Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (47 page)

"Thank you," Lee said taking the translucent stone. It was swirled with red and yellow bands on top of crème color. "I'll give you two gifts. This is a necklace from Earth," Lee took off her Byzantine necklace double handed and put it over the girl's head. She'd found it was bringing up unpleasant memories every time she contemplated it, yet she still admired the workmanship and hated to just scrap it. "You can remember me by it. My other gift is that you may demand a ride on any of my ships that call when you are old enough to be away from home alone."

With Lee's hands free again Tish grabbed both of them in her hands.

"Wow, thank you. But that's going to be a
long
time." She was obviously ready to go right now.

"I'm sure it will be, but you have to know all kinds of things to go on ships," she said reasonably.

"Then I'll learn," she said, stepping back and doing the little hand clasp and bow the others had done from afar. Lee didn't clasp her hands but she returned the little bow.

"You don't have to return a bow to a young one," Talker told her.

"That's in case I'm not around when she's old enough," Lee said.

"You're as bad as Amiable," he said.

"Thank you."

"The chain is beautiful work," Par Goy said. "What do you call it?"

"It's made in the style of the Byzantines," Lee told him. "I saw it on Earth and liked it. I was ready to pass it on."

"These Byzantines are a nation on Earth?"

"They were a culture over a region of Earth some millennia ago. We have nations come and go but we try to save what is good when we can, including the art forms."

"That is wildly inappropriate for a small child, but only by custom, not law. I doubt we'll ever pry it off her. She'd yell thief and take me to court before she'd yield it."

"A nine-year-old could take her lord to court?" Lee asked.

"Her lord and grandfather. She's a willful child, just like her father, and I fear she'd prevail, because the head judge who sits here is a frosty old woman who is unimpressed with privilege and custom. She'd probably award her punitive damages to teach me not to test her again. She's been known to strip a lord of a tenth of his estate as punishment when he was spectacularly wrong. I've stood before her on two occasions, but I was very,
very
careful to make sure I was in the right and not just full of myself before I presented a case."

"I think I like how you do things here," Lee told him.

"Does the necklace need any care not to damage it or to keep it from corrosion?" Talker asked.

"I once had a male Human about three times my size try to yank it off my neck to steal it. He practically lifted my by it and it doesn't seem any worse for the wear," she informed him.

"What happened to him?" Talker asked, wide eyed.

"He had a... mishap. He, uh, slipped and fell, totally blew out a knee and hit the floor face first so hard he busted his facial bones. He was knocked out, concussed, and couldn't remember any of it later." Lee was gaining maturity and control under Gordon's tutelage, but she still let her face slip for an instant remembering, with a small toothy smile that was chillingly inappropriate to the story.

"How unlucky," Par Goy said, without a trace of sincerity or belief.

"Some people are just clumsy," she said with a shrug. "The necklace is platinum and gold, so I don't think you need worry about it tarnishing."

Talker muttered something in Badger darkly. Shaking his head.

"Isn't that what Amiable said earlier?" Lee asked, suspiciously.

"You should know, Tish is Talker's daughter," Par Goy said. He was entirely too amused.

* * *

"This is bizarre, the Biters are asking asylum if I understand this correctly. They say some crazy people from another clan fired on a huge ship that showed up at their second colony world. It pulled up next to their station as bold as can be. They can't talk to them at all to make them understand it wasn't
their
clan shooting at them," Captain Frost said reading Einstein's net post. "The large ships have shot back at Biter ships, apparently much more efficiently than their attackers, and what really has them upset is they snatched a couple ships and made off with them."

"Well of course. What do you do if a ship four times as big as any you've ever seen stops to say hello? You just automatically shoot at him if you are a Biter," Fussy said.

"Apparently the ship leaked ammonia when they shot it. They are appealing to us as fellow oxygen breathers," Chance said. "I think that's a bit much to assume. They might have hit some system that uses ammonia.  It could be a refrigerant or any number of uses rather than crew environment. "

"I'd be much more impressed if they could plead their case based on courtesy instead of what they breath. I don't care if they breath chicken soup if they have some manners, but wait... we're talking about Biters aren't we?" Fat Ortega growled.

"Snatched how?" Lord Byron asked. "Are they so big they stuffed them in a hold?"

"It doesn't say. I'm having trouble dredging up much sympathy," Chance admitted.

* * *

"My sons are not going to be happy that their little sister was the one who got the gifts and the attention," Talker told her.

"How old are they," Lee wondered.

"Twelve and fifteen."

"Where were they when Tish was throwing herself in my arms?"

"Watching stickball on the screen," Talker admitted. "It was a big game today."

"Sure was, game on hard, across the room. She won't ever be the heir will she? Assuming you had an estate to pass on like your father."

"Some Badgers would take offence at that, as a dig on not being the first son. I'm not sensitive about it and don't think you meant it unkindly but be aware. But you are asking about being an heir for the
land
? Not unless every male cousin was dead and she was the last choice to keep it in the family. She can own her personal property like the necklace. In fact it would be easier for her to own ships than land. Except if she were a city Badger. She could own lots and buildings and businesses in town. That's been different as long as I am aware of, far back in our history."

"That stinks. She is wasted on you people," she told him.

"That hurts."

"The more for being true," she said not backing down a millimeter.

"I hope to someday do just the same as my father and go to a new world and establish an estate for myself. Even if I expressed it as my will to leave an estate to her, my society would never allow it."

"I may gift her an estate from one of my plots on Providence." Lee told him. "Not my main valley I'm going to keep for myself, but I have several others. She wouldn't be bound by Badger law or custom there. I wouldn't worry about her actually. I think she'll do just fine even without my help
or
yours. But I think she'd make a good neighbor." 

"I thought we were going to have an exclusion zone where we don't make claims in a cone off towards your worlds?"

"Claims no. But most places anybody can
buy
land, and I can give what's mine to anybody I please. Don't you folks buy and sell real estate?"

"In the cities, but the countryside is almost all in large estates that are very hard to break up, on purpose. It takes a catastrophe to remove an estate from ownership. Some severe genetic fault in the bloodline or in the past some plague or natural disaster. There is almost always intense pressure for the cities to expand and when an estate does open up to add on to a city the parcels sell for ridiculous prices. What good would land do Tish? She still needs a husband, or is she going to live away from Badger society?"

"I don't know. I'm pretty happy  without most of Human society. Last time I enjoyed the pleasure of Human society they called my father an animal and a furry freak and locked me up. Do you really think that if she had a
big
tract of fine land and the wealth and income from it the fourth or fifth son of some fine Badger family wouldn't look at that and decide it would be a comfortable life being her husband and never mind it was under some alien law where he might have to leave some things to a daughter?"

I'm a third son, so I understand the frustration of never being heir. I've done pretty well by myself, but yeah, I can see some fellow who will never have the funds or connections to get an estate on a new world being very happy with a rich wife and damn the inheritance laws," he agreed.

"Talker, be honest with me. How often do second or third sons murder their brother to get the estate?"

"Probably less than you think. I know of only three instances in the last hundred years, and one of those he was declared innocent because he had cause."

"What sort of cause? Self defense? Lee asked.

"No, he showed in court his elder brother was mentally defective. He was just plain stupid, unable to run the estate and he wouldn't take advice of either his brother or his hired men. His tutors testified he was innumerate, and he could barely read simple things. He was giving crazy orders to plant things unsuited to their climate and spending money they weren't earning. It was going to dissolve the estate as a functioning business in another season or two."

"There is no way in your law to have him declared incompetent and a guardian appointed?"

"None. It's too readily subject to abuse. It's much easier to attack with a lawyer and a pliable judge to gain control of an estate than to shoot the idiot dead."

"Well, I liked some of your law. I guess I can't expect all of it to please me."

"Why do I have this horrible feeling you will make it a project to change any of the parts that displease you?" Talker asked.

"Not for awhile," Lee promised. "I'm sort of busy right now chipping the rough spots off  Derf society and redefining the relationship of the Mothers and town people."

"Are they aware of this?"

"Some," Lee admitted. "Especially my bank. I'm not around when I'm off like this, so they are using my money to quietly bankroll cultural subversion. Nothing illegal or violent. Just a little assistance to people doing the things we want encouraged. If somebody needs a little money to go to school or start  a business the bank can give them support and no need to say why they are treating them so well. A few of them were already basically working on it themselves, but they have my leave to fund little things that help at a higher level. It's not like I'll miss a few million here and there and won't be able to buy lunch tomorrow."

"You are a very dangerous person," Talker told her. "You'd upset ways of doing things that are stable and have worked for a long time."

"Worked for you. Did you not just tell me it fails sometimes to the point somebody has to be killed to repair its failure? I doubt Tish would tell you it's a wonderful system if she is tossed aside like a piece of trash for some distant cousin who was lucky enough to be born male. I did get just a hint there when you said you didn't have any choice to favor Tish that maybe you'd
want
to. I don't object to how Trish would be treated with any prejudice against Badgers. My mom taught me that Human societies who threw away half the resources of their culture by not valuing their women stagnated and declined too."

"She's my daughter. Of course I'd favor her some way if I could. Maybe not over her brothers. I'm not sure I'm ready to be that radical. But right now Badgers have one big winner per family, and everybody else is pretty much out of luck. I don't have it in me to challenge the whole system," Talker admitted. "I'm just glad we
have
our one winner instead of being like Amiable, from a family that lost all their land and status and has had to work for others for three generations."

Lee nodded, deep in thought. "OK, I see several problems. It's complicated. I need to study it quite a bit and talk to people. It may takes years just to figure out what to do. And it has to be a solution that uplifts everybody," she decided, "not just changes the winners. I don't think I can even expect to see it happen in my lifetime, but maybe I can get the ball rolling."

"You are what, fourteen years old?"

"Closer to fifteen," Lee objected.

"And as young as you are you can think of starting changes you won't be alive to see?"

"Well sure. We're seeding water worlds and Terraforming them, that won't see a Human able to walk around without a breather mask for hundreds of years. "I'll be buying into a few of those too."

"That is a noble cause," Talker had to admit.

"I mean you no harm at all," Lee assured him. "People are often their own worst enemies. It can take a view from the outside to see what's wrong sometimes."

"That's a very presumptuous attitude. Give me an example of somebody who needs rescuing from themselves," Talker challenged her.

"The Biters. They could play at all that haughty aggression when they kept it at home, but Gordon isn't going to put up with it, and I suspect if we hadn't come along you folks would have got fed up with it and decided to spend the blood and money to put them in their place, eventually."

"That is something our governments were discussing," Talker revealed. "It
was
going to be expensive."

"Our technology will trim the bill some," Lee predicted, "if not the cost in money at least the butcher's bill."

Talker looked at his pad. "That's been our government's biggest tax, the service of extra sons. Butcher's bill... What a fascinating horrible language you have."

* * *

"Entry radiation , same rough direction as the Biters came in," Einstein noted. "This is on the system scan relay Fussy showed us."

"
Big
sucker," Fat noted. "Bigger than the other ship we saw maybe. Who do you think that is?"

"Somebody the Biters won't be happy to see," Chance predicted.

"Station refuses docking to the Biter vessels. Told them not to bring their troubles here," Einstein read off scan.

"Good for them. I'm not sure how that will stop them, but nice to see a little backbone," Frost said.