In a Season of Storms
by Harry Lang
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
part 5
There were more greetings and overheard bits of conversation as the two men inched toward the buffet, with Philip keeping track of the time. Staff had been granted a forty-five-minute window to fight their way to the buffet along with the guests, eat whatever they were given and be back at their posts shining like new pennies. Many opted to pass and wait for their regular dinner. Leo had already eaten but preferred to tag along with Philip. Now that Captain Halz had returned to the wheelhouse, the pilot had the only sympathetic ear in the crowd.
“I nearly forgot,” said Leo, rummaging through the pockets of his robe. “I have something here for the young lady... Here it is!” He held out a little box, neatly gift wrapped. “See that Candace gets this, would you? I picked it up on my last trip to Mars, for her birthday. I did hope to see her here.”
As Philip took the present, he noticed Olivia parting the crowd, headed their way. Both men prepared for heavy weather as Philip quickly slipped the box into a pocket.
“Uncle Leo,” she said as she took the old man’s arm. Her tone was quite tender. Philip breathed a sigh of relief. “Some of Father’s associates from the Valles Marineris operation are here,” she explained. “They wanted to say hello. Seems you left quite an impression last time you were there.”
“That would be Jerry Mulligan and Frank Hirata,” said Leo with a wink at Philip. “August Kwon put them up at the old Red House for a weekend. They loved watching Phobos rise and set. You can’t see it from down in the valley. I say, they didn’t bring the police, did they?”
“Not this time,” Olivia said playfully. “You must be losing your touch.” She headed back into the crowd with Leo in tow, leaving Philip alone with his thoughts of domestic warfare and the cruelty of cutting off a delightful fourteen-year old girl from a lonely grandfather and a doting uncle.
The remainder of Philip’s day was mercifully unremarkable. It was good to catch up with old acquaintances and re-immerse himself in the familiar rhythms of the house he had served for so many years. Continuity and an unbroken connection to history were useful to the Kwons and the business of the house was run much as it had been since Anthony Kwon opened the place. But some changes could not be resisted, not even by an immovable object like Hugo Kwon. A number of Philip’s friends from the old days were gone, their positions eliminated or taken over by the “young ’uns.”
A few had gone the way of old Jinks.
The sky was dark when the guests began boarding shuttles to take them back to their own cloud-estates or fly them up to yachts and liners waiting to depart for destinations throughout the Solar System. By the time the last of the staff sat down to a late supper, the house was back in order with no trace of the hundreds who had lately passed through.
Philip found a comfortable corner in the servants’ dining room and started reviewing the next day’s flight plan as he ate a leisurely super of soon dubu and pa jun. Peace and quiet with a good meal and work to do were his idea of heaven. Friends and acquaintances came and went, but they knew to leave him alone when they saw the hovering holographic charts and his look of concentration as he consulted tables and plugged in variables.
It had certainly been a day.
Philip ignored the periodic tremors running through the deck. There were still gusts from the storm as it continued to amble away from the house, but they were easily distinguished from genuine threats. With Uranus just past the autumnal equinox, conditions were unstable and not as thoroughly understood as the meteorologists wanted people to believe. But the house was back in Captain Halz’s capable hands, where it belonged. Philip would lose no sleep over their safety.
Something told the pilot to look up from his work.
Olivia stepped through the double doors at the far end of the dining room then stopped, looking around as if she had suddenly materialized in an alternate universe. She was dressed less formally than before but still in shades of black that contrasted with the pallor of her complexion and the subtle tones of her blonde and silvery-gray hair.
Philip noted a remarkable mutability in her appearance, as if two currents ran in opposite directions, fighting for dominance. She was the imperious lady of all she surveyed. She was also a foreigner, lost in the land of the servants, a country she could not comprehend.
She soon spotted her pilot and made her way in his direction, ignoring startled staff who rose from their seats as she approached. The closer she came, the more the imperious lady won out over the insecure foreigner. By the time Philip stood and bowed, the foreigner was thoroughly subdued.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked perfunctorily as she sat down at the table across from him.
“Certainly, Miss,” answered Philip.
“Everything set for tomorrow?”
“I was just reviewing our flight plan, Miss,” answered Philip.
She had evidently had a few drinks but Philip knew how much control meant to her. She was not drunk
“You are a thorough fellow.”
“That’s what keeps people safe, Miss.”
“Safe,” she mused. “Does that really mean anything to you, Philip? Can it?”
“It’s my job, Miss.”
“Then I guess I should inform you,” she said. “Things may not be terribly safe between now and tomorrow. I intend to have it out with Father.”
Philip sat and listened calmly. If she insisted on presenting a drama, she would have to do so without his help.
“I will be damned — damned — if I’ll sit by and let him throw my mother away like garbage! No thought for what I might want for her. He has minimized me and ridden over me my entire life. You couldn’t possibly know.”
She realized, of course, that Philip had been the Kwon family pilot for decades and knew the things known by all servants in great houses. Once in a while, she remembered what good friends the two of them had been when she was a child. Sometimes, when she was alone and relaxed and about to drift off to sleep, she even remembered the juvenile secrets she had shared with him and the satisfaction he gave just by taking her little concerns and observations seriously.
All that changed with the arrival of the first of the “young ’uns” when Olivia was twelve years old. In the blink of an eye, the faithful family retainer and confidant became little more than a piece of biological machinery to be ordered around and addressed from a higher place. Once Olivia recognized the significance in the differences between people, she found no end of delight in making the most of those differences to elevate herself, if only in her own eyes.
“I’m not... I’m not being unreasonable, am I?” she asked, almost rhetorically. Philip caught a glimpse of the foreigner, only now the bewilderment was inspired by unfamiliar emotional territory rather than a strange physical place. “I mean, I know he’s suffering...”
In no time at all, the foreigner retreated. “As if I’m not,” she said, her voice hard and resolved. “No. He won’t do it! I’m going to tell him she belongs on Earth. She goes with me. What do you say to that?”
“It’s not my place, Miss—”
“I’ll decide what your place is!”
Philip understood perfectly that she demanded approval from one who had no freedom to disapprove. Perhaps she’d be satisfied with his simple assent. Maybe she sought a more comprehensive rationale, something she could occasionally review to sing her conscience to sleep and temporarily relieve the tensions of cruelty and relentless resentment. The pilot was able to deliver whatever emotional drug his mistress sought.
“Very well, Miss,” said Philip blandly. “I would say that no one can grasp the profound grief of a husband who has lost a wife, especially a wife loved as deeply as Madam Kwon. A husband who loses such a wife comes dangerously close to losing any reason to live, regardless of the appearance he manages for family and friends.
“Imagine, if you can, a surgical operation that removes half a heart, half a brain, half of a man’s vitality and you’ll have a vivid, though inadequate picture. There is no recovery from such a catastrophe.
“Mr. Hugo is the toughest, most resilient man I’ve ever known, but now he’ll fight for survival as he decides which pair of socks to wear. The space in their bed, the empty seat at the breakfast table, the flowers that were her particular favorites; these and countless other details will be hails of bullets to him.
“At this moment, the only thing left to him is the meager dignity of saying goodbye in whatever way can have the greatest meaning for him. There will never be comfort. There will be no ‘resolution’ or closure. There can only be the weak, barely effective balm of breaking the bond with his own hands. It is his right as a man.”
There were tears in her eyes. Philip had hit something, though he could not be sure what.
“Anything else?” she said quietly.
“Yes, Miss,” answered Philip. “No one can hurt a father like a daughter. And no one has greater power to heal him.”
“You go too far, Philip,” she said, still quietly, but it was the quiet of the approaching thunderbolt rather than reflection. “You forget yourself.”
“On the contrary, Miss. I remember myself. Will there be anything else?”
“No, Philip, you’ve been quite thorough. Oh, wait. There is one more thing. I couldn’t help noticing that you ran out of my mother’s service. That will cost you a week’s pay.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Yes, Miss,” she mimicked with disdain. “You’re an exasperating bastard, Philip. I guess that’s your job too?”
“If you decide that’s my place, then yes, Miss.”
She glared as he sat in practiced imperturbability, absorbing her silent darts. She soon tired of the fruitless exercise and left.
* * *
Philip finished his dinner and his work. A few pleasant chats with friends and newer staff members enjoying the quiet of the evening completed his day and he was off to bed.
His old quarters had never been reassigned, so Philip simply returned to his customary routine from years past. A hot shower and a good book were just the thing to end such a day.
As he hung up his trousers there was a knock at the door. He put on his robe and said, “Come in.”
It was Mrs. Shaje. “I hope I didn’t wake you, Mr. Zant,” she said as she crossed from the shadows of the hall into the muted light of the pilot’s tidy little room.
“Not at all,” said Philip warmly. “What can I do for you?”
“I just wanted to remind you to stop by the kitchen before you leave,” she said. “I’ll have a cake for the young lady ready to go.”
“How thoughtful,” Philip approved. “You know, Miss Candace will have my hide if I don’t bring her one of your cakes. What is it this time?”
“Angel food,” said Mrs. Shaje. “I happen to know she’s always wanted to try it. I also happen to know she can’t get it where she is.”
“You know that, do you?” Philip asked.
“I know where you take my cakes,” she said with a twinkle in her eye and a hint of mischief.
“Why, Mrs. Shaje! What don’t you know about me?”
She may have blushed. It was impossible to tell in the muted light and soft shadows.
“Mr. Zant,” she said, with all the edges gone from her voice, “that is a topic for another time! Sleep well, dearie!”
It was a fine, bright morning when Philip returned to the dragon-winged ship and began his pre-flight inspection. The sun was directly overhead, rendering the term “morning” suspect, but humanity would never fully acclimate to Uranus’ rapid rotation. The natural rhythms of the generations born among the clouds were no more in sync with the motions of their home than those of the original settlers from Earth, and designations like morning and evening clung to the specifications of the ancestral terrestrial clock rather than yield to the alien reality of the conquered world.
“Good morning, Mr. Zant,” greeted the transport master as Philip completed his inspection. “May I congratulate you?”
“Certainly, Mr. Klyke,” answered Philip. “On what?”
“Why, on the excellent condition of this fine craft,” effused Mr. Klyke. “I had the maintenance gang go over it with, shall I say, excruciating attention to detail, intending to make you a present of a perfectly conditioned vessel. So many parts are all but impossible to obtain from any stores but our own these days. We thought we’d help you out, Mr. Zant. As it turns out, they couldn’t even find anything to clean, much less repair or replace. You are a resourceful fellow, Mr. Zant, and your dedication to service is an inspiration.”
“Thank you, Mr. Klyke, for your kind words and generous intentions.”
The two porters from the previous day arrived with Miss Olivia’s things. “Happy landings, Mr. Zant,” called Mr. Vin as he finished loading the ship and secured the cargo hatch.
“And you, Mr. Vin,” answered the pilot.
Finally, Olivia stepped out of the narrow shadow at the rim of the hangar. Philip winced as he saw the translucent urn clutched to her breast like a miser’s treasure. She said nothing as she passed, but her diamond-hued eyes sparkled with the restless energy of her heartless triumph.
The pilot took his place in the cockpit, happy to get back to the work he knew best. Scanning his instruments, he noted that the persistent storm still lurked uncomfortably nearby and would cause trouble if he let it. He filed that knowledge as clearances streamed in from the house flight control center and the air was sucked from the hangar. The great flower petal doors opened out and they were off.
A long, gentle ascent would take them out of range of the storm and keep Miss Olivia nice and comfortable, but Philip had had enough of Uranus’ troubled skies. He was anxious to get home. He pointed the nose of the ship at the stars dimly shining in the indigo sky directly overhead and went to full power.
“What are you doing?” Olivia complained from the passenger compartment, her voice tinged with irritation and apprehension.
“We have to clear the storm, Miss,” answered Philip coolly. “My apologies for any discomfort.”
Olivia grumbled her disapproval.
As the ship climbed, Philip caught a glimpse of the damaged section of the buoyancy ring. Shreds of metal and composite materials flapped in the stratospheric wind, a vivid reminder of the hostility of the environment surrounding the benighted humans going about their business high above the frigid clouds and distant, slushy sea.
The black vortex of the storm swirled in the distance, darkening the surrounding sky, contrasting with the shining, fluttering bits of the leviathan it had lately attacked. Philip wondered what the storm thought as it followed the inscrutable laws that had unleashed its alien fury upon the invading Earthlings and their doubtful machines.
Winds buffeted the ascending ship as the house fell back into mist and the stars brightened. Philip had never seen a storm with such a long reach and tenacious grip. He wondered if the direct ascent would prove to be a costly mistake, but soon the ghost-thin air lost all potency, and the ride was smooth and quiet.
It took little time for the fusion-powered craft to reach the zone where liners and yachts orbited as they awaited passengers bound for the inner system. The little vehicle did not rendezvous with a larger vessel but continued to accelerate, pushing past the orbits of ships, habitats and observation platforms and out toward the moons. Philip confirmed the ship’s trajectory then watched the countdown until it reached zero. The engines shut down and everything was still and silent.
“Are you comfortable, Miss?” he asked.
“What? Oh, Philip. I’ve taken the potion. You needn’t... you needn’t disturb me...”
“Very good, Miss,” answered Philip with some affection. When she was sleepy and her chains hung looser, it wasn’t hard for the pilot to recall his young, innocent friend. No matter how many spines she added to her ever-thickening armor, Philip knew the vulnerability of the creature within.
The blue-green world shrank as the ship pushed further into space, past the orbits of the diminutive inner moons and out beyond the rings. Philip reviewed his midcourse checklist then settled down for a nap.
* * *
Copyright © 2018 by Harry Lang
