Charlie reared back and looked right at my face. “Mommy, your real name is Kitty, right?”
“Right, well, that’s my nickname. Just like your real name is Charles Maxwell Martini but we call you Charlie, Mommy’s name is Katherine Sarah Katt-Martini, but I like to be called Kitty because that’s what your Nana Angela and Papa Sol called me and what all my friends call me, too. Why?”
He smiled. “Just being sure.” He nestled his face against my neck and went to sleep. Chose not to complain about this unexpected but pleasant turn of events. A napping Charlie should mean that nothing and no one was lifted into the air against their will.
Considering Charlie hadn’t spoken for so long that I’d been ready to give him a lot of special tests, that he now had a vocabulary far advanced for a child his age didn’t throw me all that much. Jamie had done similar as had most of the other hybrid children. It was just what happened when you had kids that were exceptional.
Due to how we’d wandered through the ship, the flyboys—Matt Hughes, Chip Walker, Randy Muir, Joe Billings, and Jerry Tucker—were all near to me, Nathalie, and the kids. No one else was around—the various people had wandered off, some after Brian, some down other hallways, some elsewhere. The ship was big and I had to figure that everyone wanted to see what they could before being shooed off.
“Don’t you wish you were coming with us, Commander,” Jerry, my favorite, asked softly with a wink.
“I’ve done it. Space travel’s overrated.”
We all chuckled, but those chuckles stopped.
Because the ship lurched.
CHAPTER 8
“WAS THAT CHARLIE?” Hughes asked quietly, reading my mind.
Checked on my son. He was still asleep. Wasn’t sure if I should wake him or not.
“No idea. The ship should be a little bit more than he can handle.”
Walker shook his head. “Kitty, he’s your kid. That means he can probably do anything.”
“Aww, you’re so sweet. But I’m sure it wasn’t him.” Said as the ship lurched again. The first lurch had been to the right. This one was to the left.
“Get to Brian,” I said to those around me. Could just see Jeff, Brian, and some others ahead of us, so we moved as quickly to them as we could.
“What’s going on?” Jeff asked as we arrived and the ship stopped moving. Jeff took my hand and squeezed it gently.
Brian shook his head. “No idea. We should be stationary.”
Christopher appeared. “I saw the ship move and I just checked the scaffolding and launchpad area—nothing’s out of place and nothing’s moving.”
“Strong winds?” Chee suggested.
“Some winds,” Christopher admitted. “Nothing that seems strong enough, though. I’m not sure that anyone outside noticed the ship moving, by the way, so that might support the high winds theory.”
“Settling,” Drax said firmly. “The ship is getting comfortable.”
“Houses do that,” Joe said. He was married to Lorraine, one of my two best A-C girlfriends, and I saw him pass her a sign.
“This isn’t a house,” Randy pointed out. He was married to Claudia, my other A-C bestie, and he sent her a sign, too.
“And the ship’s had plenty of time to settle,” Jerry said. He was recently married to Abigail Gower-Tucker, the youngest Gower sibling even when the Michael and Naomi had been alive. Abigail was here, too, and I watched Jerry pass her a sign, as well.
Lorraine and Claudia were Captains on Alpha Team and Abigail was one of the Embassy’s Cultural Attachés, and all three of them passed me a sign right back. Which basically indicated it might be a good time to go. “Let’s get everyone off, just to be sure,” I suggested quietly.
“Let’s not be hasty for no reason,” Drax countered. Others, Chee included, nodded.
We all waited. The ship didn’t move again. “Maybe Gustav is right,” Jeff said. “Or it’s winds like Daniel said.”
“It would be politically preferable not to evacuate,” Raj added.
No more lurching happened, so we all went back to the tour or wandering around, depending, and Christopher went back outside, having confirmed that he’d already toured the ship and found it nice but nothing he needed to spend a ton of time in.
Charlie still seemed fast asleep. “Think it was him?” Jeff asked me quietly.
“The flyboys asked, too. I don’t know.”
Jeff grunted. “Let me hold him.”
“Blocks up too high to tell without physical contact?” I asked as we moved Charlie from my shoulder onto Jeff’s.
“New blocker being tested. I can feel whoever I’m touching, but not anyone else.”
“Was that wise to test right now?”
“I’ve been testing it for a couple of weeks. This was the big one, and we did need something where emotions would be real and running high. I can turn it off as needed and it’s not internal to me, baby, so don’t worry.”
“Oh, not worried at all,” I lied. Apparently, Jeff wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Liar.”
“I thought you said you could only feel emotions via touch.”
He grinned. “I read your face, baby.” He kissed my cheek. “We’ll be fine. Charlie’s just having a happy dream, talking to someone he likes very much.”
“Who?”
“No idea. I assume she’s imaginary. But he’s happy and contented and not trying to lift anything, so I think we want to let him sleep.”
The larger group separated and reformed into smaller groups as we wandered more of the ship. Despite the prior lurching, nothing else seemed amiss, and it was fun to get to see more of what I’d only looked at on blueprints. Lizzie, Jamie, and Wasim asked to go look at other things, and since they were with Naveed, Gadhavi, and Mahin Sherazi, our other Cultural Attaché, it seemed safe enough, so we let them wander, Jamie now holding hands with Lizzie and Wasim, like their own little chaperone.
This left me and Jeff with just our snoozing son, which meant we could actually look at whatever we wanted to. So we wandered some more, checking things out.
The saucer was divided into five sections, like slices of pie, and this was the same for every deck. Each section on each deck had its own set of living quarters, mess halls, exercise areas, weapons storage, and more. Each section could be locked down from the others and each had its own backup power and water sources, so in case of trouble, up to and including invasion and contamination, the sections could survive separately. Heard, but didn’t see, the Joint Chiefs discussing this with my parents. Everyone seemed quite pro this setup.
“How is the interior of the curved tail part different from what we’ve seen in the saucer?” I asked.
“It’s a smaller setup basically,” Tim, who’d just joined us, replied. “Complete with sleeping quarters and all the rest. It’s more maneuverable but still roomy. The sports car to the rest of this ship’s RV.”
“I want to see the sports car!”
Jeff chuckled. “I knew you would.”