Prodigal Schemes

2. Caedmon

2 Caedmon

Alex took the lift to the second floor and passed the library. Most of the school’s book collection was digital. Students lounged on pillows and sprawled gangly limbs over chairs, reading and taking notes on their digiscrolls. The scrolls unrolled to about thirty centimeters, then stiffened. Blue words floated in the air above each digiscroll’s parchment and reflected off of the kids’ faces. A few students held physical books taken from the shelves lining the walls.

Back on Earth, trees, plants, and animals filled the planet. But the six colony planets still hadn’t completed the terraforming process. Energy domes protected cities and farmland, but outside of those domes, unterraformed planet remained. Trees were a treasured resource on New Terra, and a book made of actual paper was a luxury. But the books in IAS weren’t made from New Terra trees. All their collection was recovered from old Earth excavations and written in pre-Exodus English. Only students specializing in Earth history learned to read it.

Alex leaned in, took a sniff, and closed his eyes. He had never learned to read pre-Exodus English, but when he was younger, Alex had always loved checking out the physical books. And then smelling them and sliding the pages between his fingertips. Digiscrolls just didn’t have the same personality.

Past the library, language teachers’ voices were spilling out of open doors. Opposite one class, a room sat empty and dark. Probably that teacher’s break period. Alex ducked into the room and rolled out his scanner pad on the floor. Perfect.

He tiptoed out of the room, found Caedmon’s class, and leaned against the wall by the door. The teacher gushed about sentence branching for gerunds.

Didn’t know someone could be that passionate about grammar.

But then Alex was passionate about delivering live worms, still wriggling, to the planet Naya Surya in under two hours, so he couldn’t really look down his nose at others. And wasn’t it a good thing when a teacher geeked out over their subject?

A bell rang, and students put up data crystals and rolled up their scrolls. They jostled together as bodies squeezed through the door, then spewed out into the hallway. A boy with silky black hair, perfect tan skin, and beautiful obsidian eyes walked out of the classroom, chatting with his friend.

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Alex!”

Caedmon pushed through his classmates and hugged Alex tightly. Alex squeezed him back. He tried to put his chin on the boy’s head but would have had to lift his chin too high. Damn.

“You grew,” Alex said, as if the act was a betrayal.

Caedmon smiled, rounding his little boy cheeks. “I’m going to be taller than you soon.”

Between short Knox and shorter Ximena, that was a genetic improbability. But in Caedmon’s defense, Alex wasn’t a giant, either.

“Do you have a prank planned for your graduation?” Caedmon asked, almost about to pop with excitement. “Can I help?”

Again Alex put his hand to his heart and gasped. “Me? A prank?”

“Oh! You do! You do!” Caedmon clapped. “Please let me help! Please, please, please!”

“Not out here,” Alex said with a look over his shoulder, as if someone was watching. “In there.” He pointed into the empty room.

“Yeah!” Caedmon grabbed Alex’s wrist and dragged him into the room. “What do I do?”

Alex entered the room and stood facing the pad. Caedmon instantly stood on it. Alex didn’t know why Caedmon always had to stand on things. If there was a pillow in the middle of the floor, the boy would go out of his way to step on it. He would put one foot on a stuffed animal while carrying on a conversation. This had gotten Caedmon in trouble with Brant’s daughter Elisia more than once. And yet no one could break him of the habit.

So without even realizing it, Caedmon stood on the scanner exactly as Alex had planned. Alex leaned over and whispered a silly joke he and Caedmon would play on Brant that night. Caedmon giggled. It wasn’t terribly clever, but Caedmon loved when Alex included him.

“Are you going back to Maverick now?” Caedmon asked.

Maverick was Knox’s cargo ship. It wasn’t a huge behemoth, like the space barges. Those beasts shipped canned goods, clothes, and other stuff that didn’t spoil if left in an orbiting warehouse for months. Knox’s smaller ship squeezed in a four-person crew, tops, and transported the rush jobs—live worms, pollinator larvae, fresh food, seeds, or anything that could die. If it needed to be there in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, then Knox was on the job.

And delivery at those speeds across the galaxy was not cheap. Compared to other space truckers, Knox did well. Unfortunately that wasn’t saying much.

Here it comes. Alex tensed up, knowing what would come next and helpless to stop it.

Caedmon stuck out his lower lip. “Then take me with you!”

“Your dad didn’t—”

“I want to see them!” Caedmon yelled so loudly that the room echoed and Alex’s adapted ears rang. He winced. When Caedmon wanted, he could scream at a level that would make dogs whimper.

“How about we ask your Uncle Brant?” Alex said.

“Fine!” And Caedmon grabbed Alex by the wrist again and dragged him down the hall.

Caedmon had started life on Maverick, riding through the stars. He’d even started his school on the ship. IAS had an off-campus program for students who needed more one-on-one attention or who excelled early at something that took them away from the school. That being said, IAS had enrolled Alex in the off-campus program for different reasons. After his mom had passed away, Knox was the only person Alex would actually talk to.

But Alex thrived while living on Maverick and kept his grades to IAS standards. Knox made it a priority for Alex to attend testing in person, and Alex learned spaceship piloting from TrysKa. So the school allowed Alex to continue learning remotely until graduation. Naturally once Caedmon was old enough, he joined the off-campus program, too, and took classes from the crew.

Until The Incident. That’s when Caedmon was sent to IAS in person for his own safety. Alex and the crew never spoke about The Incident; best to pretend it never happened. But ever since that time, Caedmon had tried every trick and scores of tantrums to sneak back aboard. And Brant was about to get one of those outbursts.

Alex and Caedmon rode the lift with students packed as tightly as the crates on Maverick. At the first floor, most of the group spilled out, leaving Alex and Caedmon room to breathe. Caedmon kept bouncing on his toes, and Alex smiled at the boy. He should probably feel guilty about throwing Brant under this bus-sized tantrum. Instead Alex chuckled.

The lift arrived at the third basement level, and Alex and Caedmon stepped out to the smell of salty water. The room was divided in two, with lifeguards and AI monitoring both sides. To Alex’s left spread one long lap pool, divided into sections by strands of energy balls the size of golf balls. They bobbed on top of the water, their reflections shimmering on the surface, light pinks and blues and oranges and purples.

To Alex’s right, kids screamed and splashed, jumped off of the diving boards, and rode down the slides. The fun pool. Some people called it the kiddie pool, but there were too many instructors and soldiers on leave in there. Off to the side, dignified IAS soldiers lounged in the hot tub. If Alex had his swimsuit on, he could do a perfect can opener into the fun pool, aim the splash just right, and drench the whole lot of them. Just the thought of their sputtering made him smile.

If only…

Alex turned away from the hot-tub crowd and scanned the lap pools. There. A long lean arm lifted out of the water, speared back into it, and then the other lifted. Brant’s face turned enough for him to breathe, then back under the reflected surface. His long ponytail trailed down his wet shirt between his shoulder blades. His muscled back swiveled right, then left. The waves around his body were caught in a perfect form, like the wake of a boat gliding at a steady speed. His long legs kicked in rhythm.

When Alex had first joined the Maverick crew ten years ago, he’d been intimidated by all of them. Well, not by TrysKa. She’d always been a comfortable friend. But Ximena with her inventions, Knox with his strategies, and Brant with his physique had always loomed like giants. Somewhere along the years, Ximena’s widgets had become puzzles that Alex worked out, even improved. Knox’s strategies took on a form and method that Alex grasped. Only Brant remained untouchable—a tall noble in whose shadow Alex was hidden.

But that was OK. Alex did best work in the shadows, while flashy superstars distracted the audience.

Brant reached the end of the lap pool and launched himself out with effortless grace. He sat on the side of the pool and shook the water from his hair. His ponytail, a mix of blond and gray, whipped back and forth as in some romance movie. Alex could almost hear the background music crescendo.

Caedmon jettisoned from Alex’s side, racing to his Uncle Brant. Beeeeep. A whistle blew from the ceiling monitor.

“Don’t run,” the AI reminded Caedmon, who checked his speed.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing out of class so—oh, I see.” Brant smiled and waved at Alex, who strolled up casually behind Caedmon. “The mischief has arrived.”

“Just wandering around the school and bumped into Caedmon. That’s all.”

“You’re never ‘just wandering around’.” Brant stood to his full height, towering over Alex. “You always have something going on.”

“He wants to take me to Maverick,” Caedmon said. “Please, can I go?”

“Where’s Knox?” Brant looked at Alex.

“The group hit up their different churches on the station today,” Alex said with a shrug. “He’ll be back in a little over an hour.”

Knox preferred the drier intellectual-style worship, TrysKa the full gospel, and Ximena somewhere in the middle. Alex normally joined Ximena, though he would get in the mood for the dancing at TrysKa’s worship service every once in a while. He went with Knox only if he needed a nap.

“Why aren’t you at church with them?” Brant grabbed a towel folded on the bleachers against the wall. He wiped his face off, then draped it over his shoulders.

“I’m guarding Maverick while they’re out.”

“Alex,” Brant pulled down the towel, “you left the ship unguarded?”

Alex c****d his head and stared back without answering. Brant winced. It was the same old fight. Brant corrected Alex in that parental way; Alex resented it; Brant got defensive, so forth and so on. Knox’s discipline never bothered Alex. OK, it did, but not in the same way.

Brant returned to drying the back of his neck. “Alright, I get it. You hired someone to guard it, didn’t you?” Brant said.

“Very good.”

Before Brant could get defensive, Caedmon cut in.

“Puh-lease?” Caedmon asked. “Daddy and Mommy won’t be here forever, and I want to surprise them, and I want to hang out in Maverick, and I want to talk to Granddad.” Caedmon opened his eyes wide, and wow, did those long eyelashes do the trick.

Ximena had programmed Maverick’s AI with the personality and voice of Knox’s father, Liam. No, it wasn’t really Caedmon’s grandfather, but it was as close as the boy would ever get in this lifetime.

Brant tensed up, knowing what was coming. “Without Knox’s permission—”

“I want to see Mommy and Daddy!” Caedmon’s voice boomed off of the walls of the gym. Several students paused their swimming to stare. Brant knelt down to talk to Caedmon at eye level. Alex took a quiet step backward, toward the lift.

“You know the landing dock is dangerous right now—”

“I want to see Mommy and Daddy!” Caedmon yelled again, even more loudly than the first time, and stomped his foot. His little fists clenched so that his knuckles almost turned white.

Alex kept backing up, his eyes on Caedmon and Brant.

“If Knox didn’t give us permission, then he doesn’t want you—”

“He would be happy to see me.” But everyone, even Caedmon, knew that was a lie. His voice quavered.

“And then we would all be in trouble with Knox,” Brant said, pushing his advantage.

Alex was almost to the lift. He heard the doors swish open behind him and the footsteps of exiting students.

“But Alex would take care of—Alex?” Caedmon turned to the empty spot Alex had occupied at the beginning of this fight. His eyes lifted to Alex’s new location. “Alex!”

Shit.

Alex turned and bolted for the lift, the doors just closing.

“I hate you!” Caedmon yelled just as the doors closed out the pool’s echoes.

Everyone in the lift stared at Alex.

“Well, that went better than I thought it would.” And he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

It was a lie, of course. That I hate you had driven a rapier right through his chest. It tore Caedmon up that Alex, the adopted son, got to hang out with Knox while he, Caedmon, the birth son, did not.

Knox could explain patiently that when Alex was little, there weren’t assassins after them. He could explain that now there were, and they could kill Caedmon. He could explain that Alex was older now and could avoid the assassins. He could explain that IAS was safer for Caedmon, that Brant and Amalie loved Caedmon, that Caedmon was lucky to stay with them.

Of course Knox never mentioned The Incident, but it hung there just the same, a silent reminder of Caedmon’s disregard for danger.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered to Caedmon was that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he had to stay with Uncle Brant and Aunt Amalie and their two kids. It wasn’t fair that Alex got to explore space with Knox. It wasn’t fair!

Still it could be worse. It could be a lot worse. If not for Alex, Caedmon would be dead today. Suddenly a tantrum didn’t seem as big a deal. In fact Alex appreciated the screaming in a weird way. It meant the boy was still breathing.

The lift opened on the second floor. Alex returned to the dark classroom, picked up the pad with Caedmon’s footprint scan, and left IAS.