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Home was a lot bigger than the last time he’d been there. That was how it worked when the place you grew up was a rock hurtling through space being constantly mined with new tunnels being turned into living space.
The dome on the surface was only the tip of a very large iceberg. The rest of the Stone family abode grew down, down, down into the body of the asteroid Aran. As space rocks went, it was fairly large at a semispherical hundred and forty kilometers across. Like many of the bodies in the Arias system, Aran was mostly metals laced with lighter elements and capped with many thousands of tons of ices thanks to millions of years of local comets passing close.
Grant sat in the dome with his parents, all three lounging in hand-made polymer chairs amid the wild green growth there.
“Going all the way to the freehold,” his mother said, not disapprovingly but without enthusiasm, either. “How long will that take?”
“Joy,” his father said. Grant held back a smile—his dad had been married long enough not to allow even a hint of warning into his voice. Joy was a wrench spinner from way back; she could wrestle her husband to the ground without spilling a drop of coffee from the cup in her other hand.
“Christopher,” she said mockingly. “What, you expect me not to care that my son, who I haven’t seen for more than a few days in the last three years, is gonna be gone again for god knows how long?”
Chris raised his hands defensively. “No, I’m just saying it’s not his fault. He has to go where the money is.”
Grant shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He’d come as close as he dared to telling them the truth. So far as they knew, his free company were considered experts at information gathering and were on the short list of naval contractors hired for ridiculous sums of money to undertake missions. It was true enough in its own way, but the larger context of the situation had to remain secret.
“I’m sorry,” Grant said automatically. It felt like all he ever said to them. He’d spoken the words when he told them he was entering the academy, when he’d left the Navy, when he’d been away all the time between and for every long-haul trip since. They were his family and they deserved better than he could give.
“We just worry about you, son,” Chris said, leaning forward to put a hand on Grant’s arm for a few moments. “We’ve seen the feeds. You’ve been out there in the thick of it for so long now. You can’t keep that up forever. You’re not getting any younger.”
Both of them smiled at that, and Grant joined them. His humor was false, however. The Stone family didn’t believe in life extension through gene therapy. Chris and Joy were in their early sixties and thanks to modern medicine would live another forty or fifty years—good years. But they aged like any unmodified human. Neither knew that their son would not follow them down that path. The service offered therapy to every member, and he’d taken them up on it.
Grant had those years to burn. His parents, who should have been strangers to him after so long apart but somehow weren’t, did not.
“I think I’ll try to plan for a long stay once we get back,” Grant said. “Work out our leave so I can spend time with you here while the rest of the crew blow off steam wherever they can.”
Chris smiled at this, but Joy snorted a laugh. “Make sure Batta and that young man he’s training come with you. Our systems could use a professional overhaul. I can pay them. Whatever it takes so I don’t have to do it myself.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Grant assured her. He gazed off into the distance, the weak sunlight here still bright enough to show the port half a dozen klicks away. The mine and factories were below it, stretching out into the rock, ready to feed fuel, raw material, or custom parts up the tall spire and onto the ships docked with it. The thing was dirty with volatile ices deposited by the yearly swarm of local comets. As he watched, another ship drifted toward the spire and blew its maneuvering jets to slow to a relative stop. The place was busier than he remembered.
His father must have seen the interest on his face, because the older man chuckled. “Six ships at once, right? More than we had in most weeks when you were growing up.”
Grant nodded without taking his eyes away from a scene torn right out of his childhood. “Business must be booming.”
“Thanks to the Alliance, it is,” Joy said. “When all that happened last year, all those systems got attacked, they decided they needed more strategic fuel and supply depots they could call on. Sent a nice representative out here and everything. We told him we couldn’t stockpile much water for the Navy because the comets only drop so much on us every year. You know what he did?”
Grant shook his head. “What?”
“Brought us a damned tug is what,” Chris said. “A heavy-mass tug. It can pull a full Oort planetesimal into the inner system. It’s out there right now hauling one in. Should be here in two months. They want us ready for anything.”
Joy nodded. “The guy told us it was to spread out resources in case of another attack.”
“Hmm. Sounds like the Alliance is actually starting to learn lessons,” Grant said. “I just wish it hadn’t taken a war to make them invest in facilities smaller than a planetary scale.”
“The guy helped us out, for sure,” Chris said. “With that much mass coming in, we could fill up half the fleet on just what we can store in our tanks and refill them hundreds of times. And you know we’re in a pretty good location between bigger systems. Guess we are strategic.” He turned to his wife. “What was the fella’s name again? Stern?”
“Sharp,” Joy said. “Mister Sharp. He went out of his way to help us out. I’ll never forget it.”