The patterns of behavior observed so far indicate that either all these humans are demented or else the three of us suffered head injuries upon first landing here.
Preliminary observation of the Zentraedi spies Rico, Bron, and Konda
“I REALLY DON’T THINK THIS IS GETTING US ANYWHERE,” LYNN-KYLE said in his soft, reasonable voice.
Hours of argument had gone by, but the five—Minmei and her parents, Rick, and Lynn-Kyle—were still gathered around the table. “Minmei’s made her decision,” Kyle went on, “so why don’t you let her go?”
Minmei clapped her hands, eyes dancing. “Oh, Kyle, you’re wonderful! I knew you’d say that!”
“Just a minute!” Minmei’s father said angrily.
His wife was quick to head off the brewing confrontation with Kyle and keep the debate on track. “You’re the last one we’d expect to send Minmei away from her home, Kyle.”
“Especially with no one to watch over her,” the father added. Rick almost said something about that: Listen, I saved her from fifty-foot-tall aliens and death by starvation and thirst! What d’ ya call that, a passing interest? But it didn’t seem like the time.
“I thought I would go with her,” Kyle said casually, “and live with my folks.”
Minmei was ecstatic. “Hurray, Lynn-Kyle! I knew you’d find some way to come to my rescue!”
“Well, I guess that’s all right,” Lynn-Jan said slowly, deciding it might be for the best to let his daughter get this foolishness out of her system. His wife, Lynn-Xian, looked relieved, saying, “It would make me feel a lot better.”
“No problem,” Kyle said with a charming smile. “It’s just temporary, anyway.”
* * *
The transport hurtled through the frigid night air, bound for the SDF-1. A full squadron of fighters was flying escort around it.
Gloval knew now that it was no longer a matter of honor; he wouldn’t be given the chance to divert or disobey orders now that the Council had made its decision.
Lisa, sitting in the window seat, opened an envelope that one of her father’s aides had given to her. She read:
My dearest Lisa,
I know that you’re angry about my decision regarding the SDF-1, but it was unavoidable under the circumstances. I want you to try to understand and realize I’m concerned about your welfare. The battle fortress is a very dangerous place, and I’m working on getting you reassigned to another ship, or possibly here to headquarters, before it’s ordered to move out into space once more—
Without finishing the note, she tore it into tiny little pieces.
From another direction, the speedy little fanliner cut the sky, bound for the ship. It was handling a little less nimbly than before; Lynn-Kyle was seated in the back with Minmei in his lap.
“You mean to say you don’t have any girlfriends?” she was asking him coquettishly, batting those big blue eyes.
He looked at her fondly, but he seemed to be one of the few people immune to her manipulation. “Well, I’ve been traveling around so much, I haven’t had time.”
“If you did have a girlfriend, I’d probably be jealous.”
He chuckled. “What d’ you have in mind? You want me to stay single forever?”
“Well, not exactly,” she said slyly.
It sounded like a game they’d played often, Rick thought.
“Then what do you want?” Kyle coaxed.
She knuckled his shoulders, giggling. “Oh, nothing; I’m just teasing.”
Rick lost patience with all the cuteness; he couldn’t take any more of it. “Hey! It’s hard enough to fly this crate, overloaded like this, without all that jabbering back there! How about buttoning up until we land?”
He was also bothered by the idea that he might have exceeded orders. There were no provisions for him to bring an outsider aboard the SDF-1; but, on the other hand, the briefing officers were very emphatic that Minmei was important to the war effort and must be returned, and Minmei couldn’t come back without Kyle, so…
Minmei was giggling again. “That boy’s always kidding,” she confided to Kyle.
That tears it! “Guess again,” he told her. “It’s no joke!”
He banked sharply; Minmei let out a squeal and clung closer to Kyle. Rick poured on the speed, impatient to be rid of the two of them.
Lynn-Kyle held his cousin close and smiled triumphantly.
* * *
“That’s not fair!” Kim Young cried, hearing Gloval’s heartbreaking news.
“It’s like we’re prisoners here!” Sammie added.
Gloval stood his ground, unmoving, betraying no emotion. He’d thought it best to let his trusted bridge crew in on the news first, in the privacy of the bridge; they were the ones who would form the core of what he was coming to think of as his crisis-management team, helping him ensure that things didn’t fall apart aboard SDF-1. They had to be given time to get over the shock before they could help the entire ship’s population cope with it.
Claudia was the first one to get things in perspective. “Orders are orders, even if there are a lot of idiots at central headquarters who have no idea what they’re doing!”
Lisa nodded to herself; she knew that was the kind of woman and officer Claudia was.
Still, Sammie insisted, “But there must be something you can do, Captain. Please tell us you’re not going to accept this quietly. You will change their minds, won’t you?”
“Won’t you, Captain?” Kim added pleadingly.
Gloval cleared his throat in the way he did when he’d heard enough and expected to be obeyed. “Your lack of discipline is only compounding the problem, so get back to your duty stations immediately. I appreciate your concern, but right now I have to begin deciding how to break the news to the Macross survivors and the rest of the crew.”
He stood up from his chair, brushing past them. “You will excuse me.”
Shifting her glasses nervously, Vanessa couldn’t help calling a last desperate objection after him. “Captain, can’t you—”
Gloval cut her off stiffly. “That will be all, Vanessa.”
“Yes, sir,” she said contritely.
“Try to understand,” Gloval said softly over his shoulder to them just before the hatch closed.
Vanessa removed her glasses to wipe away a tear of anger. “But—it’s not fair!”
“That’s absolutely true,” Lisa said, speaking up for the first time. “But you can’t blame the captain for something headquarters did. Everybody has a right to gripe, but you should at least be mad at the right people.”
“Okay, okay—the captain needs our support, right?” Claudia said soberly.
“Yes. He knows he can’t possibly succeed without it,” Lisa answered.
The bridge hatch opened, and the relief watch started filing in. Kim let her breath go with a rasp. “All this talk isn’t going to change anything, and I’m hungry,” she declared, careful to mention nothing specific in the outsiders’ presence.
Sammie took the cue. “Let’s go into town and eat lunch!”
Vanessa nodded energetically. “Yeah, let’s go down to the White Dragon; I’m starving.”
At the White Dragon, the front doors slid aside. Minmei’s aunt Lena quickly went to greet the first customers of the lunch rush, bowing hospitably. The restaurant was braced for a busy day; people were boisterous, in a mood to continue their celebrating even though a lot of them were getting restless and edgy with the delay in disembarkation.
It didn’t disturb her husband Max very much; “People will always have to eat,” was his motto. But Lena knew a certain sadness. In spite of the dreadful things the SDF-1 and Macross had gone through, the rebuilt restaurant held a wealth of happy memories.
“Welcome,” she said, “welc—oh!”
A ghost had come through the door, surrounded by a cloud of brilliance from the brighter EVE “sunlight.” Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Kyle, is it really you?”
He took a step closer. In the well-remembered, soft, clear voice, he said gently, “Yes, Mother; I’m home. And I’ve missed you very much.”
Dimly, she was aware of the traffic passing by on the street outside and of Minmei and Rick Hunter waiting a few paces back. Minmei was barely keeping herself from weeping. Rick was straightfaced, showing no emotion; but he envied the Lynn family their connectedness and their warmth, Minmei’s tantrums notwithstanding.
When he thought about it, Rick realized that the closest thing he had to family was Roy Fokker and—to a slightly lesser extent—his wingmen, Max and Ben. So Rick endeavored not to think of it.
Lena walked haltingly to her son. “Kyle, is this a dream? I can hardly believe my eyes! Oh, my baby!” She cupped his face in her hands.
“No, it’s not a dream, Mother; it’s me.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’ve missed you so.” Lena threw herself into his arms.
“Gee,” Minmei said, wiping away moisture from her eyes. “I’m so happy, I’m gonna cry.”
Lena truly noticed Rick and her niece for the first time. “Oh, dear! This is no way to welcome you two home!”
Minmei was snuffling and sobbing openly now. “Aw, don’t worry about us,” Rick said.
Lena said, “Now, now; come in!” She kept her hold on her son’s shoulders as he took another step into the White Dragon. Minmei had assured him that in virtually every detail it was an exact duplicate of the old place, the one that had been destroyed on Macross Island. But this was astounding!
There was a clatter of bowls and a rattle of chopsticks over by the pickup counter. Lynn-Kyle essayed another of his gentle smiles. “Father. I’ve missed you, too. You’re looking well.”
Max snorted gruffly, looking the boy over. Gathering the last of the bowls with an irritated grunt, he vanished back into the kitchen.
Lena went to plead with him. “Now, dear! Please don’t be so—”
But Kyle had caught her wrist, pulling her back. “Mother, don’t get upset, I beg you. Father’s always been that way around me, you know that.”
Washing up the last of the dishes, Max scarcely knew what he was doing; his mind was far away, on the years and the rift between himself and his son. “I always knew he’d come back,” he muttered to himself, words drowned out by the jetting water and the other sounds of the kitchen. “No alien sneak attack could’ve killed him.”
He had to stop, to dry his eyes and blow his nose. “What else could I think? He is my son.”
And he couldn’t help but surrender to the proud smile he’d kept hidden.
* * *
The three Zentraedi spies crouched before the display window of a sushi and tempura shop not far away, gazing hungrily at the appetizing dishes there. Their mouths watered, and their jaws ached with hunger. Rico’s face and hands were pressed flat against the glass.
“So d’ you suppose that stuff is food?” Konda asked aloud.
Bron had a hypnotized grin on his face, eyes never leaving the display. “Mmm, well, something sure smells good here, and I’m getting pretty hungry.”
The tiny supply of concentrate capsules they’d brought with them was long gone, and they hadn’t eaten since the free food at the party on Daedalus’s flight deck the day before.
The other two made ravenous sounds of agreement. Thus far, they hadn’t been able to figure out how to requisition food on the SDF-1; Macross City was filled with an astounding variety of things, all of which seemed to change hands through a system based on pieces of paper. But how to get the paper? The humans’ system of distribution and ration allocation seemed the maddest thing of all about their society.
The three took a few steps back to stare in fascination at the window and consider their problem. “So who’s goin’ in to get our rations?” Konda posed the question.
“That’s easy,” replied Bron, hitching his belt up. “I’ll go.”
“No, I’ll go!” Rico insisted. Before the other two could raise the question of tactics, the smallest spy backed up a few steps and, with a running start, slammed his shoulder into the plate glass.
The glass heaved and shattered, pieces of it raining down inside the display case and out on the sidewalk. By some chance, Rico wasn’t hurt at all.
The owner, a sturdy-looking woman in her forties wearing flat slippers and an apron over her working clothes, came charging out onto the sidewalk. She held a heavy, long-handled ladle in one formidable-looking fist.
“Hey, what’s going on out here—Oh!” She watched dumbfounded as Rico, squatting on his haunches, claimed his right as winner of the food and had the first portion. Konda and Bron were looking on avidly.
But Rico spit out the stuff that was in his mouth and spit again, making horrible faces. “Inedible! Plaugh!”
She shook her ladle at him. “What’s wrong with you? Of course it’s not food. Don’t you know the difference between real food and a plastic window display?”
She took a step toward him, and Rico fell over backward on the seat of his pants, intimidated by the implement she held—from the confidence she showed, it was obviously a lethal weapon, perhaps a Robotech device. Konda and Bron skipped back, ready to do battle but more inclined to run from such a fearsome opponent.
She set her hands on her hips, looking down at Rico, who waited miserably to be set upon and wounded or killed. But she said, “If you’re trying to eat that, I guess you really must be hungry.”
She’d thought that arrangements for feeding everyone in the SDF-1 had missed nothing, but perhaps these three loonies were a special case—incapable of coping with even the least contact with bureaucracy. There were always going to be those who fell through the social safety net, she decided, even on the SDF-1.
She wasn’t the kind to let people go hungry, and what’s more, she was filled with the joy of the return to Earth and the promised end to her hardships. She pointed to the door of her restaurant.
“C’mon inside, you three, and I’ll fix you something to eat. And I mean real food!”
She went inside, and the three spies looked at one another. “She’s going to give us food? Just like that?” Bron said blankly. “Just because she sees we’re hungry?”
“How can a chaotic system like this possibly function?” Konda wondered, rubbing his jaw.
“I don’t care, just as long as it functions for another half hour or so!” proclaimed Rico, scrambling to his feet.
It was insane, against all logic. And yet, knowing how it felt to be very, very hungry and have someone act toward them in this absurd but very welcome manner, they had to admit that there was something about it—something admirable. Something that struck a chord deep within them.
It was completely unlike the Zentraedi; it even smacked of a kind of weakness. But it stirred up new and confusing response patterns.
“Hey, wait for us!” Rico yelped, scuttling along after her. Konda and Bron crowded each other for second place.