“No one was whining about having to wait, or being bored, or wanting to get onto the planet?”
Both girls shook their heads. “Why are you asking this?” Lorraine hugged me. “Everyone’s fine. The kids are in great hands. Malcolm and Benjamin are both there. You know they aren’t going to let the kids slip off.”
“And Mister Gadhavi’s on guard,” Claudia added.
Algar was also there and Jamie had ACE inside of her. And neither entity was sending me a warning signal. Unless, of course, the feeling that something was wrong was the warning signal. So that could be from ACE or it could just be that I was worried about Wruck and transferring it to the kids. Not definitive.
There was an easy way to tell if Algar was trying to tell me something. Dug into my purse and opened my music. Foreigner’s “Girl On The Moon” was queued up.
“Crap.” Took off at hyperspeed. I’d been a sprinter and hurdler when I ran track, and I was definitely going as fast as possible right now.
Jeff caught up to me. “What’s wrong?”
“I think Jamie’s already on the damn moon.”
“How? I haven’t gotten anything from her. Or Charlie. Or Lizzie, either.”
“She can block emotions from you, Jeff. She’s done it before, usually to protect you, when we’re in a big battle situation. But right now . . .”
“Right now she’s bored and there’s this magical place right in front of her. Got it.”
We reached the observation lounge. Sure enough, though Lizzie and Charlie were both here, Jamie wasn’t. And no one seemed to notice—not Siler, not Buchanan, and not Gadhavi.
Was about to start screaming my head off when I saw Algar. He wasn’t joining in with the game that had everyone entranced, he was still staring out the window. Ran over to him. “Ard Ri Al, have you seen my daughter?”
He turned to me. “Indeed I have, lassie. She’s got your little laddie. She’s a wonderful big sister.”
“She is, yes, but I mean Jamie, not Lizzie.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve seen her, too.”
“Where is she?” Jeff growled.
Algar smiled. “Showing that she’s her mother’s daughter.” He nodded out the window.
We both turned and looked. There was Jamie, a golden version of her, at least, holding Wruck’s hand and skipping down the street. They were with Fathade and the others and Jamie was being introduced, at least as far as I could tell.
“How?” Jeff asked. “How did she get out of the ship, let alone get the suit?”
“No idea, Jeff, but she moved herself from New Mexico to D.C. to save us and Christopher from a crashing Z’porrah spaceship before she was six months old. That she could do this at six years shouldn’t surprise either one of us.”
“It should not, no,” Algar said. “So, the question is—do you wait, or do you join her?”
Looked right at him. “Pardon us for wanting to be sure this planet was safe.”
He shrugged. “Caution is good. Boldness is good, too. Especially when meeting a new race. You were bold while the ship was flying, lassie. Why be timid now?”
“Not wanting to get radiation poisoning, for starters.”
“Ah, but the amazing race you see before you seems confident they can protect you.”
“People have been wrong before,” Jeff said.
Algar nodded. “They have, indeed. However, your princess is doing the job the king and queen should be.”
“Oh, blah, blah, blah. Good rulers ensure that their subjects aren’t exposed to danger for no good reason.”
“True enough,” Algar said. “The Anciannas has done the main test. Your princess has done the other.”
“We won’t know if she’s gotten radiation poisoning until it’s too late,” Jeff said, sounding ready to break through the glass.
Algar sighed. “Laddie, really. You worry far too much.”
“Yeah? Then, tell me, Ard Ri Al, how do we score the special suits? Fathade didn’t leave any extras.”
“Didn’t she?” Algar asked, looking amazingly innocent.
“Oh my god, fine. We’ll go see if she did. Thanks for the assist.” Grabbed Jeff’s hand and started back, once again at a run.
“What’s going on?” he asked me. “I mean with the Ard Ri?”
“He’s a jerk. But he tends to be right.” We got back to the airlock. “Gustav, close the outer door. That’s an order.”
“But John is not back,” he said, sounding confused.
“Dude, just do it before Jeff loses it, okay?”
“She’s not kidding,” Jeff growled.
Drax clearly didn’t understand what was going on, but he did as requested. As the outer doors, which opened out, closed, they pushed a bunch of the metal balls inside the airlock. Whether they were from Fathade’s group or Algar I neither knew nor cared. The inner doors closed and the airlock did its other thing, whatever that was. All I knew was that it took time, and my little girl was wandering around this moon potentially killing herself.
Jeff grunted. “I wonder how he knew.”
“Lucky guess is my guess,” I lied. “Or else he saw them carrying more than one in or whatever. Maybe Jamie told him, since he was the only one aware she was gone. Who knows? Who cares? We just need to get in there and then out there.”
“Excuse me, what?” Reader asked, sounding ready to give a safety lecture and tell us we weren’t going anywhere.
“Stow it, James. Jamie’s out there already, with Wruck. We’re going out, period. Pull rank later, it’s our daughter.”
“And my goddaughter.” Reader was fully in Commander Mode. “I won’t stop you, but I am going with you.”
“There’s enough for all of us it looks like,” Claudia said. “Let’s all just go.”
“I agree,” Chuckie said.
“Dude, why are you so gung ho about all this? I mean it—you’re normally far more cautious and James is normally far more willing to go for it. It’s like were on the Role Reversal Moon or something.”
He shrugged. “I just think that, based on their past experiences, these people know what they’re doing. They shut themselves off because of a couple of bad encounters in recent times—well, recent for them, older for us, they’re a very long-lived race—but they used to have visitors from other worlds, and they were all able to be here safely.”
“Airlock is ready,” Drax said.
“Into the breach,” Tito added. “And yes, I’m going, as her doctor. And because I’m with Chuck on this one.”
“Let’s rock and roll,” was my contribution as I ran in and grabbed a golden ball.
“Whatever,” the Kristie-Bot said. “All I know is that your daughter’s totally amazing. I can’t wait for the Code Name: First Daughter spinoff series.”
“Be careful, Kristie, or I’m going to ensure we leave you on this moon.”
CHAPTER 60