A short snippet of Family Law #4

Rough and unedited as always, but just to give you heart that I AM working on it.

Lee asked the realtor about gardens. She was short, rather full framed compared to most of the Fargone population, with short curly hair and spex that oddly had a strap across the back of her head. What purpose did that serve? Lee could see now she probably had Life Extension work done. She was starting to be able to recognize that in people.

“Of course dear. It has a lovely terrace that doubles as an air car pad. There are planters with rather nice palms and some native plants, you could even arrange them to be outside the windows along one side of the penthouse. I think that would be lovely to do on the side that has the lesser view of the city lights. You have to pick them with some so care that they can withstand the jet-wash from landing and taking off right next to them. You also need some sort of ground cover so the dirt doesn’t blow out of the pots.” The Realtor held a finger up to give her a moment to deal with flying.

“B-13267 Dropping off net. Landing point in sight and going manual.” Blessing said, punching the controls to make it happen. She didn’t ask.

“I’ll take us around so you can see the place,” Blessing Evens said, slamming the stubby control stick at the end of her armrest all the way against the left stops, and threw the air car into a descending bank that had them close to vertical and pressed in their seats hard. The building flashed by close, very close, as they went around, but Lee was too busy reviewing her life before it ended to really appreciate the view.

Blessing rolled flat and came down at the landing pad barely off the vertical. Lee was sure they’d crash into it but the last fifty meters or so the engine pods all roared and she only thought she was pressed into her seat before. The last few seconds must have topped six Gs.

“If I let them land us on auto they take forever and would taken us straight in so you didn’t get to see the building,” Blessing related loudly over the engine sound. The amazing thing was it compressed the landing gear on contact and she cut the power so smoothly it just sprang back up a few centimeters and didn’t bounce at all.

In the sudden silence she looked at Lee oddly.

“I hope that didn’t bother you dear. I understand you two fly spaceships and jump to other stars. My goodness, that would scare me worse than any old air car.”

Lee smiled like it hurt her face to force it.

“The thing about it,” Gordon said from the back seats, speaking for both of them, “is we go very fast, but the things we are going between are so far away they are just dots in our sky. Even when we come up on a big planet it grows slowly until it fills much of the sky.”

“Oh. . . I never thought about it that way,” Blessing admitted. “I have learned to not go inverted with clients in the car. It seems to upset them even if the G forces are positive to keep their butt nailed in the seat.”

Well, her flying style explained the head strap for the lady’s spex. “I’m curious,” Lee said, forcing her fingers to unlock from the grab-bar in the dash. What did you do before you started selling real estate?”

“Oh I got my fifty years in the military to get a retirement. I went in right out of school. The recruiters are always looking for short hypertensive females, and the fact I had good grades and was on the gymnastics team was just icing on the cake.”

“Yes, but what did you do?” Lee insisted.

“Oh, I flew cargo lifters and then they took some of us short landers and sent us to school to fly close support platforms for the infantry. Nobody has ever messed with Fargone though. I spend my entire service in peacetime.”

“I suspect that is entirely their good fortune,” Gordon said from the rear. “So you learned to fly low and fast.” He really didn’t frame it as a question after the demonstration.

“Sure, and you are a sweet talker, but we had some nice machines,” Blessing said, “Not like this slug. My instructor impressed two things on me the first day. He said when you have to approach across your own forces it’s their job to keep their heads down, and if you come back with all the paint on your bottom you aren’t trying hard enough. It was fun, but even with Life Extension it’s a young person’s game. You could still do it,” she said, appraising Lee.

“I’m in love with star ships,” Lee informed her firmly.

Blessing reached over and patted her knee. “It takes all kinds,” she said pleasantly.

Gordon muttered something in the rear, but it wasn’t really audible.