Two lies, Minerva; I’ve run restaurants on five planets—plus a silent lie as to my reasons for not being willing to inspect the joint. Two—no, three—reasons: First, I had gone over the place in cynical detail before I optioned it; second, that fry cook was bound to remember me; third, since I was selling it to them, through a dummy, I could neither vouch for it nor urge them to buy. Minerva, if I sell a horse, I won’t guarantee that it has a leg on each corner; the buyer must count them himself.
Having disclaimed any knowledge of restaurant business, I then lectured them about it. Llita started taking notes, then asked to be allowed to start the recorder. So I went into detail: Why 100 percent gross profit on the cost of food might not break even after she figured costs and overhead—amortization, depreciation, taxes, insurance, wages for them as if they were employees, etc. Where the farmers’ market was and how early they had to be there each morning. Why Joe must learn to cut meat, not buy it by the piece—and where he could learn how. How a long menu could ruin them. What to do about rats, mice, roaches, and some dillies Landfall has but thank heaven Secundus does not. Why—
(Omitted)
—chopped the umbilical, Minerva. I don’t think they ever guessed that they were dealing with me. I neither cheated nor helped them; that amortized sales contract simply passed on the price I had to pay for the dump, plus a load representing time I had spent dickering the price downward, plus legal and escrow fees and a fee to the dummy, plus the interest a bank would charge me—two points cheaper than they could get, at least. But no charity, none—I made nothing, lost nothing, and charged for only a day of my time.
Llita turned out to be tighter than a bull’s arse in fly time; I think she broke even the first month despite closing down while they cleaned and refurbished. Certainly she did not miss that first month’s payment on the mortgage, nor any after that. Miss one? Dear, they paid that five-year loan in three years.
Not too surprising. Oh, a long spell of illness could have wrecked them. But they were healthy and young and worked seven days a week until they were free and clear. Joe cooked and Llita handled the cashbox and smiled at customers and helped at the counter, and J.A. lived in a basket at his mother’s elbow until he was old enough to toddle.
Until I married Laura and left New Canaveral to be a country gentleman, I stopped in their joint fairly often—not too often, as Llita would not let me pay, and that was proper, part of standing tall and proud; they had eaten my food, now I ate theirs. So I usually stopped just for a cup of coffee and checked on my godson—while checking on them. I steered custom their way, too; Joe was a good cook and got steadily better, and word got around that Estelle’s Kitchen was the place if you appreciated good food. Wordof-mouth is the best advertising; people tend to be smug about having “discovered” that sort of eatery.
It did no harm with customers, male especially, that Estelle herself presided over the cashbox, young and pretty and with a baby in her arm. If she was nursing him as she made change—as was often the case at first—it practically guaranteed a lavish tip.
J.A. gave up the dairy business presently, but when he was about two his job was taken over by a baby girl, Libby Long. I didn’t deliver that one, and her red hair had nothing to do with me. Joe was blond, and I assume that Llita carried the gene as a recessive—doubt if she had time to branch out. Libby was a number-one tip-inducer, and I credit her with helping pay off the mortgage early.
A few years later Estelle’s Kitchen moved uptown to the financial district, was somewhat larger and Llita hired a waitress, a pretty one of course—
(Omitted)
—Maison Long was swank, but it had a comer in it, a coffee shop, named “Estelle’s Kitchen” and Estelle was hostess there as well as in the main dining room—smilling, dressed fit to kill in clothes that showed her superb figure, calling regulars by name and getting the names of their guests and remembering them. Joe had three chefs and a number of helpers, and they met his high standards or he fired them.
But before they opened Maison Long, something happened that showed that my kids were even smarter than I thought they were—or at least remembered everything and figured things out later. Mind you, when I bought them, they were too ignorant to pound sand and I don’t think either one had ever touched money at any time.
Letter from a lawyer—Inside was a bank draft, with it was an accounting: Two passages, Blessed to Valhalla to Landfall, second leg taken from tariffs of Transtellar Migration Corporation, Ltd. (New Canaveral) and first leg arbitrarily equated to second leg; certain monies accruing from share in sale of cargo; five thousand blessings expressed as bucks at an estimated exchange rate based on assumptions as to equivalent buying power, see enclosure; total of above gross sums; interest on gross compounded semiannually for thirteen years at the going commercial rate for each year for unsecured loans—and grand total same as the bank draft, a sum I’m not sure I remember, Minerva, but it would not mean anything in Secundus crowns anyhow. It was a sizable sum.
There was no mention of Llita or Joe, and the draft was signed by this lawyer. So I called him.
He turned out to be stuffy, which did not impress me as I was a lawyer there myself, although not practicing. All he would say was that he was acting for an undisclosed client.
So I fired legalese at him, and he loosened up to the extent of informing me that he had instructions to cover the contingency that I might refuse the draft: He was then to pay the draft sum to a designated foundation and so inform me after it was paid. But he declined to tell me what foundation.
I signed off and called Estelle’s Kitchen. Llita answered, then cut in video and smiled her best. “Aaron! We haven’t seen you in much too long.”
I agreed and added that apparently they had gone out of their silly minds while I wasn’t watching. “I have here a bunch of nonsense from a lawyer, along with a ridiculous draft. If I could reach you, dear, I would paddle you. Better let me talk with Joe.”
She smiled happily and told me that I was welcome to paddle her any time and that I could talk to Joe in a moment but that he was locking up. Then she stopped smiling and said with sober dignity, “Aaron, our oldest and dearest friend, that draft is not ridiculous. Some debts cannot be paid. So you taught me, years ago. But the money part of a debt can be paid. This we are doing, as closely as we have been able to figure it.”
I said, “God damn it, you stupid little bitch, you kids don’t owe me a bloody penny!”—or words to that effect.
She answered, “Aaron, our beloved master—”
At the word “master” I blew my overloads, Minerva. I used language guaranteed to scorch the hide of the lead mules in a team of six.
She let me run down, then said softly, “Our master until you free us by letting us pay this—Captain.”
Dear, I skidded to a halt.
She added, “But even then you will still be our master in my heart, Captain. And in Joe’s heart, I know. Even though we stand free and proud, as you taught us. Even though—thanks always to you—our children, and the children I still will bear, will never know that we were ever anything but free . . and proud.”
I said, “Dear, you’re making me cry.”
She said, “No, no! The Captain never cries.”
I said, “A lot you know about it, wench. I weep. But in my cabin—with the door locked. Dear, I won’t argue. If this is what it takes to make you kids feel free, I’ll take it. But just the base sum, no interest. Not from friends.”
“We are more than friends, Captain. And less. Interest on a debt is always paid—you taught me. But I knew that in my heart when I was only an ignorant slave, freshly manumitted. Joseph knew it, too. I tried to pay interest, sir. But you would not have me.”
I changed the subject. “What is this blinking foundation that gets the bucks if I refuse them?”
She hesitated. “We planned to leave that up to you, Aaron. But we thought it might go to orphans of spacemen. Perhaps the Harriman Memorial Refuge.
”
“You’re both crazy. That fund is bulging, and I know it. Look, if I go to town tomorrow, can you shut down that ptomaine trap for a day? Or perhaps Neilsday?”
“Any day and as many days as you wish, dear Aaron”—so I said I would call back.
Minerva, I needed time to think. Joe was no problem, he never was. But Llita was stubborn. I had offered to compromise; she had not budged a millimeter. It was the interest that made it such a horrid sum, for them—two strivers who had started with a couple of thousand bucks thirteen years back and were raising three kids by then.
Compound interest is murder. The sum she claimed they owed me—the amount of that draft—was more than two and a half times the base sum . . . and I couldn’t see how they had saved even that. But, had I been able to get her to agree on the base amount and forget compound interest, they would still have a nice chunk of capital to expand again—and if it took giving the smaller sum to orphaned spacemen or spacemen’s orphans or indignant cats to make them feel proud, I could understand how it would be a bargain in their eyes. I had taught them myself, hadn’t I? I once dropped ten times that amount rather than argue over whether cards had been cut—then slept that night in a graveyard.
I wondered if, in her sweetly devious mind, she was paying me back for having dragged her out of my bed one night fourteen years earlier. I wondered what she would do if I made a counteroffer to accept the base sum and let her “pay the interest” her own way. Shucks, she would probably be on her back before you could say “Contraception.”
Which would solve nothing.
Since she had turned down my compromise, we were back where we had started. She was determined to pay it all—or give it away pointlessly—and I was not going to let her do either one; I can be stubborn, too.
There had to be a way to do both.
At dinner that night, after the servants withdrew, I told Laura I was going to town on business—would she like to come along? Shop while I was busy, then dine wherever she liked, then any fun that appealed to her. Laura was pregnant again; I thought she might enjoy a day wasting money on clothes.
Not that I planned to have her along at the coming row with Llita; officially Joseph and Estelle Long and their oldest child had been born on Valhalla; we had become friends when they had taken passage in my ship. I had fleshed out that story and coached the kids in it on the leg to Landfall, and had them study sound-sight tapes from Torheim—ones which turned them into synthetic Valhallans unless questioned too closely by real Valhallans.
This fakery was not utterly necessary as Landfall. had an open-door policy; an immigrant did not even have to register —he could sink or swim. No landing fee, no head tax, not much taxation of any sort, or much government, and New Canaveral, the third biggest city, was only a hundred thousand —Landfall was a good place to be in those days.
But I had Joe and Llita do it that way both for them and for their kids. I wanted them to forget that they had ever been slaves, never talk about it, never let their kids know it—and at the same time, bury the fact that they had been, in some odd fashion, brother and sister. There is nothing shameful in being born a slave (not for the slave!), nor was there any reason why diploid complements should not marry. But forget it—start over. Joseph Long had married Stjerne Svensdatter (name Anglicized to “Estelle,” with the nickname Yeetah from babyhood); they had married when he finished apprenticeship to a chef; they had migrated after their first child. The story was simple and unassailable, and put the polish on my only attempt at playing Pygmalion. I had seen no reason to give my new wife any but the official version. Laura knew they were my friends; she was gracious to them on my account, then had come to like them on their own account.
Laura was a good gal, Minerva, good company in bed and out, and she had the Howard virtue, even on her first marriage, of not trying to smother her spouse—most Howards need at least one marriage to learn it. She knew who I was—the Senior—as our marriage and later our kids were registered with the Archives, just as had been my marriage to her grandmother, and the offspring from that. But she did not treat me as a thousand years older than she was and never quizzed me about my past lives—simply listened if I felt like talking.
I don’t blame her for that lawsuit; Roger Sperling cooked that up, the greedy son of a sow.
Laura said, “If you don’t mind, dear, I’ll stay home. I would rather splurge on clothes after I slim down. As for dinner, there isn’t a restaurant in New Canaveral that can match what Thomas does for us here. Well, Estelle’s Kitchen perhaps, but that’s a lunchroom, not a restaurant. Will you see them this trip? Estelle and Joe, I mean.”
“Possibly.”
“Find time, dear; they are nice people. Besides, I want to send some knickknack to my goddaughter. Aaron, if you want to treat me to a fancy restaurant when we go to town, you should encourage Joe to open one. Joe can cook, equal to Thomas.”
(Better than Thomas, I said to myself—and Joe doesn’t scowl at a polite request. Minerva, the trouble with servants is that you serve them quite as much as they serve you.) “I’ll make a point of seeing them, at least long enough to deliver your present to Libby.”
“And kiss them all for me and I’d better send something to each of their kids and be sure to tell Estelle that I’m pregnant again and find out if she is, too, and remember to tell me, and what time are you leaving, dear?—I must check your shirts.”
Laura was serenely certain that I could not pack an overnight bag no matter how many centuries of experience I had had. Her ability to see the world as she wanted to see it enabled her to put up with my cranky ways for forty years; I do appreciate her. Love? Certainly, Minerva. She looked out for my welfare, always, and I did for hers, and we enjoyed being together. Just not love so intense that it is a great ache in your belly.
Next day I took my jumpbuggy over to New Canaveral.
(Omitted)
—planned Maison Long. Llita had meant to blitz me. I’m sentimental, and she knew it and had set the stage. When I got there, the shutters were closed, early—and their two older kids were farmed out for the night and baby Laura was asleep. Joe let me in, told me to go on back; he had our dinner on the range and would be along in a minute. So I went back to their living quarters to find Llita.
I found her—dressed in sarong and sandals I had given her not an hour after I had bought her. Instead of the sophisticated face-do she now used so well, she was wearing no makeup at all and had her hair simply parted and hanging straight down, to her waist or longer, and brushed till it shone. But this was not the frightened, ignorant slave who had to be taught how to bathe; this serenely beautiful young lady was clean as a sterilized scalpel, and was scented with some perfume which may have been named Spring Breezes but should have been called Justifiable Rape and sold only under doctor’s prescription.
She posed just long enough for me to take this in, then swarmed over me, hit me with a kiss that matched her perfume.
By the time she let me go, Joe had joined us—dressed in breechclout and sandals.
But I did not let it go sentimental; I riposted sharply, stopping only to accept one-tenth that much kiss from Joe, said nothing about their costumes, and at once started explaining that business deal. When Llita caught what I was talking about, she shifted from sexy siren to sharp businesswoman, listened intently, ignored her stage setting and costuming, and asked the right questions.
Once she said, “Aaron, I sniff a mouse. You told us to be free, and we’ve tried to be—and that’s why we sent you that draft. I can add figures; we owe you that money. We don’t have to have the biggest restaurant in New Canaveral. We’re happy, the children are healthy, we’re making money.”
“And working too hard,” I answered.
“Not all that hard. Though a bigger restaurant would mean even more work. But the point is: You seem to be buying us again. That’s all right if you wish to—you are the only master we would ever accept. Is that your intention, sir? If so, p
lease say so. Be frank with us.”
I said, “Joe, will you hold her while I wallop her? For using that dirty word? Llita, you are wrong on both counts. A bigger restaurant means less work. And I’m not buying you; this is a business deal in which I expect a fat profit. I’m betting on Joe’s genius as a chef, plus your genius for pinching pennies without cutting quality. If I don’t make money, I’ll exercise my option to liquidate, get my investment back, and you can go back to running a lunch counter. If you fail I won’t prop you up.”
“Brother?” She called him that in the dialect of their childhood. It signified to me that the lodge was tyled for executive session at the highest degree, as they were most careful not to call each other “Brother” or “Sister” in any language, especially in front of the children. J.A. was sometimes “Brother” in English—never his father Joe. Minerva, I don’t recall that Landfall had laws against incest—it did not have many laws. But there was a strong taboo against it, and I had carefully indoctrinated them. Half the battle with any culture is knowing its taboos.
Joe looked thoughtful. “I can cook. Can you manage it, Sis?”
“I can try. Of course we’ll try it if you want us to, Aaron. I’m not sure we can make a go of it, and it does look like more work to me. I’m not complaining, Aaron, but we are already working about as hard as we can.”
“I know you are. I don’t see how Joe found time to knock you up.”
She shrugged and said, “That doesn’t take long. And it will be a long time—I’ve just barely caught—before I’ll have to take time off. J.A. is old enough to handle the cashbox when I do. But not in a big fancy restaurant.”
I answered, “Wench, you’re thinking in terms of a lunchroom. Now listen, and learn how to make more money with less work and more time off.