In the Centaurus Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, nestled within a Nebulae of shimmering stardust, within the clusters of the seventeen emerald stars of the Green System, on the Planet Normalon, Dorothy Seaton and Richard Jr. were building a starship so that they could search for their mutual husband and father.
Normalon! A gentle planet, one that bore the marks of a triumphant Civilization, of evolved beings dedicated completely to the the ideals of Scientific Pursuit and peaceful meditation. Where each adult was the complete master of a field of science, knowledge imbued within them by cunning systems of education and the instant electronic imprinting of the total knowledge of their ancestors upon maturity. From the cradle to the grave, the Normalonians lived rationally calculated and quantifiably fulfilling lives.
And at some point, they had slipped into stagnation, and misplaced that spark, that drive which propels the younger more reckless races outward from their home...and leads to wonder and Sheer Astonishment!
When Richard Seaton unified the four species of the Green System, the warlike Kondals and Urvanians, the Porpoise-Men of Dasor and academic Normalonians...it was the best thing that had happened to those dusty elders of a gentle race for eons. They were faced with challenges once more, in new scientific paradigms, in mitigating the savagery of their planetary cousins, and in defending the universe from a thousand would-be galactic empires.
Thus the Normalonians were more than happy to help Dorothy build a packet-style spaceship to help search for her husband.
Dorothy stood on a balcony and watched as it took shape in the launch cradle, a thin spire of gleaming purple-transparent monopolium and programmable matter.
She had written out the designs on classic foolscap, the contents of which lay scattered at her feet. The 'Starling' was designed with three things in mind: Engine power, defensive fields, and an enhanced sensor array, able to pick out a ship's energy signature from the core of a galaxy and project hard-light constructs across lightyears, able to take hits and run fast.
It's the same old story for a wife. Dorothy thinks. First you worry that your husband's a workaholic–which, to be fair, is something Seaton has a lot of trouble with–then you worry that he's abandoned you–which I couldn't help but imagine even though I know him really well–and then... And then you worry that something's gone horribly wrong, and you call the police. Except that there aren't any police out there who can track your Scientific Adventurer husband across the entirety of the known Cosmos. ...Dammit.
"Mom! Mom!"
Dorothy turned about to see Richard Jr. waft up the nearby repeller tube, dressed in swim trunks, soaking wet...and carrying a Normalonian green-skinned, subtly large-brained youth, whose left arm was dangling limply.
"Richard, what happened!" Dorothy asked, rushing over to her son's side.
"I..." Richard Jr. averted his eyes for a moment. "It was an accident. Dacel and Foros and Theti and I were playing in the distilled water pool...and I was playing with Dacel and...I hurt him by mistake."
Richard Jr. stared at the ground, looking at the gleaming brass vambraces fixed around his slender arms, the 6th Order Inhibitors that his father had quickly thrown together before blasting off for Earth to 'Put things in Order'.
It was only because of those two small pieces of apparel that Richard Jr. was able to grow and get along like a normal boy, filling out in size and gaining a bit more of his Father's features in a heart-aching fashion. But there were only a stopgap measure, a temporary measure for until Richard Seaton returned to fully cure his son of his...contagion.
Dorothy could still remember her utter helplessness at that time...snatched by tattooed commandos from her cheap flat in a strange, vulgar, bleak, and hostile future...being beaten and humiliated, and brought in chains to the temple of Chichen Itza and the Court of the Red Queen , a cold, evil, black-eyed cobra whose capered amongst a menagerie of insane bat monsters.
She remembered Seaton's Projection materializing, the tears in his eyes, struggling to keep it together as that bitch put a bayonet to her son's throat...the steely glint in his eyes as he began to put together a plan to safe them...and then the horror as his Projection was disrupted by the electronic war field of the Invading Britannians...as everything fell into chaos...and as a vampire guard, overcome by bloodlust, sank his teeth into her son's shoulder...
"Mom? Mom? Do you know where we can find a medkit? I...I want to make up for my screwup...by fixing Daxel's arm...can I do that for you, Daxel? I mean, if Mom lets me?"
"It's okay." the green skinned youth said, smiling: "I know it was an accident: you're a Heavy Worlder, and you're used to things being more durable: I've blocked out the pain with a mental technique I designed at age twenty, and with proper treatment, the fracture could heal fully. Besides...you don't know medicine: the First of Healing should take care of it."
"I know." Richard Junior said glumly, rubbing his face. "But...I need to help somehow. I need to do something good to make up for the bad. That's what good guys do!"
"Like your dad?" Daxel asks.
Richard Jr. frowned. "I guess."
"How about this, okay?" Dorothy says, kneeling down so that she matched the heights of both her son and the Normalonian kid. "Go the the First of Healing with Daxel, but then ask the First if you can help him tend to Daxel's arm: I'm sure he'll have something he could use your help with."
"Cool!" Richard Jr. and Daxel said simultaneously. With the rapid shifting of focus that's endemic to youth, they swiveled about and walked off towards one of the nearby hovercars, chattering about learning medicine, and talking excitedly about the rocket-ship taking shape far off in the launch cradle.
"I'm gonna be the Navigator! I'll plot courses and scan for stuff and everything!" Dorothy heard her son say.
"That's so scientific! Are you going to travel to Earth?"
"...Nah. Earth sucks."
