“That works for me!” Lisa said. She turned to the woman who had been hovering around them since they had entered the home, “Jenny!” “Yes Lady Wilson,” the woman came forward.
“I was hoping that my husband would do this,” Lisa said, “But duty calls. Jill this is Jenny. She is your protective officer. Any time you have to leave the grounds she’ll be with you. I don’t like it much; but it is a fact of life.”
“Jill,” the woman said, “Jill my job is to keep you safe; but not to run your life. Hopefully over time you’ll hardly notice that I am there. We really want to be in the background. There but not there.
“I see.” Jill said not certain how to respond to her.
“In time you will not even know I am here.” Jenny repeated.
Jill still didn’t know what to say. She knew that her grandmother always had an escort everywhere she went, and that most of her servants on Mars were retired IRS people. Now that she thought about it, she remembered that her grandmother’s escorts were always armed.
“Jenny,” Lisa spoke into the silence. “We will not be going out this evening. Jill is restricted to the palace grounds unless I or her father is with her. In the morning I think one of us will show her the grounds.”
“If you wish,” Jenny said, “I can do that.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Lisa remarked. Lisa didn’t think it appropriate that the agent show her step daughter around the palace grounds.
“Then if you don’t mind I’ll be hanging out in the bull pen,” the woman said.
“No problem,” Lisa replied.
When they were alone Lisa shut the door to the bedroom, stealing herself for what she had to say next. She didn’t want to do this; but it was her job to help Jill get settled not her husband’s. She knew he would help; but running the house hold and taking care of the family had always been her part of the deal. Simply because they were living in the palace and had servants didn’t mean her duties as mother, wife, and housekeeper were over.
“I know your father grounded you,” Lisa spoke to the teenager, “You did something that scared the devil out of him. He was far more worried than he let on. He was also far angrier with you than he let on.”
“Aunt Mylea said he was furious.” Jill inject, not wanting to challenge her, but trying to acknowledge that she had not done the brightest, smartest thing she had ever done. “He was that,” Lisa confirmed, “He did ground you; but he left it open ended.
Depending on you, it can end sooner as well be longer.” “I understand,” Jill responded.
“I don’t want to be an ogre, or a wicked step mother.” Lisa said, “It is not my style to be a bitch. So I want us to negotiate a couple of rules for your grounding and a couple for as long as you live with us. Is that all right with you?”
“I don’t know,” Jill held up her hand, “Until I hear, them that is!”
“Fair enough,” Lisa replied, “Although you are restricted to the grounds, you are really restricted to our home; except for when me, or your father, take you out of here. Once or twice a day we’ll either take a walk, or go swimming in the palace pool. Every so often we might go the gym. But we’re going to be flexible. There may come a time when I need you to run an errand or watch over Abby for me. There will be a couple of tutors to continue your education. Some of them were the Queen’s. Some of them are special hires from the Old Trena Boarding School. We found the best for you and so I hope that they are and you will enjoy the special opportunity that you are being given. Once your father is convinced you have learned your lesson you’ll be going back to school.”
Lisa waited to see if the girl was going to challenge her but she didn’t. This stood her in good measure with Lisa.
“Is there anything you want?” Lisa asked, “I have thundered at you a bit and laid some laws down, do you have anything to say?”
“Mom,” the girl said, “All I want is to be with Dad. You are a part of Dad so I don’t want to piss you off. I know Dad wants to ship me back to grand mom so I am not going to do anything to make that happen.”
Both of them studied each other for moment then Lisa said, “Jill we have to make this a place of refuge for your father. This job is going to kill him with the stress and the pressure. The two of us have got to get along!”
“Mom,” Jill said, “I read about what is happening and what Dad’s job is. I don’t understand it all; but from what I read it’s immense. If I can help him by not being a problem, then I’ll do my best not to be that problem.”
All thoughts of her becoming an aid to her father were fading away. She realized it wouldn’t be possible. She made herself a vow to help her step mother create the environment that she wanted for her home and her husband.
“Good enough,” Lisa replied, “Dinner won’t be until about 1900. Until then your time is your own. So you might get unpacked and wander a bit about the house.” Her step mother left her in her bedroom.
So Jill unpacked the one bag she had brought. It wasn’t much. When she had left Mars she had thrown some clothing in her school back pack not wanting to alert her grandmother that she wasn’t going to school. She had a change of clothes and a couple of changes of under garments. A T shirt she had stolen from her father years ago that said imperial marines on it and had seen better days that she used as night shirt. It took a grand total of about ten minutes to empty her bag. Once that was done she poked around her bed room for a bit.
She walked to the window. The window didn’t allow her to see much. Because the building wasn’t extremely tall and her room was so close to the ground she couldn’t see much. A privacy fence blocked her view of the rest of the palace grounds she might have been able to see. A flower garden wandered along the base of the fence. It looked almost unkempt to Jill until she noticed that wildness was mixed with very well maintained beds. She was tempted to go the garden, but remembered she was grounded to the house. As she observed the garden she saw the woman who had introduced herself as Maggie cutting various blooms and such. She wondered what she was going to do with them. The window had a padded place big enough to sit on. That was where she spent the rest of the afternoon.
As she sat in the window box seat she considered all that had happened to her over the last few days. The travel from Mars, and the incident with Thunder on Rio Lobo; but mostly she considered what her father had said to her about her legacy.
Heir to the Hazelton fortune, her father had said. She of course knew who the Hazelton’s were. She just didn’t know that they were connected to her family. Hazelton was the name of the family that owned Earth Biological Engineering, mostly known as EBio. They had made their fortune by rediscovering the method to create clones or biopeople as they were called. It had been lost for centuries when Earth had gone through a dark period. When religious zealots had taken over the Earth for a century or so a lot of technology had been lost. Especially in the biological sciences which had been prescribed by the religious rulers of Earth. Shortly after star flight had been discovered Tomas Hazelton had also found the research on bioengineering and a few years later had developed the first clone. Years later he had been able to patent the whole process.
But it wasn’t until Earth was colonizing other worlds and there weren’t enough people willing to go to these worlds that Hazelton made his fortune. So Hazelton seeing an opportunity; developed a mass production of his process and soon thousands of clones were being produced. Although slavery was illegal in the fledgling empire, it had been determined that the owning of bioengineered beings was not slavery; as the bioengineered human beings were lab creations not natural, and could be patented and therefore owned. This was how Hazelton made his first several millions. That had been five centuries ago. Now the fortune was worth literally trillions of imperials.
So she was the heir to all of that. She was surprised that she hadn’t heard of it. That no one had mentioned to her that she was the heir. Or for that matter when her father had
been in the news, like he was when he was made Knight Commander of the Earth Empire, the news media didn’t mention he was the heir to the EBio fortune. She then knew that her grandmother Wilson had been part of the conspiracy to keep this from her. Now she suspected that her search for information about her father had been filtered so as not to tell her about their connection with EBio.
As she sat in the in the window box watching the sun set, she realized that she had assumed that it was her grandmother’s retirement that took care of them on Mars. It couldn’t have been now that she thought about it. Now as a retired two star admiral her grandmother’s pension was nothing to sneeze at, but it was in no way sufficient to even pay for the upkeep on their large estate on Mars. Her grandmother had tossed it off as she had saved well when she was in the service and a couple of people had given her gifts for what she had done for them or their nation when she helped them. Her yacht had been the gift of a prince when her grandmother had flown the ship back to his world when his crew had become sick and the prince didn’t know how to fly it himself.
She thought back to her time on Mars and realized she had never wanted for anything. But she had never had extravagant things either. When she really wanted something she would have to negotiate with her grandmother and would have to earn it. Sometimes it meant extra chores around the house, or babysitting some kids of the students and instructors from PriFly where her grandmother had been the commander. She had always had the things she needed, maybe not all the things she wanted, but certainly the things she needed.
As she sat in the window box going over what her father had said to her she kept coming back to one thing, that someone from the company she owned wanted her father and step mother dead. She wondered did that mean she was paying someone to kill her parents. Why did they want them dead? Did they want her dead also?
“Jill,” A voice broke in on her thoughts. She turned and saw someone she had not seen in years. Lamile Atomi. When their parents had been stationed on Station Thirty, and later when her father had helped to stand up the Companions they had been nearly inseparable.
“Lamile,” She closed up her diary, and got up to run over to where the six foot two thonian girl stood. She hugged the slightly younger and taller alien girl. The only real difference between the two girls was that Lamiae’s hair was gray and she was taller with a huskier frame and the fact that she had four breasts instead of two. Even then in some outfits there was no real visual difference between the two species. Lamile had on a long sleeved blouse with a high neck line and an ankle length skirt that made her appear more like an earth girl than a Thonian. The clothing she had on covered almost every part of her. The skirt went almost to the floor, and the blouse was buttoned most of the way up exposing only her throat but not; her cleavage. Jill remembered other thonian girls who dressed the same way. Lamile was dressed modestly and chastely, as was the custom for unmarried thonian girls. This was the first time Jill had seen her friend since she had matured. “You look good!”
“So do you!” Lamile said. “You mad at me because I haven’t written?”
“Then shouldn’t you be mad at me for the same reason?” Jill asked. “Tell me what’s happened to you. How did you get here?”
“We came here are after my father’s death.” Lamile said, “Mom was lucky to be alive after that guy shot him. But even so the space force wouldn’t let her remain in uniform. So we came here.”
“Uncle Garth’s dead?” Jill asked. She remembered the quiet bear of a man who was her friend’s father. She remembered the times that Garth had tried to teach her Thonian. Of the times he gave her piggy back rides around the house. He was so gentle! That was the thing she remembered the most about him. He had been the co commander of the Companions. He and Aunt Mylea had been the first command team of the unit. She had been 9 at the time when they had stood up that unit. “I am so sorry. I’ll miss him. Your mother seems okay.”
“She shouldn’t even be alive, Jill.” Lamile said sitting down, “Often the death of a lifemate kills them both. The doctors think that because of the instance of dad’s death that it severed the Aqaut cleanly, and mom was not actively sharing Dad’s thoughts at the time she was not hit with the death shock. They don’t really know!”
“How is she really doing,” Jill asked. “I was surprised to see her this morning. Now doubly so!”
“She’s doing okay,” Lamile said, “I don’t get to see her much as she is spending so much time with the evacuation command. She seems to like it though.” “Hey you girls coming to dinner,” Lisa poked her head into the room.
“Oh I was supposed to get you,” Lamile said sheepishly.
“Let’s go!” Jill said.
The two followed Lisa to the dining room where the rest of the family and Mylea were waiting for them. They ate a quiet dinner.
###
The next morning, Maggie was listening to one of the young women who helped her maintain the large house. “Maggie, I went to go into Miss Jill’s room thinking to clean it up; but it was neat!”
“That should make you job easier then!” Maggie said a little exasperated. This was something that was good to hear but not something she needed to hear at the moment. She was in the middle of adjusting the menus since Jill was around, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to have to go and get more groceries just to feed the young girl. She had no idea what the girl liked or didn’t like.
“Oh that’s not the problem!” the maid said, “I thought I would get her things in the laundry. I found clothing hanging from a make shift clothes line. She took the drapery pull and had pulled it over to a chair and had hung her clothing on it. She doesn’t have much.”
“Oh,” Maggie said. “I wonder if Lady Wilson knows.”
“Knows what?” Lisa came into the kitchen where Maggie was working. They had planned to meet and go over the menus. It was one of the things that the two of them did every couple of days.
The maid told Lisa what she had found. Lisa asked her to show her what she had found. They went to Jill’s bedroom. Lisa knocked on the door when there was no answer she went in. She found what the maid had said she had seen. They were about to leave when Jill came in.
“Hi mom,” Jill greeted her step mother wondering why she was in her room.
“Thank you Joan,” Lisa said dismissing the maid. The maid left allowing Lisa to speak with her step daughter in private. Lisa knew of course what the girl was doing. She had done it herself when she herself was on the run.
Lisa pondered what to do next. She was in a quandary if she had not been in the room when Jill had come back she would have found some other way to get the girl some clothing. She didn’t want the girl to think they were watching her every move. That would not be a good way to build the trust she needed to have with her step daughter. Finally Lisa said, “Jill we do have a laundry service here. All you have to do is put things in the hamper.” “But I …” Jill started, “I didn’t know how long it would take and I…” “Is this all you have?” Lisa interrupted the young woman.
“Yes,” Jill replied.
“Let’s take a walk,” Lisa asked. She knew how to fix the problem in the short term.
They left the residence and walked across the well-kept grounds. As they walked across the grounds it surprised Jill to see that the landscape was almost natural looking with woods and gardens everywhere. It reminded Jill of an arboretum. In time they came to a small indistinct building in a corner of the grounds. Jill was surprised when they entered the building to find it laid out as a small mercantile. It was the palace PX catering to the palace staff. Lisa had been out clearing her head when she had found it. It wasn’t that big; but she had been surprised to find it had a little bit of everything, including some clothing. “What is this,” Jill asked.
“It’s a post exchange.” Lisa said, “We’re going to get you at least one change of clothing, and some under things. Later we’ll go out to a place in town.”
>
“Lamile was telling me about a place called Molly’s where she gets her things.” Jill said as they went up the steps.
“I’ve been there with her,” Lisa replied. She had treated the young woman there on her birthday. It had been Lamile’s suggestion. It had been a nice place, with clothing for both teenage thonians and earthlings. It was also a place that they wouldn’t be expected to show up at. It was a small out of the way clothier in Mylea’s neighborhood. Not the glitzy shops that she would be expected to shop at now that she was one of the Royals. “I think you’ll like it.”
They quickly made their purchases and left. As they walked back to the residence, Lisa spoke softly, “Jill I am sorry, I shouldn’t have entered your room the way I did. Joan found your clothes line, and she was telling Maggie when I walked in on them.”
Jill was quiet. Not knowing what to say to Lisa. Her grandmother had always let her have her space. She would never enter her room without first knocking unless the door was open even then she would knock. She suspected that a time or two her grandmother had been in the room when she wasn’t there; but didn’t confront her with it. She learned to if not to hide things she didn’t want her grandmother to find, to make them harder for grandmother to find them.
“Joan’s job is not to spy on you,” Lisa continued, “But if she sees something she will report it.”
“I know mom,” Jill said, her grandmother’s servants had done the same thing.
“The next time,” Lisa said suddenly, “come to me so we don’t put Joan in a position where she has to report her observations!” “Okay,” Jill said.
The next morning Jill came into her room to find Joan dusting.
“Good morning Joan.” Jill said.
“Good morning, Miss Jill.” The maid said hesitantly.
“Thank you for looking after me so well,” Jill remarked, “I don’t know what Mom and Miss Maggie have told you; but can we make a deal.” “What type of deal?” Joan asked hesitantly.