What will become of her, poor thing?
I heard the grandfather is taking her in.
Has anyone contacted her father?
Delicate laughter had followed, and I’d strained to make out the words: Does anyone know which one he was?
I forced myself to concentrate on the present and read the rest of the message. It was simple, text only.
My grandfather had left me everything, but owing to ancient Earth laws, I had to return home to deal with my inheritance in person. I could not assign a proxy, nor could I engage a lawyer off-world to represent me in these matters.
I sat back, staring at the frozen text hanging in the air in front of me. Out of habit I lifted my hand to the scar that ran from my temple to my jawline, the last gift from my grandfather before I fled his presence.
“How far do I have to go to get away from you people?”
The bitter words hung in my small quarters much as the text did, unanswerable. In death my grandfather had as strong a hold on me as he had had in life. I imagined him glowering at me the way he had whenever I’d disappointed him, which was often.
“You are a Sabatini, Beatriz, and with that privilege comes great responsibility. We are not like other people. Let them misbehave, hmmm, child? Let them shirk their duties. Genes will tell, Beatriz. Genes will tell.”
By other people, I knew he meant his daughter-in-law, my mother, and her dissolute lifestyle.
A small green light blinked patiently in the air at the end of the message, waiting to catch my attention. I touched the air where it blinked, and another message unfolded, this one an image transmission. I was surprised; that was expensive, even as tightly compressed as the message was.
The pixelated image resolved in front of me into a small bright scene: the family cemetery on Tern Island where I grew up. Generations of Sabatinis were laid to rest in the little overgrown grassy field, ancient gravestones weathering in the cold, wet island climate. My grandfather’s grave was an upthrust obelisk in the center of the cemetery, shining and polished, surrounded by fresh dirt. I shook my head.
Typical.
The image included a sensory file. The lawyers had really spared no expense. Pine trees soughed overhead, and I could feel the bright warmth of Sol on my shoulders. The waves broke on the shore and the whitecaps dazzled in the sunlight. I could smell the salt air and feel the breeze against my cheek. I shivered in the cold air.
The sensory file paused for a split second and then began again, and I shook my head in dismay. As if I would be won over by warm sunlight on my shoulders. I liked the sun where it was, I told myself, so far distant it was hardly bigger than a star.
I reached forward to close the image when something caught my eye and I paused. In the shadows on the farthest edge of the cemetery stood a figure. I couldn’t make it out clearly but I could tell it was a child. Without thinking I leaned forward and my forehead brushed the image, sending it into a pixelated frenzy. Disgusted, I sat back and waited for it to resolve again. It was no use. The harder I looked, the blurrier the figure got, until finally it blended into the shadows and I couldn’t see it any longer. No matter.
I knew who it was, and who it was impossible that it could be. My grandfather was not the only ghost who haunted my nightmares.
Wet spray hit me in the face with salty seawater and I sputtered and gagged, my eyes stinging from the faceful of ocean. The wave had almost knocked me flat. I still had jelly legs even after exercising to rebuild muscles gone slack from zero-g. I windmilled my arms and caught myself on the old fat posts lining the edge of the slippery wharf, waiting for the ferry to take me to Tern Island.
The sun was low in the sky on this wintry afternoon and I shivered in my coat and scarf.
I could see the ghostly lines of the massive near-Earth space station that was our closest satellite slowly rotating overhead, and I felt comforted. Space was not so far away after all, despite the weight of gravity that held me down.
“Well look who’s here. Beatriz Sabatini, return of the prodigal daughter,” someone called, laughter in his voice.
I turned cautiously, clutching my duffle bag and holding my hood down over my cap, recognition making my heart speed up with an unaccustomed happiness.
“Ethan Cardenas,” I called back. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m your ride, darling,” he said, and despite my misgivings I had to laugh at the double meaning. Ethan Cardenas, a ferry boat captain. I really was back on Earth.
Ethan waited for me in front of the rickety old office that perched on the rocks at the very edge of the wharf. He carried a thermos and was bundled in a yellow slicker, big black boots, and a wool watch cap.
He was bulky, broad-shouldered, with creases around his eyes as if he spent his time peering into far distances. What I could see of his face was dark-skinned and clean-shaven.
I minced over to him cautiously. The soles of my boots clicked uselessly on the stone. They could be magnetized at need, but little good that did me here. He was laughing at me.
“Still got space legs,” he said. He looked like he was enjoying my awkwardness, and I seethed. He was always teasing me when we were kids. He was handsome now and looked like he knew it, but he was just as infuriating. “When did you make landfall?”
“Three months ago,” I said. Quarantine and mandatory re-immersion had taken that long. Once Earthside, I had to meet with my grandfather’s attorneys and go over the will.
He snorted. “Took you long enough.”
I didn’t bother to reply. He had clearly never been off-world and didn’t understand about launch windows and transfer points. He turned to give me an assessing look. I flushed and straightened under his gaze.
“My, you’ve grown, Skinny,” he said, using his old nickname for me. I had been a gangly child, all arms and legs. Space and zero-g had only accentuated that. I managed to raise an eyebrow and give it back to him.
“Same with you, Pudge. Still the same jerkface kid you always were.”
He just laughed, as if he knew his needling got to me. “Come on into the office. My mom wants to say hi.”
He took the duffle bag from me and hefted it easily with a look of surprise. “This is all you’ve got?”
It was half my height and stuffed solid with my worldly possessions. I had taken little with me when I left Earth, and had accrued not much more. When every kilo is an extravagance, spacers learn to live lean.
“Yes,” I said stiffly. “I travel light.”
To my surprise, he said, “I hear that.” There was a weighted undertone to his voice that made me wonder, but he didn’t say anything more. I followed him into the office, and breathed a sigh when he closed the door on the winter day. The office was warm and well lit. Old charts were hung haphazardly on the wall in between sophisticated and modern transmitting and depth-sounding equipment. My eyes were drawn to the ancient twentieth-century phone that hung on the wall. Its twin was in the kitchen of the house on Tern Island. Mrs Dawes, the housekeeper, used to use the phone to call the office to put in the weekly grocery order.
Mrs Cardenas bustled out of the back room, a smile of pure delight gracing her broad face. She was a short, wide black woman, her hair only lightly frosted with gray.
“Little Beatriz, how you’ve grown. Come here, girl, let me give you a hug.”
“Mrs Cardenas, it’s wonderful to see you again.” I hugged her back with delight. She had been so kind to a small, frightened child and a surly teenager – I felt a pang at the way I had thrust her out of my memory along with the rest of my childhood. She hadn’t deserved that.