Samuel thumped his fist down on the pile of papers decorating his oak desk. “Stupid tradition,” he muttered under his breath, not really meaning it.
Bags of papers still waited his perusal. Only during Festival, one week of the year, could the other classes have a say in how polits ran each cities. And Samuel, as grand polit, had to read all those from First City. It made the other classes feel part of the family and kept them happy. As if Menthak had enough money for even half of these requests.
Samuel picked up a heavily wrinkled paper from another stack and laughed. Since Jared slipped past him, the colony requests seemed more frequent—or maybe Samuel noticed them more. Had he been a better father to both his sons, he’d have a strong partner for running the city, and a heavier purse without the constant drain from Paul.
He rose, stretched, then crossed to the study window. The bright sunlight made him blink before he could see the ornate statue of his ancestor and namesake in the courtyard below.
The first Samuel brought hard workers and true followers determined to make their mark on this planet. Adventurers like Jared.
When they suffered dual setbacks between the cryo disaster and disease striking the technology workers, Old Samuel had stepped in to keep the colony going. He’d solved disputes, quieted dissention, and even put his own back to the stones quarried to make their roads and homes so long ago. So the histories told. From his efforts came the very first doctrine—to work with your hands is sacred and blessed. Old Samuel believed God took away the distractions of technology to remind them of this truth.
It must have been simpler then.
Now, everyone clamored on about petty needs and no one cared about work. From his own son down to the lowest laborer in the Menthak family, they just wanted to spend what little remained in the family coffers with no thought to replenishing it.
The Samuel of long ago didn’t have whining from his people when rain weakened a stretch of cobblestones or a baker charged more to laborers than polits. In the beginning, people worked together to survive. Now, the first doctrine, purity maintained by the work of your own hands, had little influence, while later ones driving cooperation were so neglected even Samuel had a hard time remembering their texts.
His remaining son crossed the courtyard below. Nothing backed Paul’s swaggering stride but his illustrious birth. That boy had never done a speck of work in his life, no matter how much Samuel tried.
Jared had been different. Samuel’s older son wanted to live life to the fullest almost from his first breath. Like the Samuel of old, he thought nothing of dirtying his hands in the fields, or fraternizing with the laborers. He’d brought back ideas, good and bad, all year long, instead of waiting for Festival week.
Samuel had discouraged the boy then. He’d thought it wasn’t suitable for a polit to be so free with others. One week a year was enough to treat them as equals.
Now, much too late, he realized his mistake.
Samuel had kept Jared trapped in the social conventions of modern polits when the boy had the adventurous spirit of their ancestors. He’d driven his son to found a new colony with his well-meaning lessons. It had taken Samuel almost sixteen years to understand, sixteen years of regret and questions.
He turned away from the window. The painting of his lovely second wife and their two boys, one tow-headed, the other dark, drew his attention. Only a couple of years separated them, but the two could not have been more different.
Samuel never expected Jared to be the serious one when they were young. Jared laughed his way through everything, even when he hurt himself on one of his wild adventures. In contrast, Paul’s petulance came as no surprise, and Samuel would have to face more of it if the pounding footsteps on his stairs were any sign. Paul couldn’t walk lightly if his life depended on it.
Samuel’s gaze flew back to the image of his first son, the one he’d thought nothing but trouble. He wondered how Jared’s little girls fared. Were they as hard for their shafter mother to handle as Jared had been for him? His son never discovered that Samuel set a tail on him, leading the father to learn what the son left too soon to know.
For years, the same man who’d followed Jared exchanged coins for snippets of the girls’ lives, pretending their father hired him before leaving for the stars. The pain of losing Jared struck harder when the shafter woman stopped coming. Despite everything he’d tried, no matter how many contacts he’d approached, Samuel found no way to uncover her identity or claim his grandchildren for his own.
PAUL BURST INTO THE STUDY without the courtesy of a knock, jerking Samuel into the present. He scowled at his younger son.
“Dad, I need more money. My last allowance is gone and my friends can’t support me forever. You wouldn’t want word to get round that the grand polit is running short.” Paul wasted no time in making his demands.
“And why would anyone think that? Could it be they see his wastrel son throwing money to the winds?” Samuel glared at the demanding intruder. “What was it this time? Did drink and tavern girls suck up so deep a purse? I should’ve known better than to give it to you all at once just to quiet your whines.” Samuel crossed to his desk and sank into the chair. He rested his palms against the wood grain if only to keep them from leaping up around his son’s neck. Even Jared at his worst had the courtesy to call him ‘Father.’ The new term grated on Samuel’s nerves.
Without waiting for an invitation, Paul slumped onto the armchair across from Samuel’s desk, swinging his legs up so he lounged rather than sat. “Does it matter? Whatever happened, I know you won’t approve.” His son failed to meet his eyes, looking instead at the long nails he’d adopted as part of the latest fad, their garish orange paint making Samuel flinch.
Straightening the pile of requests, he took a steadying breath and then another one. It didn’t work. All he did was bring the sickly sweet perfume decorating Paul’s coat to his nose. It made him sneeze. “Must you wear that in here? The smell stays for hours.”
Paul smiled, only half of his face moving. “The sooner I’m gone, the sooner the scent will be. Your choice.”
“I’m a businessman, a leader. Why should I keep throwing bad money after good? You think the rumors you spread about my pockets force me to pay you off. No longer. They have more than a comfortable measure of truth.” Samuel kept still with difficulty but he felt a muscle in his cheek begin to twitch.
The arrogance fell away from Paul’s face as if he dropped a cloak. Samuel leaned back in surprise, the squeak of his chair loud in the sudden silence.
Paul mumbled something Samuel couldn’t hear.
“What was that?” Curiosity eased through him. Maybe this son had something of interest too. Maybe he’d misjudged him. Maybe by focusing on the one who’d gotten away, he’d failed to see the maturity growing in Paul. After all, for once he hadn’t asked why when Paul requested more than his normal allotment. Maybe the money went to building something to save them all.
So lost in his own thoughts, Samuel failed to hear when Paul repeated his words, but he heard them the third time with Paul standing up to shout at him.
“I was robbed. Yes, robbed. Are you happy now? First day of Festival.”
Hope died as quickly as it had risen. “Robbed? You carried the whole purse to walk Festival streets? Are you sure one of your friends didn’t snitch it when you went for your fifth drink?” Now Samuel stood as well, his fingers gripping the edge of his desk hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
A frown bit into his son’s face. “My friends are good and loyal. They wouldn’t take my money. How do you think I’ve survived this long without asking for more? My friends. They’re not like you standing here over a wealth greater than any other on this worthless planet and yet making your only son beg for little more than a scrap.” Paul paced back and forth, his jerky steps reminding Samuel of his first wife, a woman of little grace who died before they could have any children, not that his second wife had lived much longer.
He’d done his best since the boys’ mother had died, just after Jared turned twelve, but looking at his younger son, he knew he’d failed. “You are not my only son and never will be. It’s good you have friends to stand by you. A man such as you’ve become needs friends.” Samuel put up a hand in apology before Paul could respond. “How much do you need?”
Paul straightened, the smile on his face announcing a return of arrogance. “Forty silvers should do me fine.”
Samuel jerked his hand back from the locked drawer where he kept some coins for quick access. “That much! It’s more than you lost.”
“I didn’t lose it. I told you. I was robbed. And I have to pay my friends back, don’t I? You wouldn’t want your son in debt. It wouldn’t be seemly.” He thrust his chest forward to seem imposing, but Paul looked more like an unbalanced bird about to topple in the breeze.
“Ah, your goodly friends? So nice to charge rates for their assistance.” Samuel crossed his arms over his chest.
“They have tight-fisted parents just as I do,” Paul muttered, probably not expecting Samuel to hear. “They saved my life. Why shouldn’t I help ease their way?” This Paul said loud enough.
“Saved your life? How so? I feed and clothe you. You have no real need for anything else. Being without money only stunts your pleasures.” Samuel’s head began to ache. “I tried. God knows how I tried to find a proper role for you. The teachers laughed when I sought a place for you among them, and I have to say they saw you more truly than I did. Even the laborers wouldn’t have you as an apprentice. You’re worthless, Paul. You and your pretty friends. What proper labor could you manage with those long, garish nails? You mock what made this colony, our city, possible.” He blew out the rest of his breath, trying to disperse thick, flowery perfume.
Paul threw himself back into the chair, his trembling hands clasped in his lap. “They saved me from the thief who threatened us. The one who took my purse.”
Samuel almost dismissed Paul’s declaration, even as he’d ignored the first claim of threat, but his gaze fell on Paul’s hands, still quivering as if he couldn’t control them. “You were threatened? That seems odd with the penalties for striking a polit.”
Paul surged forward until he leaned against his father’s desk, shoving some of the careful piles over the edge where they fell into a jumbled mess. “You think I’d lie? About something like this?”
Backing up so he could focus on the hand thrust into his face, Samuel saw a red line of recently healed flesh across the back of Paul’s wrist.
“You were attacked?” Doubts flew away in the face of such evidence. “How many? And why didn’t you tell me immediately? The enforcers must find them. An attack against a polit is no simple thing, Paul. Surely you must understand this is larger than the loss of a heavy purse.” He gripped his son’s shoulders and stared at him, trying to find some sense buried in the boy’s pleasure-ridden head. If the laborers rose up, no one would be safe.
Paul pulled away, his jerk almost sending Samuel across the desk. “No enforcers. It was just a purse.”
“And an attack. That’s a knife cut if ever I saw one. I might have questioned bruises or blunt injuries, but even you aren’t foolish enough to play around with blades.”
The look on Paul’s face made Samuel wonder if he’d been wrong, if Paul made it up after all, but his son’s next words banished the thought.
“There was only one. A girl.”
Samuel laughed, unable to stop himself. “A girl? You and your stalwart companions were robbed and scared into silence by a girl?”
Paul scowled. “She had knives. And knew how to use them.” He waved his injured wrist again.
“That much is obvious. Though you say she attacked you? You weren’t struck while wrestling over the purse, were you?”
“No chance. I didn’t even see my coin bag fall. I realized what had happened afterwards. As fast and strong as she was, in looking back, she must have been a shafter.” Paul looked like a beaten dog waiting for the next blow.
Samuel sighed at how his son gave in to the foolish notion that shafters were any different than the surface folk. They had all come on the same ship. “It doesn’t make sense. Why chance death over any purse, no matter how heavy, or how foolish the owner?”
“I’ll prove it to you. I’ll show you where it happened. Some drops of my blood probably still stain the pavement.” Paul grabbed Samuel’s arm and pulled him to the door.
Shrugging, Samuel let his son lead him out of the room. Anything was better than fixing the mess Paul had made of his careful piles. If he were a stronger father, he’d make Paul go through the letters, but he’d given up involving his younger son many years before. If anything, Paul was more frivolous than the Festival requests and couldn’t see a true need if it bit him, or cut him across the wrist, as it were.
Part of Samuel wanted to leave the event unreported. He’d seen shafters before when so many were caught for the medical testing. They’d made a pitiful sight stumbling along the streets until they found a way back into their shadow realms. The lucky ones escaped underground before enforcers took them in on disturbance charges. But he couldn’t chance showing weakness before them, so he followed through the busy streets.
He kept pace with Paul, his firm steps slowed to match his son’s wandering gait. The boy said nothing, but his lips moved every once in a while as if trying to remember the path. Again, Samuel wondered if his son told the truth.
Paul suddenly accelerated, crossing into a square graced with a tall fountain aerating water from the treatment machines still pumping away under the surface, one of the few mechanical systems that still functioned. Their cities might resemble the beauty of ancient Earth, but trade with the spaceport, along with the few surviving original machines, meant Ceric didn’t suffer the filth.
Samuel glanced around, seeing the elaborate facades that were added to the first buildings on Ceric once basic survival had been achieved. Now they formed many hiding places between carved pillars and thick facings. He’d grown up in one of those buildings toward the city center. When he’d married, the choice to live in a plainer, more functional home seemed like a moment of freedom.
“Over here! We stood here.”
Samuel strolled over, taking time to notice the bench and how open the space Paul indicated was. If his son had been even remotely aware, no sneak thief could have reached him. Samuel wondered what Paul left out of the tale.
“We stood here and the thief appeared before us.”
“Appeared?” Samuel raised one eyebrow.
“Well, came from over there.” He waved in the direction of the most ornate building.
“And you and your friends just stopped here for what? To enjoy the beauty of this fountain?” Samuel waved at the fountain, which had little aesthetic value to draw observers despite its height. The cascading water had smoothed any fine carvings generations before.
Paul looked confused for a moment, confirming Samuel’s suspicions.
“Well, we talked to some ladies?” Paul’s sentence curled up as if he expected his father to write this fiction.
Samuel smiled as understanding dawned. “So, some of your tavern doxies lounged on this bench, distracting you from the thief? Probably working together.”
“Oh, no they weren’t. I mean…”
“How do you know they weren’t working together?” Curiosity rose again.
“What I mean is they weren’t tavern girls. Not polits, but high-class laborers. Not inviting, if you catch my meaning.”
Paul winked in a lecherous expression Samuel found about as appealing as these apparent ladies must have.
“So you talked to some real ladies on the first day of Festival, and a thief snuck up on you, struck your wrist, and stole your purse?” The facts still didn’t add up, but a clearer picture had begun to emerge.
“Not exactly. See, the ladies didn’t—” Paul stopped as if aware he’d been about to say something he didn’t want to reveal.
Samuel nodded. “The ladies objected to your already drunken advances?”
Paul looked away, mumbling his agreement.
“And while you tried to convince them otherwise, the sneak thief approached you.”
Still looking at the cobblestones, Paul agreed.
“Then what happened? Surely, she didn’t attack. With you distracted, your purse would be easy pickings on your belt.” He waited to see if Paul would claim the purse was carefully inside his tunic but his son had no objections to the statement.
Samuel asked again, “Why attack? The penalty should have made your purse too risky a target.”
Paul spun to face him. “She objected to our attentions toward the ladies. A scrap of a shafter daring to object! She probably wanted some attention for herself.”
“Yes,” Samuel said with a straight face. “The cut across your wrist shows her wants clearly.”
Humor dissipated rapidly as he realized what Paul hinted. “You forced yourself on some laborers just enjoying the first day of Festival? You were lucky an enforcer didn’t come by. Equality, boy! Equality means the right to say no and not be harassed by the likes of you. You disgust me.” He turned his face away, no longer caring about the thief even if she’d broken the highest of laws. If he’d been there, the punishment would have been more severe. And Paul the target.