Donald grunted again. “Hunh… What else have you got there?”
“It occurred to me you might be a little tired of reloadin’ shells for the Mauser.” Peters indicated the other two objects with a wave. “These here’s called ‘push-force weapons’. They’ll punch a hole in quarter-inch steel plate at close range. The little one’ll knock a man down at fifty meters without killin’ him; the big one’ll do the same at five hundred.”
“Recoil?”
“None, nor noise either.”
“Just the thing for deer hunting. Well, your magic grapefruit isn’t hooked up yet. Time to stoke the furnace.”
“I’ll help you.” Dzheenis followed as well, and watched with interest as the two men cleaned out ashes and refilled the firebox. “Can you get away with this?” Peters asked as they closed the door.
“Have for years. You remember.” The elder Peters looked at the furnace, then gave his grandson a twisted grin. “Tonight it’s even legal.”
“Heh?”
“Weather emergency. I’ve no other source of heat, and if this blizzard doesn’t count as an emergency I don’t know what would.”