They drove on in sullen silence until they passed the Ueno place. “We’re nearly home,” Juna said, trying to break the mood. “I hope you’re hungry. My aunt’s making a big dinner for us. She’s a wonderful cook.”
“Actually, I’m starved,” Bruce admitted. “I don’t eat much when I’m shuttling between stations. All those gravity changes do strange things to my stomach.”
Sohelia nodded sympathetically. “Mine, too.”
“I guess I got used to shifting gravity, growing up here,” Juna remarked. “They sent us to school out on the outer rim, where the gravity is heavier, so our bones would be strong. After the first month, I hardly noticed the change anymore.”
Juna turned in at the gate to her family’s farm. “Here we are.”
Bruce looked out the window at the solid-looking stone house. “I expected something a little more spartan.”
“The house was built by the first colonists, a group of Reform Amish,” Juna explained. “The Amish had big families, so they built big. And they built to last. The stone was left over from building the station. Most of the original houses are made of it. It was the cheapest building material they had.”
“It’s a nice place,” Bruce said.
“Thank you,” Juna replied. She stopped in front of the house, and pulled Bruce’s bag out of the back of the truck. Anetta came out on the porch, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, and nodding at Sohelia as the lawyer went inside.
“So you’re the father of my new niece!” Anetta said when Juna had introduced them.
“Well, I suppose I am,” Bruce acknowledged, looking suddenly embarrassed.
Just then, Moki came out of the barn. “Bruce!” he shouted, and broke into a run. He took his bag. “Bruce! I’m going to have a sister! Isn’t that great!”
“Moki, why don’t you help Bruce get settled, and show him around the farm?” Juna suggested, relieved to be passing Bruce along to someone else for a while. “I’ll go help Anetta in the kitchen.”
“Okay,” Moki said. “Danan and I got the crusher put back together. It runs much better now.”
“Good for you!” Juna said. “You’re turning into a real mechanic.” She smiled. Moki was sounding more like Danan every day. Sometimes he sounded deceptively like a ten-year-old boy.
Bruce followed Moki around the farm. Moki clearly liked the vineyard, and was intrigued by the winery, with its tall steel vats, and the crushing and bottling machines, as well as the small, immaculately clean lab for testing the wine. But it was clear that the little alien was even more excited by the prospect of having a sister. Listening to him made Bruce’s blood run cold.
How could this alien child blithely assume such a close relationship to his daughter? And how could Juna and her family allow it? It all seemed deeply, profoundly wrong to Bruce. Finally, he excused himself and retreated to his room on the pretext that he needed to wash up before dinner. He winced as he lay down on the bed. The bruises from the beating he had received during his arrest were still tender. He closed his eyes, shutting out the high-ceilinged room, and tried to remember how he had gotten himself into this situation.
Juna had seemed improbably beautiful when he had first seen her on Tiangi. Brilliant colors and patterns flickered and slid across her naked body like some strange light-show. Walking in the forest with her was like stepping into Eden. She was graceful and completely at home in the alien forests of Tiangi. Then she had cried in his arms like an abandoned child. He had been touched by her loneliness and vulnerability, and flattered that someone as famous as she was would be drawn to him.
She remained beautiful after the aliens had given her back her original creamy brown skin. But on board ship she had gotten more and more wrapped up with the aliens and their problems. The final frantic flurry of sex during the quarantine had been exciting, but he had been secretly relieved to have the relationship end. Only, now, it wasn’t over.
At first he’d thought the arrest was a joke, some kind of mistake. He had argued with the police, and instead of reasoning with him, they hit him with their rubber truncheons, threw him in their hot, filthy jail. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat as he remembered the smell of the place. And here he was, his life turned inside out by a woman he thought he had said goodbye to.
Dinner was long and tense. The food was good, the wine was excellent, but it was all ashes in his mouth. Juna’s father, Teuvo, tried to draw him out, but Bruce felt too nervous and out of place to talk. Instead he worried about what he was going to say at the upcoming meeting.
At last the dessert plates were empty. Bruce pushed away from the table with a sense of guilty relief.
“Mr. Bowles,” Juna’s lawyer said, consulting her watch, “it’s nearly time to call Bernie Frishberg for our conference. Is there anything you need before we start.”
Bruce shook his head. “We might as well get it over with,” he said.
“You can use the library,” Juna’s father offered. “It’s very private.”
Bruce followed the others into the library. He felt like a condemned man being led to the firing squad. At least, he thought sourly, it was a handsome room, lined with books. One whole set of shelves was devoted to technical books on winemaking and grape-growing. They looked well-thumbed. There was a low table in the middle of the room with comfortable chairs set around it. But the comfort and dignity of the room did nothing to quell his worries as he sat down and set up his comm unit.
“Well,” Counselor Gheisar said when they were all settled and Brace’s lawyer was listening in on the comm link, “Juna has expressed an interest in trying to work out the custody issues with your desires in mind, Mr. Bowles. But in order to do that, we need to know what you want.”
Bruce took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Before all this happened, I was planning on getting on with the rest of my life, hoping to get married. I’ve worked for years to get enough money to afford a second child. I don’t want to lose my child-rights.” Anger surged as he spoke.
“Bruce, I— ” Juna began.
“And now you’ve involved me in this scandal, I’m going to have to spend all my savings on legal fees.” All his plans were in ruins because Juna hadn’t thought to have her contraception checked.
“Bruce, don’t worry, the Survey is clearly negligent. They’ll wind up paying the court costs on this one,” Bernie said reassuringly. Bruce’s lips tightened. He would believe that when it happened.
“Juna intends to pay for the fractional child-right,” her lawyer told him. “You’ll still be able to afford a second child.”
Bruce nodded grudgingly. It was the least she could do.
“What are your feelings about custody?” Counselor Gheisar asked.
Bruce looked down at the worn rag rug that covered the floor. This was the hardest question to answer. “It bothers me to know that the child is going to be raised with the aliens. I mean, I like Moki and Ukatonen well enough,” he said, glancing up at Juna’s lawyer, “but I don’t want them looking after a child of mine. Juna’s all alone. What kind of mother can she be, without support? And she has the aliens to take care of. That’s a pretty demanding job. I don’t want my daughter raised in a situation like that.”