Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3) by Robin Banks

Author:Robin Banks [Banks, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-08-27T18:30:00+00:00

When morning comes, I know what I’ve got to do.

I hit the kitchen first. Raj is already up, looking unusually unhappy. I nudge him away from the counter and take over the cooking.

“Is Alya up?”

“She went straight to her office.”

“Is she ok?”

“Yes and no. She’s not taken this route thing terribly well.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll fix it.”

He eyeballs me. “Beg pardon?”

“I have an idea.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“I’ll tell you if it works.”

When I’ve made up a bunch of blinis, I load them on a plate.

“Can you fix the rest?”

“What? You trust me with that?”

I shrug. “You’re the one who’s gotta eat them. You and the guys, if they turn up. I’m going to Alya’s office. Give us a half hour, ok?”

“Alright, I guess.” He looks stunned, but I don’t know at which bit.

I walk down to Alya’s office, knock, and barge in without waiting for a response. She scowls for a second, then she sees the plate in my hand.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”

“I did the best I could with the available data.”

“What?”

“I didn’t have enough information to get it right. I did my best. Nobody could have done any better. Nobody did, in fact.”

“Kid, I know that.”

“It’s not my fault I got it wrong.”

“Of course it isn’t!”

“You can’t blame me for getting it wrong.”

“I had no intention of doing that!”

“And for precisely the same reasons you can’t blame yourself either.”

She’s about to say something when her brain catches on. I can practically hear the cogs grinding. After a few moments, she nods.

“Yeah. You’re probably going to have to keep telling me that, though.”

“I know. Now eat your fucking food.”

“But…”

“I made it for you.”

“That’s unfair.”

“It’s the last of Kolya’s jam. I can eat it all if you want.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

She gets down to eating, though. When I reach out to take a blini she threatens to stab me with her fork, so I guess she likes them well enough. When she’s finished I take the plate off her.

“How bad is it?”

She shrugs. “It is what it is. We’re almost certainly going to miss one, probably two, but we’re also almost certainly going in the right direction now. Or not. We can only do our best. If this keeps happening we may have to switch to Raj’s backup plan, but it’s not time for that yet.”

“Did he manage to reorganize his schedule?”

“Yeah. He might have pissed off a couple of people. Everyone acts so fake around him that there’s no knowing if they’re offended by his absence or relieved at not having to cater for him. He’ll try to make it up to them on the way back, if that’s the way we end up going. Don’t worry about it: it won’t help anyway. And yes, I’m trying to do the same. We’ve scheduled a few stops, but it’s going to be a long haul. Are you going to be ok?”

“On a ship with two of my three favorite people? I think I’ll manage.

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