“Yes,” Savitri said. “Nearly eight years, for five minutes at a time. I need to work up to extended visits.”
“Fine,” I said, and turned to Jane. “What about you?”
“I’m supposed to meet with General Szilard,” she said, referring to the commander of Special Forces. “He wants to catch up.”
“All right,” I said. “You’re missing out.”
“What are you doing down there?” Jane asked.
“We’re going to visit Zo?’s parents,” I said. “The other ones.”
I stood at the gravestone that bore the name of Zo?’s father and mother, and of Zo? herself. Zo?’s dates, based on the belief she had died in a colony attack, were obviously incorrect; less obviously, so were her father’s. Her mother’s dates were accurate. Zo? had crouched down to get close to the names; Hickory and Dickory had connected their consciousnesses just long enough to have a ten-second ecstasy at the idea of being at the death marker of Boutin, then disconnected and stood at a distance, impassive.
“I remember the last time I was here,” Zo? said. The small bouquet of flowers she brought lay propped up on the gravestone. “It was the day Jane asked me if I wanted to come live with you and her.”
“Yes,” I said. “You found out you were going to live with me before I found out I was going to live with either of you.”
“I thought you and Jane were in love,” Zo? said. “That you planned to live together.”
“We were,” I said. “We did. But it was complicated.”
“Everything about our little family is complicated,” Zo? said. “You’re eighty-eight years old. Jane is a year older than I am. I’m the daughter of a traitor.”
“You’re also the only girl in the universe with her own Obin escort,” I said.
“Speaking of complicated,” Zo? said. “By day, typical kid. By night, adored by an entire alien race.”
“There are worse setups,” I said.
“I suppose,” Zo? said. “You’d think being the object of worship for a whole alien race would get me out of homework now and then. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that it doesn’t.”
“We didn’t want it to go to your head,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. She pointed to the gravestone. “Even this is complicated. I’m alive, and it’s my father’s clone who is buried here, not my father. The only real person here is my mother. My real mother. It’s all very complicated.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Zo? shrugged. “I’m used to it by now. Most of the time it’s not a bad thing. And it gives you perspective, doesn’t it? I’d be at school, listening to Anjali or Chadna complain about how complicated their lives were, and I’d be thinking to myself, girl, you have no idea what complicated is.”
“Good to hear you’ve handled it well,” I said.
“I try,” Zo? said. “I have to admit it wasn’t a very good day when the two of you told me the truth about Dad.”
“It wasn’t much of a fun day for us, either,” I said. “But we thought you deserved to know the truth.”
“I know,” Zo? said, and stood up. “But you know. I woke up one morning thinking my real dad was just a scientist and went to bed knowing he could have wiped out the entire human race. It messes with you.”
“Your father was a good man to you,” I said. “Whatever else he was and whatever else he did, he got that thing right.”
Zo? walked over to me and gave me a hug. “Thank you for bringing me here. You’re a nice man, ninety-year-old dad,” she said.
“You’re a great kid, teenage daughter,” I said. “You ready to go?”
“In a second,” she said, and walked back over to the gravestone, knelt quickly and kissed it. Then she stood up and suddenly looked like an embarrassed teen. “I did that the last time I was here,” she said. “I wanted to see if it made me feel the same.”
“Did it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, still embarrassed. “Come on. Let’s go.” We walked toward the gates of the cemetery; I took out my PDA and signaled for a taxi to come pick us up.
“How do you like the Magellan?” I asked, as we walked.
“It’s interesting,” Zo? said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a spaceship. I forgot what it was like. And this one’s so big.”
“It has to fit twenty-five hundred colonists and all of their stuff,” I said.
“I get that,” Zo? said. “I’m just saying it’s large. It’s starting to fill up, though. The colonists are there now. I’ve met some of them. The ones my age, I mean.”
“Meet any you like?” I asked.
“A couple,” Zo? said. “There’s one girl who seems to want to get to know me. Gretchen Trujillo.”
“Trujillo, you say,” I said.
Zo? nodded. “Why? You know her?”
“I think I may know her father,” I said.
“It’s a small world,” Zo? said.
“And it’s about to get a lot smaller,” I said.
“Good point,” Zo? said, and looked around. “I wonder if I’ll ever make it back here.”