Father-Daughter Breakfast Bit

By Vincent Cleaver on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 1:53pm

Frank Costigan methodically stoked the fires, with a bite of toast-wrapped sausage and a
forkful of scrambled eggs. He was a bacon-and-eggs type of guy, but this morning he’d made
pancakes too, against everyone’s advice. Little Faith smiled up at him from across the table,
wearing bits of her pancake and syrup like a messy, sticky beard. Frank set his fork down,
reached over, picked a fragment off of her cheek and ate it.
“Mine!?” Faith squealed in small-person outrage.
“No, Fay-Fay, mine,” Frank rumbled and deployed his crooked grin, the result of
shrapnel scars. Fine lines creased his face from care and from laughter; the wages of thirty-eight
years of living well. Marianne came up behind him and leaned over his shoulder, hugging him
from behind where he sat at the table.
"Life is good..." Frank told her as their daughter threw her little arms up urgently,
breakfast forgotten.
“Mommy!”
"It is," Marianne agreed.
"And don't you know it! You got yourself a handsome Green Beret-"
"A slightly younger model wouldn't be bad, Earthling," Marianne interrupted, going
around to pick up their daughter.
"Ouch!" Frank said, pretending to be mortally wounded. But seeing the two of them like
that, he left off his clowning and mused, “She wants what she wants and isn’t shy about going
after it; I wonder where she gets that?”
“Pot, meet kettle,” Marianne countered.
They were between missions, settled in for a little R&R in the Great's big old house on
Deeluhwah, which was the Boyle Family 'compound'. The breakfast nook had a great morning
view of the Big Rock Candy Mountains. It was local fall and the air was crisp and clean and
good. Frank felt like he'd been here forever, and would be, forever. They could, all three of them,
just lie in the big old rope-net swing on the big stone porch and watch the worlds go by.
"Why would you ever leave this place?"
Marianne was looking deeply into her daughter's face. She could see him, in her, plus,
here and there, echoes of her family; her mother, father, brother and the Greats. She kissed Faith
on the nose and tasted syrupy-butter. "Oh, you! I could just eat you up!"
Faith wriggled free and ran away, singing, "Mommies going to eat me! Mommies going
to eat me!" in mock terror. She went flying out into the hallway past her grandpa Kevin. He
stopped thoughtfully, feeling a vague sense of deja vu. He did not mean to eavesdrop, but he did,
as he came out of his reverie.
In the breakfast nook, Marianne lightly twisted the fingers of her left hand in Frank's hair
and rather aggressively turned his head to her to kiss him. When they came up for air, she said,
so softly it was a whisper on the morning breeze, "I am a Ranger. I know that somewhere,
sometime soon, there will be somebody who desperately needs my help and if I'm not there,
people will die. Other people could do what I do and we could grow old, raise many younglings
on this world that my great grandparents helped to bring to life; and be happy, deliriously happy.
But I can do what needs to be done far more effectively than that person who might take my
place, who would like as not die, or fail and let someone else die. Do you think that this is
vanity?"
 "No, Zah," love, in the Ilshani, "no, I do not,” Frank breathed. “What you just said goes
for me too."
In the hallway Faith and her grandma Karen had joined Kevin, with Faith diligently
rubbing at her face with a warm damp cloth. "All clean!" she chirped.
"I see," her grandpa said. The Scout twined his fingers in his wife's hands, surrounding
their granddaughter and drawing the Ranger close for a kiss, with interest.
"Kisses! I want kisses, too!"
"Then you shall have them, my heart," Karen said as they broke for a little air and
looking meaningfully at her husband. Then they grabbed their granddaughter up, kissing and
tickling her until she was just shrieking with laughter.

This is from ‘Old Complications’-

December, 1983, Cycle 91,860, Conservancy Reckoning, Boyle household, Deeluhwah
vivaforming project
Old Complications was talking to his visitor when a little whirlwind of energy ran into the
room and up his lower back to crouch in her customary place on his middle back, leaning against
his upper torso. She hugged him and waved a scrap of flimsy around. He transferred his drink
carefully to his cruder lower right hand, and patted her on the head, over his shoulder, as he
reached around to take the offered missive with his upper left hand.
"Ol'Cee, Ol'Cee! I drawed you a pichur!"
Ranger Commandant Dorza understood the English words, and by unspoken agreement,
the Rangers left off their reminisces in Ilshani.
"I see that, Little Hunter," said the old Hunter, and winked at her horrified mother, who
had come in right behind the chaos. "It's alright, Karen. I'm sure the Commandant doesn't mind."
She withdrew, the look of mock horror fading into one pride and love.
"I'm not here as the Commandant," Dorza protested. He'd noted how the old Ranger had
relaxed with the arrival of the little human child. It hurt that Old Complications had assumed that
he was here with a mission, and not just to visit his old teacher, who was healing. The living
legend, the last surviving Hunter in the Galaxy, had come home injured, yet again, after his latest
mission. Gods and Ancestors, how often he did! But he always came home, and he rarely failed.
The drawing was technically crude, but the composition was very interesting. 'Little
Hunter' gave commentary. "This one, on the mountain," it was a triangle in the top left corner,
with a very small stick figure,"is Grandpop, who's sad because he can't come home from Ooli-
drif' an' meet me, coz the dumb ol' wormhole don' wanna work. Bad wormhole!"
A few kilograms of antimatter could ruin your whole day, Commandant Dorza thought.
The little human girl was too young to understand just what a tragedy it was, the dark wormhole
to Oolithi Drift. The Conservancy had yet to duplicate more than one of the Builders' wormholes.
But we will, he thought with fierce pride. We will!
In the foreground was a human couple on the right. The man, a Scout from his eclectically
mission-patched grays (his 'clown suit'), was crouched down and reading some tracks, with one
hand up on top of the woman’s hand, which rested on his shoulder. She was a Ranger, Dorza
could tell from her black and yellow duty uniform ("Black for space between the stars and
worlds, yellow for the promise of sunlight in the Valley of the Vault of Ages! Wear it with pride,
recruit, and earn a place in The Valley…"So many had. Now there were fewer and fewer wearing
that uniform, every year). She was glancing down, smiling, but her body was turned to the right.
 The Hunter, in the background, was familiar. His characteristic black and orange markings
and four pairs of limbs were marred by white patches. He was also oriented to the right, but was
looking back over his shoulder at the little girl perched on his backs. "This is you an' me, and this
is Great Mom-mom and Pop-pop Boyle. This is my brother and his," her voice dripped childish
scorn, "'Grrrl-friend!' See? I drewed them holding hands!"
"Mommy and Daddy are here, and Daddies' trackin' a Mocker that hurt Lucy." She
pouted. "It's only a pichur, though, coz they wouldn' let me go along. They catched it an 'leased it
over on the Big Island, near the bye-oh-re-ac-tor," she was clearly proud of the big word, "that
Pop-pop and Mom-mom builded."
The three rangers defined the corners of a triangle, or points on a circle surrounding the
group. Clan Boyle, as it were, Dorza thought, including an absent member and an alien. The
Hunter and the human woman were touching loved ones, but ready. Ready to act and be deadly.
"I've often wished for such detailed reports from all of my Rangers," Dorza said mildly.
Old Complications flicked his ears and he nodded, acknowledging the dig. Then he hrummed
with pleasure as the child reached up and scratched behind his ears.
"Bed-time, Marianne! Time to stop bothering the nice Rangers, honey. I'm sure they've got
important hush-hush business to discuss, don'cha?" The girls' father marched in and plucked her
off of Old Complications. "Got to clean you up, I bet there's enough dirt behind these ears to
grow corn!" He turned her over, upside down, as he checked and she giggled, then he tucked her
under his arm and sketched a salute.
Marianne wriggled out of his grasp and landed gracefully on her feet. She drew herself up
and thumped her chest, clenched right hand to her heart and then held out, arm bent at the elbow
in a Roman salute, which the Human Rangers had adopted. Then she smiled and raced out the
door, around her dad, who looked thoughtful.
If he was thoughtful, the Rangers were chilled to their bones. After her father followed
her, Dorza spoke soberly, in Ilshani.
"We take them young, but not that young. And we heal the half-dead ones back up and I
send them out again to-"
When the Commandant could speak again, he said, "Why don't you ta ke another dozen
recruits for me, and stay home for a while? Or take that offer from the Engineers and head up
that project they're putting together? It must be… lonely, being the only one left."
The Last Hunter, Commandant Dorza thought. Almost two dozen empty worlds. The
homeworld and her daughter worlds were cemeteries occupied by the Markov Imperium. My
species did this, out of spite and fear! It hurt like hell, and the only thing that made it bearable
was the thought, 'my species, not my people.'
"You know that the Autocrat's Immortals will keep coming until the job is done. They are
relentless. And to think, there's a Markov proverb, 'Do not stand between a Ranger and his
mission.'" When Old Complications still said nothing, just stared into the crackling fire, Dorza
added, "You'd get to stay around and watch her grow up."
"You fight dirty."
"I learned from the sneakiest son of a bitch in the Galaxy, Teacher."
Old Complications reached out to take the flimsy with Marianne's drawing. He tapped it
meaningfully, then rolled it up and put it into a pouch in his black and yellow tool harness. "You
know that I won't do that, and you know why. I can't hide from them among my human family.
Now, tell me about the mission!" He leaned forward, eager.
 "Yeah, well, about that… A Scout researcher has gone missing, on Earth. His base of
operations is under a lake called Michigan, near the city of Chicago." Dorza had brought along
the spicy Markov beer that they both liked, and they drank it up, toasting absent friends, dearest
enemies, and (The Work).

from ‘Marianne’, over twenty years after the previous bit-

It was possible that this not what she was meant to do. Marianne had had her doubts
before, but never like this. She paced the little cell, too restless to sleep, although she needed it.
She feared what dreams would come.
Her great grandparents practiced a monotheistic religion that they had brought with them
from Earth. Apparently, you would know what this 'God' person meant for you to do from the
gifts he had provided you. Perhaps these pointed her in another direction?
But she had always wanted to be a Ranger. To be like her mother and all the recruits she
had trained, and her grandfather, all the others. She was active and restless, frankly, aggressive.
As her father liked to joke, she was a hammer, and "Everything looks like it needs to be bent, or
broken, or pounded into submission. Every kitten looks like it needs rescuing, and every wrong
needs to be righted, right now!"
Marianne smiled, and rubbed at her face. She was so tired and sleepy. She turned around
in the small space, looking around her cell, one more time. Then she curled up on the cot, almost
like a dog, or some other wild thing, a wolf, perhaps.
"I'm tired, Ol' Cee," she muttered, and fell asleep.
***
"I'm not surprised. We climbed the lower slope of Big Rock Candy Mountain today, but
you were also up and down off of my middle back at least half a gross of times," Old
Complications said. The tiger-centaur had three ‘backs’ and four pairs of limbs, three-quarters of
which could be considered legs.
"Nuh-uh! Did not!" A five-year old Marianne squeaked indignantly. “I counted! It was
only 43 times!”
OC made the coughing, chuffing sound that passed for laughter among his kind. There
was a human word for this, in what he privately called the ‘Bastard Tongue’. This human girl-
child was his grandchild-of-the-heart, and she was a blessing.
"Can we have ice cream?" Marianne asked, sleepiness forgotten.
"I'll check with your Mom and Dad, but I think so. How about Fudge Ripple?"
"Yeah!”
***
Marianne woke up as she often did- coming to complete awareness, without giving any
outward sign that she was awake. There was someone outside her door... As she waited, she
thought, idly, how often Ol' Cee had praised her, his 'Little Hunter', for just such quirks. At least
once, she had fooled even him, or perhaps he had merely pretended, pausing at her door before
he had left for the last time.
The old hurt ached again, but it wasn't so bad, as she thought of how Ol' Cee had sent her
a good dream, instead of the nightmares she'd been having.
There was a click, as the door unlocked, and the older man from before rapped on the
door-jam. "Wakey, wakey, wacky galactic super cop. Time for some more questions. Oh, and
breakfast."
Marianne actually smiled, at that.