jeriendhal | Fic: Spin Recovery, Part Nine

Rufus stepped softly through the door into main foyer, heading towards the dining room. Well, he was about an hour late, but hopefully his mother would understand. Before he reached it though, Bethany emerged from the conservatory, waving him down.

“Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. Dinner was informal this evening. Mother has been locked in her study for hours with one of the Brightspot brothers,” she told him. “What kept you?”

“I was aiding a lady in distress,” he said. “What’s this about Mother meeting with one of the Brightspots? Their family is heavy industry investors. Has mother decided to upgrade the spaceport?”

Bethany shook her head. “No. Blame Aunt Dottie for this one. She convinced Mother to allow her to overfly our domain with a survey shuttle, trying to scan for buried foundations that she could dig up. She found some promising sites, but when she shared her data with us, it turned out she’d also inadvertently discovered a sevenium deposit that the Dominion never bothered to strip mine during the Subjugation.”

Rufus whistled softly. Sevenium was a metal that, when mixed properly with several other ingredients, could be formed into the delicate energy emitters required for activation of a starship’s superluminal drive. Though in the military they were being rapidly superseded by the new crystalline lattices, in the civilian market the metal was still hotly sought after. To find a deposit of worthy size on a planet, where one could easily get at it without the expensive of vacuum mining, was a rare find indeed. “So House Brushtail is going into the mining business, is it?” he asked.

“Apparently so. I’m afraid it’s getting more complicated than Mother anticipated though. She wants the Brightspots to shoulder some of the initial mining expenses in exchange for a percentage of the profits, but they’re balking.”

“Why is that, are they angling for more money?”

Bethany shook her head. “No, they’re getting cold pads over the relocation expenses. There are commoner families on the site where we need to excavate and they’re digging in their claws in rather than move.”

“Oh, that’s going to get ugly,” Rufus said sympathetically. In theory a farmer lord could order a commoner off of land she wanted to put to better use simply by fiat. In practice, kicking a family off of farm lands or out of a home they might have occupied for centuries was one of those things that was Just Not Done. Compensation, either in the form of generous credit payouts or the offer to move to more favorable land, was the most common incentive. Indeed, canny commoners could wring considerable concessions out of their ruling lords. The alternative was to risk the potentially ugly scene of families being forced out of their homes by the civil authorities, which would inevitably result in much gossip and sniping by the farmer lord’s peers. Particularly hard-headed nobles in the old days sometimes found themselves with rapidly depopulated lands, as their commoner tax base voted with their feet and left to live under a more sympathetic leader.

“It will work out,” Bethany said. “The cook should have saved you a plate, if you’re hungry.”

“Thank you.” Dinner turned out to be roasted kin goose with savory vegetables, mixed together in a way that required the meat be cut into convenient, bite sized pieces. Which would have been a treat if the same thing hadn’t been done with the steaks a few days before. Rufus was contemplating telling the kitchen staff to forget about his dignity and just start pre-cutting his meat for his meals, when a familiar voice called out from the doorway of the conservatory where he was eating, causing him to turn around in his chair.

“Rufus, you old reprobate, fancy finding you back on your home hunting grounds. We all thought you’d still be playing the dashing star mercenary,” Bobbi Brightspot called out cheerfully. He was a male the same age as Rufus, tall, healthy and athletic, with his family’s characteristic white patch of fur between his dark ears and a ready smile on his face. They had attended the same series of exclusive schools throughout their childhoods, up until the point that Rufus had abandoned the idea of a conventional university education to enlist as a flight engineer in the Vulpine military.

“Bobbi! You mean your mother is letting you out of the house these days?” Rufus teased, coming to his feet and feeling cheered. His friend looked quite well, dressed in his neat House uniform with an expensive datacomp slung under his shoulder.

Bobbi bowed in mock solemnity. “I will have you know that I am a duly appointed representative of my House, permitted to speak with Milady’s Voice on all matters concerning it.”

“Gave up on giving you a sister, did she?”

Bobbi smiled, a little ruefully. “I fear so. She was damned near ready to try and get an exception to the genetic selection laws, but calmer heads prevailed. But what about you? From the looks of things I’d say you finally let that foul tempered grass chaser of yours get the better of you. How long have you been back?”

“Nothing so traditional. I was involved in a rather, ah, complicated incident and ended up getting injured. So I decided to give up on piloting and come home to rest and recuperate. I've been home for a week or thereabouts.”

Bobbi laughed sympathetically. “I could have told you that you weren’t going to come to a good end, wandering around the Disputed Territories in that fighter of yours. Bet you’ve got some stories to tell!”

Rufus looked away, embarrassed. “A few. Some of them even repeatable.”

“Tell you what. I've just got go home to upload my negotiation notes to my House's computer, and then I'm going to meet some of the other fellows at the club later. Why don't you come along with me?”

“Oh, I don't know...” he hedged.

“Come on! You've been here a week and you haven't bothered to look up any of your old friends? What have you been doing with yourself?”

“Hrm, moping about mostly,” Rufus admitted.

“High time you got back into the swing of things then! If you're going to be around you're going to have to get back onto the social circuit.” Bobbi gave him a conspiratorial nudge. “You keep yourself cooped up here, people will start making up their own stories about what you've been doing. Better to get your version out first, eh?”

“I can't argue with that logic,” he admitted. “Let me get changed and let Mother know where I'm going.”

Bobbi grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the door. “None of that now! You're as old as I am. No need to consult with the matron of the House on a simple social visit!”

“Oh, all right.” Rufus permitted himself to be dragged outside to Bobbi's skimmer, an expensive looking sports model with a great deal of red enamel. His friend was right, he would need to get back at least partially onto the social scene, unless he wanted to be a hermit forever. Besides, it wasn't as if any harm could come to him, visiting with old friends.

TBC