3
A bit of a reconciliation.
Royce caught up with him out back, by one of several landscaped ponds in lower Vallekas, not so much skipping stones, as attacking the water. The warm, golden light was fading fast, and so were his hopes for a sudden, brilliant notion.
"What's it t' be, then?" Royce inquired, stooping for a smooth rock of his own. It flicked across the pond like a mayfly, skipping out of sight in the gathering dusk.
"It appears I'm leaving," Gordon responded, expressionlessly, barely audible over distant car horns and chatter.
"Where?"
The question was quiet. The answer, still more so.
"America."
Eyes on the course of his latest stone, Royce probed further.
"The cousins?"
Gordon simply nodded, hands deep in the pockets of his blue-and-gold team jacket. Summer days in Madrid could be gaspingly warm, but the plateau was high enough that temperatures often plummeted by night. Best to be prepared.
"Well... you're sixteen in two years, Mate; old enough t' legally emancipate y'rself," Royce ventured, "...and then y' can always come stay with us. Mum's only question, if y' turned up on th' stoop one day, would be, 'what kept ya?' Till then, we c'n call, right?"
"Right."
Two years. All he had to do was keep his head down, and get along for two years. Not impossible, surely. In the meantime, though...
His name was called over the intercom, wafting faint and musical through the baking-hot air. Gordon picked up his bag and slung the strap across his left shoulder.
"Be seein' you, then."
"See ya, Mate. Call us when y' get there, eh?"
"I will. Promise."
The flight was long, and very quiet. Gordon said little, although he wanted to ask this sudden father of his a few pointed questions. Jeff had retreated into the safe shell of piloting, though, eyes on his instruments, attention wholly focused on readouts, airnav beacons and comm chatter.
Gordon stared out the window for a few hours. Then,growing bored, and lonesome, he made the smallest of peace gestures. Inside his duffle was the gift bag Jeff had brought him. There was a novel in it, among other things, a techno-thriller about sabotage on the Moon Station. Gordon quietly fetched it out, and began to read.
"Starts a little slow," Jeff said, around five hundred miles later, finally breaking the silence, "but the action really picks up in chapter five."
Gordon looked over.
"Glad t' hear there's a payoff," he replied, " 'cause the first part's a bit of a slog."
Jeff smiled slightly.
"He's written dozens of novels. I can suggest a few others, if you find that you like his style."
"Thank you, Sir."
There was peace between them, of sorts, but too soap-bubble fragile to tolerate anything so serrated as a question. Unless...
"Where, um... where is it that we're goin', exactly?"
"Kanaho. It's a private island in the south Pacific. I got a fire-sale deal on it, awhile ago, and the press have been calling it 'Tracy Island' ever since. Former atomic testing site, but nothing with two heads has turned up in years."
Then, as Gordon's eyes widened,
"Sorry; bad joke. Sorry about a lot of things."
Gordon utterly failed to think of a clever response. He wanted to learn more, but deemed it wiser to keep the man at the stick in a good mood, something about depression and jet aircraft not seeming a healthy combination. Well, he supposed he had two years to learn what had happened, and why.
They were flying toward midnight, crossing time zones and gaining a day in the process. At some point, worn and sore, Gordon fell asleep.
