Notes: All right, back to plot! We're closing in on a finale here, darlins :) Exciting!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

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Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

Picture by Frank Tunder 

Kieron ended up spending the next four days well out of theway.

He wasn’t deliberately setting out to isolate himself. Hewasn’t getting lost in a sea of his own thoughts or a maelstrom of emotionsthat he didn’t want to face and could barely look at anyway. No, overall, hewas happy. His family was coming together; there was hope that they were goingto escape from Hadrian’s Colony without having to wait for the storm season topass; and the people he loved most in the universe were safe.

Kieron understood that at heart he was a simple creature. Hehad never been a man of wild hopes or big dreams. Those were for bigger, wilderpeople whose wants couldn’t be contained in small spaces. Undoubtedly histherapist or, more likely Elanus, would have a lot to say about that if heactually said it out loud, but there was no point. Kieron was content with theway things were. He liked his life. He liked the people in it. And he hadlearned definitively at this point that chasing answers from the past only ledto pain. All Kieron wanted to do at this point was live in the present.

He didn’t quite trust himself to look forward to what wouldhappen after they got off Hadrian’s Colony yet. It was probably going toinvolve a lot of the talking that he didn’t want to do. But if Elanus asked, hewould do it with a glad heart because nothing was more important to him thanbeing healthy, safe, and sane so that he could take care of the ones that heloved.

Part of staying healthy, safe, and sane was knowing whenlistening in on certain conversations was only going to drive him up the walland exiting them.

It wasn’t that Kieron wasn’t smart, but he was not smartenough to follow the math that Elanus and their two daughters were banteringaround. Most of the time, there wasn’t even any conversation involved at all,just discussion between Elanus and his implant and the girls in their harddrives. It was a way of being together and solving problems collaboratively ona level that Kieron had never experienced before and, quite frankly, didn’treally care to.

He wasn’t able to talk with Pol and Xilinn much, and evenRyu gave over the com so that Lizzie could focus all of her energies on helpingestablish trajectories, weight limits, and weather reports. That meant Kieranended up spending a lot of time with Bobby. He didn’t mind. He liked it,actually, being around someone who made him remember that he wasn’t the mostinexperienced person here.

“Those are some good-looking legs,” he told Bobby on thesecond day out from help’s impending arrival. It was raining outside. Naturally,it was raining outside, but the worst of the lightning storms had passed, andthe forecast was as good as it was going to get for the time being. Kieron, asmuch as he loved Catie, had grown absolutely sick of being locked in herinterior, and he could tell Bobby was stir-crazy as well. So they’d takenthemselves for a walk, a walk that necessitated Bobby, well, work on hiswalking.

[Are you sure?] Bobby tapped out. [They feel weird.]

You haven’t done a lot of bipedal stuff yet,” Kieron toldhim. “I think it’ll probably feel weird for a while, but they look great. Youwant to give them a try?”

[I guess so,] Bobby said. He took a few tentative steps,stumbled, then darted back to lean against Kieron’s legs. [I don’t think I cando it.]

Kieron smiled and pet the little robot on top of the head.“I know you can,” he told him. “You’re so clever. You’re so…” What was the wordElanus had used to describe him? “Protean,” he said after a moment. “Adaptable.Just work on it a little more, and soon walking around on two legs will be likenothing to you.”

[You make it look easy,] Bobby said, with a bit of adesultory echo to his taps.

“It’s really hard for human babies,” Kieron replied. “Ittakes them months and months to learn how to stand, much less walk. You’redoing a great job.”

[Thank you,] Bobby replied.

“You ready to try again?”

[Yeah, okay,] and he did. This time he made it five stepsbefore tripping. The next time he took twenty. After that, he skipped rightahead to running, and it turned out being able to leap over the barriers infront of him was a lot more intuitive for Bobby than having to stumble over orgo around them.

[This is easy!] he tapped out as he ran in literal circlesaround Kieron. [I love hydraulics.]

“Just wait until you try out some springs,” Kieron repliedwith a grin, which meant of course Bobby had to try springs instead ofhydraulics, which led to some rather hilarious pratfalls as he adjusted thetensile strength. Eventually, though, he was able to leap almost fifteen feetthrough the air, land on a single limb, and turn flips all in the space of acouple of hours.

“So cool,” Kieron applauded at the end of it, then frownedas he realized his hands had practically gone numb from the chill. “We betterhead back in, though, before Elanus wonders where we’ve gone off to.”

[Okay,] Bobby said. They returned to the ship, where sureenough, Elanus had lightened his trance state so that he’d know the moment theycame in.

“You’re soaked through, this is stupid,” he said the momentKieron stepped over Catie’s threshold. “This is not the place to get soaked.What are we going to do if you get pneumonia? Are you insane?”

“That’s not how you get pneumonia,” Kieron pointed out as heshucked off the poncho that Catie had thoughtfully made for him.

“Oh, so now you’re the expert on how people get pneumonia onHadrian’s Colony, huh? For all you know, it is carried in the water. Maybeit’s a seasonal variety of illness that can only be dredged up by the force ofwinds stirring waters from miles below sea level. You don’t know.”

“Neither do you,” Kieron said, but he let Elanus fuss overhim while Bobby soaked the attention up like a sponge. It was nice. It washomey. It was exactly what he wanted.

When Lizzie and all her passengers finally came into closeorbit around Hadrian’s Colony two days afterward, Kieron was tentatively readyto accept that this was going to be a good thing. That something wonderful, infact, was happening to them. Their rescue was here. Their family had come forhim, for all of them.

“Can you see us?” Lizzie asked.

“You shine briiight,” Catie told her. “So briiiight!” The refithad done a lot to boost her signal. Lizzie didn’t just appear like some randomobject in the night sky on Catie’s sensors; she blazed like a close contactstar.

“Approximately five hours and you’ll be able to drop theparts,” Elanus said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Another fifteen hoursof refits—”

“More like eighteen, Daddeee,” Catie said.

“To hell with it, rounded up to twenty. Twenty hours ofrefits, and we could be off by tomorrow afternoon.”

They looked at each other and grinned, and then—

“We fucking see you people now” came over Catie’s wide-openradio transmitter.