Safe House Part 3

"Morning, honey," her mother said. "Thank you for not saying 'good.'"

Maj was itching to ask her mother why her dad would be on the phone to James Winters...but that would reveal that she had been eavesdropping.

"Daddy up yet?" her mother said.

"I think so. Sounded like he was on the link or something."

"The man just won't rest."

"Neither will you you."

"And what are you you doing up this hour?" her mother said. "Before you accuse doing up this hour?" her mother said. "Before you accuse us us of being incorrigible workaholics." of being incorrigible workaholics."

"Oh, our big s.p.a.ce battle's tonight. Prebriefing."

"That serious?" her mother said, pouring water into the prepacked coffee filter.

"Well, we've spent a lot of time on development," Maj said. "We don't want to get immediately dead because we didn't discuss what we were going to do do with what we developed." with what we developed."

"Mmm," her mother said then. "No argument there..."

They sat in companionable silence for a while and drank their tea and coffee respectively. After a few moments, there came a faint tick! tick! from one side of the kitchen. Maj's mom c.o.c.ked her head. "Aha," she said, for the from one side of the kitchen. Maj's mom c.o.c.ked her head. "Aha," she said, for the tick! tick! had come from the water heater. "He's in the shower, then." had come from the water heater. "He's in the shower, then."

Maj's father would have lived in the shower if he was allowed to. He claimed he got his best ideas there. Maj's thought was that it was probably best that he had a day job which kept him out of the shower occasionally. Otherwise he would now quite likely rule the world. "I'm in no rush," she said. "I was going to go to this meeting first."

"Good." Her mother had another slurp of coffee. "Honey, about our little guest..."

"Mmmh?"

"You do realize that he's-"

"Mommy, Mommy, look what I found!"

The m.u.f.fin, horribly awake for this hour of the day, came charging into the kitchen, waving a tattered picture book. Maj sighed. Whatever the manufacturers said about these books being "childproof," they had not yet run them past the m.u.f.fin.

"-thirteen," her mother said after a moment, looking slightly bemused.

"Oh, yeah, Mom, it's no problem," Maj said. "I'll manage."

"It was lost," the m.u.f.fin said, "and I found it under my bed." She waved the book under her mother's nose. It had an earnest-looking dinosaur on the cover.

"That's where most things go," said Maj, who had previous experience in this regard with her little sister. The m.u.f.fin regarded "under the bed" as a storage area of infinite flexibility.

"Will you read it to me, Mommy?"

"But you can read it yourself, sweetie," her mother said, wearily taking another swig of coffee.

"It's good to read to people," the m.u.f.fin insisted. "I read to my dinosaurs. It makes them smarter." read to my dinosaurs. It makes them smarter."

Maj and her mother gave each other an amused look. "Well, honey," her mother started to say, and then the phone rang.

"Now, who can it be at this hour?" her mother said, looking up. "They'd better not be expecting imagery, because they're not going to get it. h.e.l.lo?" she said.

The m.u.f.fin looked annoyed and wandered over to the other side of the table with the book, where she climbed up on a chair, slapped the book down on the table and began to read aloud to herself.

"No," Maj's mother said to the air over the recitation of dinosaur names, "he's not available at the moment; may I take a message for him?-Yes, this is Mrs. Green.-Oh.-Oh. And it's landing where?"

There was a pause. "Seven-fifteen? There wasn't any problem with the plane, was there?"

Maj's eyebrows went up. "-Oh, well that's good," her mother said. "No problem. Yes, we'll be there. Thank you! Bye now!"

She blinked, "hanging up," and turned to Maj. "So much for the virtues of getting up early and having half an hour to relax," she muttered, and glanced at the m.u.f.fin. "They've diverted our young cousin's flight to Dulles."

"Isn't that good for us, though? We don't have to go all the way down to BWI."

"It would be good if he wasn't landing in three-quarters of an hour," her mother said, getting up and swigging down the rest of her coffee at a rate that made Maj wonder one more time if her mother had an ablative-tile throat. "Better get dressed, honey, we've got a plane to meet."

"Ohmigosh," Maj said. "My meeting with the Group-!"

"You're going to have to abort it," her mother said. "This is family stuff, hon, sorry...I think you're needed. Tell them you'll talk to them later."

"It wasn't just a talk, it was-!"

But her mother was already on her way down the hall, and a second later she was banging on the bathroom door, shouting, "Sweetie, the sky is falling, better come out of there!"

Maj heard a strangled noise come through the faint sound of rus.h.i.+ng water. Reluctantly she got up and went off to get dressed, after which she would have to rush to commandeer enough time on the computer to tell the Group she was going to have to miss out on the briefing. They're going to be furious. Come to think of it, I think I'm furious They're going to be furious. Come to think of it, I think I'm furious.

So much for this little Niko not interfering with anything, Maj thought as she stalked off down the hallway. What a wonderful time we're going to have together.... What a wonderful time we're going to have together....

Fortunately, it being the awful hour of the morning it was, the traffic into Dulles wasn't too bad. Maj could almost have wished it was a little worse, in that there would have been more time for her to lose her bad mood completely. The reaction of the Group, when she had stuck her head into Chel's work s.p.a.ce and announced that she couldn't stay for the meeting, was all too predictable, especially from those who had stayed up late. "Look, I'll meet you all early here tonight," Maj had said as she turned to go, and s.h.i.+h Chin, usually so good-tempered, had actually growled, "Miss Madeline, if you're late tonight...we're going without you. The battle starts at six central-"

"I know, I know, I won't be...." Maj had said, unnerved by the mutter of annoyance coming from the others. She had fled, then, intent on getting into the bathroom for at least a few minutes before she would have to get dressed and pile into the car with the rest of the crowd. Now here she sat, feeling rather hot and bothered, insufficiently showered, and altogether not caring whether she made any kind of good first impression on anybody.

Yet she was still distracted by the one connection she couldn't put together. James Winters...and Dad. Talking about him James Winters...and Dad. Talking about him. Maj sighed. I'm going to have to cut him some kind of slack, I guess, no matter how annoyed I am I'm going to have to cut him some kind of slack, I guess, no matter how annoyed I am.

The m.u.f.fin was oblivious to all this, and to everything else, as the car pulled out of the fast-speed "lanes" and chimed at her father for him to take control back to do local approach. She was singing "We have a cousin, we have a cousin!" at the top of her none-too-small lungs as Maj's dad slipped into the airport parking approach and brought the car around into the access circle, where once again the local remote control computers took it off his hands and guided it into the parking facility. Nothing was allowed to randomly circle within a kilometer from the airport center. There were too many things cycling through the neighborhood at the best of times to allow parking-place anarchy in, too.

"We're running early," Maj's mother said, somewhat surprised, from the other front seat, as the car settled gently into the parking place that the local s.p.a.ce control had a.s.signed it.

"Welcome to Dulles International Aeros.p.a.ce Port," said a pleasant male voice through the car's entertainment system. "To better serve our visitors, please note that parking rates in short-term are now thirty dollars per hour. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our airport running smoothly."

Her father grunted, a sound which Maj knew concealed a comment that would have been much more vigorous if the m.u.f.fin hadn't been in the car. "Come on," he said, "let's get in there and fetch our guest before we have to go into escrow to get out again."

A couple of rows from their s.p.a.ce was the shelter for the maglev car that ran to the main terminals, and they all made their way to it, wincing a little at the sound of cars all around them parking or winding up their engines to take off again. Maj looked with some dry amus.e.m.e.nt at the poster inside the shelter as they climbed into the maglev car which almost immediately slid up to meet them-GROWING AGAIN TO SERVE YOU BETTER! This was Dulles's third "refit" in the last twenty years, almost finished-so the airport kept promising-now that the fifth runway, the one for the aeros.p.a.ceplanes, was finished, and the additional wing to Terminal C was almost done being extended and overhauled to service it. It wasn't entirely ready, though, and so it came to pa.s.s that the place where they met Niko looked more like a building site than a terminal.

And Maj, all too ready to be annoyed with him, caught the first sight of the youngster standing over near the "designated meeting" area with the AA flight services lady, and immediately felt all her annoyance drop off her in embarra.s.sment. It was impossible to be angry at anyone who looked so small and lost and scared, and who was trying so valiantly to hide it.

He really was kind of small for his age, his dark jeans and sober sweats.h.i.+rt and plain dark jacket like something left over from a school uniform, suggesting that he had somehow been trying to avoid notice, and indeed he looked uncomfortable, standing there out in the open, as if he would have preferred to be invisible.

Maj's dad made straight for him, and Maj hung back a little, watching the kid's face as he registered this tall, balding man heading in his direction, waiting to see his reaction. The boy looked at her father with dark, a.s.sessing eyes. He was himself shadowy-dark hair, a little bit olive of complexion, and had sort of a Mediterranean look, though with high cheekbones. As Maj's dad came up and paused there, towering over him, the slightest sign of a smile appeared, and it was a relieved smile.

"Martin Green," her father said to the flight services lady. "And this would be Niko. Graze Graze, cousin."

"Graze..." said the boy as Maj and her mother and the m.u.f.fin came along behind her dad.

"Professor Green, can I get you to look into this, please?" said the flight services lady, holding up a "little black box" with an eyepiece.

"No problem." He took it from her, took off his driving gla.s.ses, and fitted the eyepiece to his eye. Then, "Ow," he said, and handed the box back. "Can they make that light any brighter?"

The flight services lady laughed, turning the box over to check the LCD readout as it came up. "Probably not. That's fine, Professor. Can I get you to sign this, please?" She held out an electric "pad" and a stylus to him.

He scribbled his name, handed the pad back. "Thanks, ma'am. Where's his luggage?"

"There wasn't any," said the flight services lady, glancing down at Niko. "Some kind of problem with the onload from the train at Zurich...The baggage people are trying to track it down. They have your number. They'll deliver it to your house as soon as it's found."

"Oh, my gosh, that's awful," said Maj's mother immediately. "What an awful way to have a trip start! We'll sort something out for you. Welcome, Niko, I'm Rosilyn. And this is Madeline. Maj, we call her. And this is Adrienne-"

"I'm not Adrienne, I'm m.u.f.fin!" said the Muf in defiance, and then-apparently startled out of her wits by having actually spoken to her "cousin"-the m.u.f.fin did the impossible and came down with an acute case of the shys. She actually hid behind Maj's mother and looked around the side of her, as if she were a tree. "Hi," she whispered, and hid her face in Maj's mother's trousers.

Her mother and father looked at her in astonishment. Maj took the moment to hold her hand out. Niko reached out and shook it. "h.e.l.lo," he said, and then looked up at her father and mother. "Thanks for letting me stay with you."

"No problem at all," said Maj's father. "Look, if your luggage is lost en route, there's no point in us standing around here trying to second-guess these people. Let's get home and have some breakfast. Or lunch, or dinner, or whatever your body clock is up for..."

They headed out of the torn-up terminal, past the posters with pictures of how it would look when it was finished, and Maj noticed that her father seemed to be rather more in a hurry than usual. Normally he liked poring over the details of new construction when they came across it. Then again, there was always the possibility that thirty dollars an hour for short-term parking was on his mind.

On their way back to the parking lot, Maj noticed how politely Niko seemed to be trying to pay attention to everything her mother and father said, while at the same time looking at absolutely everything around him as if he had never seen anything like it before. The m.u.f.fin was beginning to get over her shyness and had made her way around her mother, while the maglev car was in transit, to sit closer to Niko. He had noticed this and was smiling at her while he answered Maj's mom's questions about how things were in Hungary, the weather and so forth. By the time they got to the car and started to get in, the m.u.f.fin had apparently decided that there was no further need for shyness, and insisted on being belted in beside Niko.

"I thought Hungry was something you got," said the m.u.f.fin as the car lifted off.

Maj rolled her eyes in amus.e.m.e.nt, listening with one ear as Niko tried to explain the difference between a country and something that happened in your stomach. With the other ear she was amused to hear her mother going with unusual speed into full maternal mode.

"That's terrible about his clothes," she said. "And we haven't kept anything of Rick's that would fit him. And G.o.d knows when his luggage will arrive, or what continent it's on at this point. Never mind that. Maj, when we get in, why don't you take him over to GearOnline and pick up a few things for him? Jeans and so on. Put it on the house charge, and we'll sort it out later."

"Sure, Mom." This raised some interesting questions for Maj, as she had never taken a boy clothes shopping before and wasn't sure if the online protocols were the same as they were for girls. Next to her, the m.u.f.fin's conversation was rapidly gaining in speed and volume as the car fed itself into the traffic stream heading back toward Alexandria. "Our car is old," the m.u.f.fin said. "Mommy says it's an antique. It's a big car. Is your car like this one?"

Maj saw Niko's glance out the window-a casual one, though his face seemed to her to be fixed in an expression of quiet amazement. "Oh, no," he said, and Maj caught just a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes as he turned away from the windows. "We don't have cars where I come from."

This news astonished the m.u.f.fin almost into silence, but she quickly recovered. "What do you have?"

"We have cows," Niko said, and he glanced at Maj just for a second as he said it, so that there was no mistaking the wicked humor. "We ride them when we need to travel."

Maj kept her face straight. The m.u.f.fin was hanging on every word he said, her mouth open, her eyes big and round. For his own part, Niko had eyes for none of the rest of them at the moment. "And we ride them everywhere. Even to the airport."

"They would p.o.o.p in the road," the m.u.f.fin said after a moment.

Niko looked at Maj again, his eyes eloquent of laughter being held under absolute control. "'p.o.o.p'-"

"Uh, excrete," Maj said. "Defecate."

"Absolutely they p.o.o.p," Niko said to the m.u.f.fin. "But it doesn't matter, because we do not just ride the cows; we make them carry our things as well. The cows we ride have little carts behind them. And between the cows and the carts, we put canvas slides with buckets at the end, and the p.o.o.p goes down the slides into the buckets."

"What do you do with the buckets?" the m.u.f.fin whispered, absolutely riveted.

"Empty them over people's rosebushes," Niko said.

"That's it," said Maj's mother. "You're moving in with us for at least a year. Someone who understands what rosebushes need is welcome in our our house for as long as he cares to stay." house for as long as he cares to stay."

They were only in transit for another fifteen minutes or so, but Maj found them some of the funniest fifteen minutes she had ever heard, as Niko kept spinning absurd stories about "Hungry" for the m.u.f.fin. Her mother, though, once glanced back at her, and Maj found herself knowing exactly what her mother was thinking-that Niko's funniness had an edge to it, and somehow felt very purposeful-as if he was trying to distract himself.

And who knows, I might do the same thing, Maj thought. Arriving in a strange country, meeting strangers, not even having my luggage with me...And Arriving in a strange country, meeting strangers, not even having my luggage with me...And, something at the back of her mind added, not having the slightest idea what was going to happen to me next.... not having the slightest idea what was going to happen to me next....

They landed at home, and the m.u.f.fin was practically the first one out, pulling on Niko's arm and demanding, "Come and see my room!"

"He'll come in a while, honey," Maj's mother said. "Right now you have to have your breakfast." The look she threw over her shoulder at Maj added, And give this poor kid five minutes to breathe! And give this poor kid five minutes to breathe!

"I'm not hungry!"

"Yes, you are," Maj's mother said with serene certainty. "Maj, honey, show Niko the guest room, and where the bathroom is..."

"Come on," Maj said to him, and led him down the hallway, pus.h.i.+ng the guest room door open. It had been her mother's office once before the "new wing" had been built onto the end of the house several years back. Now it had a comfy old sofa in it, and a single bed, and a beat-up chest of drawers that had been in Rick's room, and bookshelves...lots of bookshelves, all full, mostly of "overflow" books from her father's study. Niko looked around at it all. "You read a lot," he said, as if he approved.

"Not as much as I wish I had time to," Maj said, and sighed a little. "Here's the closet...not that you have anything to hang up in it at the minute! Look, take a few minutes to get yourself sorted out, and we'll go online and get you some clothes. Come on, here's the bathroom...."

She showed it to him, and Niko disappeared into it with a grateful look. Maj dodged into her dad's study, woke the Net machine up out of standby mode, and "told" the implant chair there that it was going to have a new implant to add to its list of authorized users. When Niko appeared again, Maj pointed him at the chair and said, "I'll access it from the kitchen and show you the way...we have a doubler in there. Sit yourself down, get comfortable..."

He sat down, wriggling a little as the chair got used to him and molded itself to his body. "It's very strange," he said. "Mine does not do that...."

Maj grinned at him. "For a moment there I thought you were going to tell me you sat on cows for this, too."

He grinned back. After a moment he said, "When does it start? I do not see anything."

"Uh-oh," Maj said. "Mom?"

Her mother appeared a moment later at the study door. "Problems?"

"He should be in my work s.p.a.ce by now. But he's not getting anything."

Her mother looked bemused. She came around to stand behind the chair in which Niko sat, and lined up her own implant with the Net computer, then blinked. "It doesn't recognize his implant," she said, and rolled her eyes. "The story of my life. Why they can't just get everyone to agree to standardize these things...."

For a moment more Maj's mother stood still. "Okay, I see," she said then. "It's just a different protocol.... We don't use that one much over here. Let me just tell the machine what it should do instead...."

A moment's silence. "Okay, Niko," her mother said then. "Try that and see how it works."

He tilted his head a little to one side, then straightened it again. "Oh!" he said.