Ben sat alone on the bridge, the Angel purring round him her lights winking peaceful green and blue. Stars studded the Black outside the ports, some of the bright points ships riding the line to Vulcan like themselves. Cody'd been sent to bed - hopefully he'd stay there - and the girls who weren't napping were unpacking and arranging their new belongings. Ben had learned during the refit that his girls never slept more than an hour or so at a time - 'because of the nightmares.' Keri had explained.
He had a padd on his knee and typed:
Crew Manifest
Me: Master and Pilot
Mechanic.
Then paused considering. Sonya and the twins had all demonstrated a genuine knack for mechanics; Moon really was good with computers - gorram brilliant in fact - but she was also the most volatile and unpredictable of his girls. Jade followed schematics and plans perfectly but didn't seem very interested - in anything... He frowned and put that thought aside for later consideration.
After a time he started typing again:
Crew Manifest
Me: Master and Pilot
Sonya: Co-pilot (trainee)
Cody: Relief Pilot (trainee)
Moon: Computer and Communications Tech.
(little boats didn't usually bother with such but it would give Moon duties to do without upsetting his calm too much.)
Me: First Mechanic
Kimi and Keri: Second and Third Mechanics (trainees)
Jade: Cook and Quartermaster
Cody: Asst. Cook and Quartermaster
(to keep Jade from burning the food in one of her trances and to double check her accounts.)
He considered some more then stored the doc. and started a new one:
Boat Routine
0700 hrs: Reveille
0745-0900: Breakfast (Twins police kitchen afterwards)
0900-1200: Pilot training (Sonya and Cody)
Chores (Twins and Moon)
1215-1300: Lunch (Cody polices kitchen afterwards)
1300-1600: Mechanics training (Twins)
Cortex Schooling (Cody assisted by Moon)
Chores (Sonya)
1600-1800: Free time for Crew
Chores (Jade)
1800-1845: Dinner (Moon and Sonya police kitchen afterwards)
2200 hrs: Lights Out.
Bedtime for Cody
Girls to stay in their bunk 'til Reveille
Saturday: Captain's inspection 1300 hrs.
Sunday: We rest
He studied the doc. slowly shook his head. "Why do I have the feeling this ain't gonna work?"
Walking wearily aft to his bed Ben stopped stock still in the hatchway, the living area'd undergone some changes!
A big, colorful, multi-textured rug now covered most of the deck and there was a white linen cloth and brocaded runner on the stub of table with an intricate arrangement of silk flowers and polished stones in its middle. The molded plastic seats were heaped with cushions and furs, as was the big bowl chair wedged into the corner between the kitchen and the aft bulkhead. A painted cupboard stood against the back of the counter with china plates, cups and tableware wrapped in napkins all laid out atop it ready for breakfast. And a silk screen painted with a pretty summer garden scene hung above table and seats on the long port bulkhead.
Ben shook his head wonderingly. "Y' know what they say about a 'woman's touch'!"
...
He handed out copies of his routine and individual sheets of maintenance chores over a catch as catch can breakfast the next morning.
Cody beamed at the sight of 'pilot training' and groaned over the cortex schooling.
Ben didn't budge. "You're gonna to get a decent education if I have to shove it down your throat, boy!"
"But three whole hours a day!"
"Our school was twenty-four seven." Keri told him.
"Yeah, even when we were asleep." added her twin.
That shut Cody up.
"I don't know how to cook." Jade said into the ensuing silence.
"Just follow the directions on the boxes and cans." Ben answered. "Cody will answer any questions you might have."
Taking instruction from a ten year old didn't seem to faze her none. "Okay."
Moon thrust out an underlip. "Why do we have to stay in our room at night?" she demanded.
"Because I don't want self confessed crazy girls wandering over my ship when I'm not awake to watch over them." Ben answered bluntly.
"That's reasonable." said Sonya, pointedly cutting off whatever Moon had opened her mouth to say. She looked at Jade. "We got stuff to do."
The corners of Jade's mouth went down in response. Ben thought about asking what - then decided he was better off not knowing.
Sonya was frowning over her copy of the schedule. "We're not always going to be in condition to follow this." she warned.
"I understand that." Ben assured her. "Just do your best. You said keeping busy helped."
"It does," she shrugged, "but even so there'll be spells."
"We'll deal." said Ben, hoping he could.
...
The first week passed peacefully enough. Of course Jade did elect to spend two days of it curled in the big chair staring at nothing. A simple stylus set Moon off into a fit of shrill, keening laughter that raised the hairs on Ben's neck and lasted for nearly three hours. Sonya spent a piloting lesson talking so calmly and rationally about the furred whales swimming outside the ports that Ben found himself looking for them. And there was a bit of a to-do when Kimi hid herself in the hold and wouldn't come out for thirty-six hours while her twin wailed and sobbed in hysterics.
Could have been worse Ben told himself, climbing wearily into bed Friday night. He should have known better.
He woke abruptly in the wee hours and lay there a moment wondering why. Then it came again, muffled by metal bulkheads, faint but unmistakable; the high shrill screams of a very young girl. Ben hurtled out of bed, heedless of his state of undress, out his door and through the one opposite slamming the hatch behind him and praying Cody wouldn't wake.
For a moment all he could see was a blur of light and color, mixed perfumes tickling his nose as screams assaulted his ears. As his eyes adjusted he made out the layers of rugs on the floor and hangings muffling the walls, saw the twins, arms wrapped tight around each other, huddled in a nest of pillows and at the opposite end of the room a big bronzy-gold tub, water sloshing out of it as a thin brown figure flailed and struggled.
It was Sonya, bare naked, eyes round and glassily staring, mouth wide and working as shrieks poured out of it. Moon and Jade, scantily clad themselves in wet and clinging nighties, were trying to hold her down. A long needle glinted in Jade's hand, sank into the inner elbow of Sonya's flapping arm. The screams rose to a shrill, siren-like crescendo then cut off as she flopped back into the water, almost going under.
"What in the seventh circle of Hell do you think you're doing!" Ben roared into the sudden quiet.
Four pairs of startled eyes - Sonya's were closed - turned on him. It was Moon who answered. "Undoing is more like it."
"Say that again?"
Moon walked towards him, thin face grim. "They planted suggestions and triggers to control us at the school. When Jade sucked Dr. Falkener dry she got what he knew about what they'd done to us. And some knowledge of how it might be undone."
"Sonya insisted on going first - 'cause she's the oldest." said Jade, finally taking her eyes off her now comatose classmate.
"It's not much fun." said Moon.
"There's an understatement for you." Ben took several deep breaths as his thundering heart slowed and his blood pressure sank towards normal. To Jade: "Is it working."
She pushed sweat soaked strings of blond hair out of her face. "I'm not sure yet. She's showing all the right reactions though."
"That screaming's a right reaction?" He asked, disbelieving.
"We always did a lot of screaming when they worked on us." Jade answered flatly.
Ben winced then looked at the twins, shivering in their nest of pillows. "They have to watch this?"
"You told us not to leave our room after lights out." Moon reminded him.
Ben sucked in a breath. "So I did. You planning on doing this every night?"
Heads shook. "Once or maybe twice a week." said Jade.
"Need time to recover in between treatments." said Moon.
No doubt they did. "All right, nights you do this the girls not involved can use my bunk." he turned to the twins, gentling his voice. "Come on Kimi, Keri, let's us get out of here and leave your elders to their work."
They just stared at him. Moon went over and pulled them up. "You heard, Ben, get out of here." she steered them firmly into the passage, Ben right behind. "At least we didn't wake Cody." she said dropping her voice. "How'd you come to hear us anyway?"
He smiled crookedly. "I'm a father. Sharpens the ears."
"I guess so." Moon said and went back into the bunk closing the hatch behind her.
Ben looked down at the twins, small and pitiful in their flowered nighties, bare little feet showing pale against the darkish metal grating of the floor. "Why don't we have some cocoa before we try to go back to sleep?"
It took two cups apiece before they began to unwind but by the time he'd tucked them into the bed in his bunk the eyelids were drooping. He could only pray they wouldn't be waked by bad dreams this night.
He took himself up to the bridge and settled into the pilot's chair. Searching the Black through the ports he saw Big White, Sihnon and Londinium's sun, burning in the lower starboard quadrant and looked at it with hate for the smug bureaucrats it shone on.
"Damn you." he whispered to the unhearing night. "Damn you bastards all!"