“We just have to swing by, verify if their star is stable, and move on,” Jeff said. “No landings needed.”
“Speaking of needs, though, I’m starving. I have no idea what time it is, or if we’re even counting time anymore, but my stomach says that it wants food and it wants it now.”
The others agreed that breakfast—which was the last meal any of us had had—was a long way away.
“Go eat,” Mother said. “I have no need of anyone right now, since none of us can affect anything other than communications at the moment. I will alert you if we receive any other transmissions or if I feel that I am regaining control of the ship.”
“Or if we’re going back to the pressure of warp jumping,” Tim added.
“Yes. I will alert you for the slightest issues.”
“They aren’t slight to me,” Tim grumbled, as we went to find the others.
“As it should be, Commander,” Mother said as her parting shot.
Happily, Mother’s food creation functions had not been harmed. So, we did what we tended to do when at an A-C Base—we got everyone together in the nearest mess hall that was large enough and ate family style.
Everyone was basically starving—consultation brought us all to the conclusion that we’d probably been gone from Earth about a full half day now, maybe longer. All our time was jumbled and Mother’s damage had affected her inner clocks. She felt we were correct, but couldn’t swear to it.
“How is it that the kids weren’t screaming for food?” I asked Jeff as we all scarfed down whatever was nearest to us on the table.
“I totes think there’s an appetite suppressant in the sleep gas,” Lizzie replied before Jeff could. “Because no one was hungry until you said we were going to get to eat.”
The Dwyer family was on the other side of the table from us, and I could tell Brian had been paying attention. “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean Lizzie’s wrong. It would make some sense.”
Drax was called over, but he insisted that an appetite suppressant hadn’t been in his formula, though he, like Brian, thought it was a good idea.
“Gustav, who did you test the sleep gas on?”
He seemed shocked by my question. “Myself, of course! I do nothing that I haven’t tested personally or I can’t stand behind the product.”
“That’s it,” Brian said. “Vata are different from humans and A-Cs. I’ll bet if we test it, we’ll discover that there’s an element that doesn’t affect Gustav but does the rest of us.”
“Why didn’t you test the gas on others?” Jeff asked Drax.
“I did. No one had adverse reactions.”
Snorted a laugh. “Because suppressing an appetite isn’t actually an adverse reaction. In fact, unless your subjects were paying attention, they wouldn’t have even noticed. Maybe they skipped lunch or something. But, when we get home, I sense a real moneymaking opportunity.”
“No,” Chuckie said flatly. “You do not.”
“Geez, dude, when did you become such a Donald Downer?”
He grinned. “Since before we met.”
The conversation shifted to other things, including the fact that Denise Lewis, ever the awesome teacher, had been spending the downtime teaching every kid about the galaxy at large, assisted by whichever space travelers were available at the time. Even the “young adults” were into it, which was nice.
It was also nice to see what we had of Jeff’s family all hanging out with each other and everyone else. Realized that until we’d been forced into the White House and, therefore, the kids into the Sidwell Friends School, we really hadn’t spent much time at all with Jeff’s sisters and their families. Felt bad. As an only child, my friends were my siblings, in that sense, and I spent time with most of them weekly, if not daily.
Thought about the few close friends of mine who somehow weren’t on the ship with us. Sheila and her family, for starters—no way anyone could have explained their presence, so I got why they weren’t here, even though it would have been great if they were. But why hadn’t Caroline Chase, my bestie from my sorority days and the late Michael Gower’s former fiancée, been included? Jamie loved her—everyone did, really—and Naomi had loved her, too.
Then again, Caroline was the right paw to Senator Donald McMillan, who was Arizona’s senior senator, a very close friend of ours by now, and also a hugely pro-alien politician. And, therefore, one of the people who’d be helping Mom and Marcia keep things going and keep all of us safe. So, maybe Caroline had a vital role to play on Earth, so much so that Jamie had left her behind.
Or, rather, Naomi had.
Wondered about this. Knew in my gut that there was no way that Naomi was leaving Earth unprotected. Earth was her home—she, like the rest of the A-Cs in “my” generation, had been born on Earth. And her mother was fully human. Plus, her parents were still on the planet, so there was no way that Naomi was going to ignore Earth while she did whatever she was doing with us.
So, anyone not taken was left behind for the same reason—they were there to protect in some way.
Heaved an internal sigh. There was nothing I could do to help them. We had to focus on what we could do and let those who had the task of keeping our country, world, and solar system safe do what they could do. Wasn’t my preferred choice, but it was the right one, and fretting about what was going on there meant I could miss something here. So, no more worry about Earth—it would be there when we got home, because the people who’d been left behind were the right ones for the job.
Felt something, like I was being hugged. But there was no one around me. Blinked back some tears, because I was pretty sure that hug had come from Naomi.
Everyone was done eating by now, and White suggested that we all sleep, as in actual real, not-drug-assisted sleep. It was a sound idea, particularly since we knew that the next time we stopped we’d likely be in action immediately. Jeff made this suggestion an order, and everyone headed for our various sleeping quarters.
Camilla, naturally, went with her wife and the others in the room with Tito, increasing his harem, so to speak. The portions of Animal Planet that we possessed went with whichever people they deemed as theirs. Those with no affiliation went, as promised, with my family. Perhaps they all enjoyed hearing Jeff muttering about living in a literal zoo.
Team Tough Guys were assigned their official room. Algar chose to stay with them. The other guys seemed fine with this. I found it fascinating. Wasn’t sure if Algar was testing Siler, giving Wruck and Mossy a chance to get in on the game—since my money was on our Anciannas and Mr. Top Gun Turleen being the next ones who realized that something wasn’t quite kosher all the time—enjoying his time getting to hang out as “one of the guys,” or if there was something more. Was pretty positive he didn’t suspect any of them of being evil, so there was that.