Red Planet Run by Dana Stabenow

Author:Dana Stabenow [Stabenow, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781936666270
Google: 0t1GO1Cm8q4C
Amazon: B0061YABOY
Publisher: IB Dave's Library
Published: 2011-10-31T07:00:00+00:00

“Whew,” Paddy said, and Sean looked pained.

“I warned you.” I told of the evening Caleb came calling and found me skating alone on the tiny lake above my house in the Big Rock Candy Mountains on the South Cap, of the orchids he seduced me with. As I drew their outlines, I could see their burnt-orange blush, could smell their bittersweet fragrance. Cattelya labiata biensientes. October orchids.

“Dad was a gardener?” Paddy blurted. A tiny smile curled the corners of Sean’s mouth.

“An amateur one. He specialized in orchids. He used up most of his baggage allowance to bring them upstairs.”

“Most of?” Sean said. “What did the rest go for?”

“A Remington scattergun. Your father was always practical.” I laughed, surprising myself and, from their expression, the twins as well. “I was furious with him. At that time there were no weapons allowed on the habitat. My orders. But, unbeknownst to me, Helen and Frank had sent Caleb up as my bodyguard.”

“Bodyguard?”

I shrugged. “There was some trouble with Luddites and other crazies. Helen and Frank were worried, so they sent Caleb up to keep an eye on me. I thought I was getting a new security supervisor, when in reality I was getting my very own personal Doberman pinscher.”

“Mom?”

“What, Paddy?”

She hesitated only a moment. “What’s skating?”

I must have gaped at her, because she flushed, but she continued to stare at me challengingly out of my eyes and her father’s face. “You said Dad caught you skating. What’s that?”

I floundered. “Skate on the ice, uh, on metal blades attached to boots. It’s a sport, on Terra. There are different moves, jumps, spins… Paddy, I know I told you about my skating.” She remained uncomprehending. I shifted uncomfortably. “I, uh, well, I even made it to the Anchorage Olympics.”

Her eyes widened and she sat up straight. I held up a hand. “I didn’t win; I barely placed.” Ruefully, I added, “Even then, I didn’t have a whole lot of finesse. I was too big and too slow and I had a fatal tendency to skate from jump to jump. I doubt that I would have made the Olympic team at all if Harriet Dabney hadn’t fallen three times in the nationals.”

“Yes, you would,” Sean said. He shifted beneath our stare. “At Leif’s naming, he said something about your being in the Olympics,” he mumbled. “I was curious. I had Archy look it up.” He raised his head and said earnestly, all embarrassment aside, “Archy has you on tape. You were good.”

Of all the compliments I had ever received in my life, that was unquestionably the sweetest. Paddy’s expression was harder to define, and took me a moment to recognize. It was pride. And she was looking at me.

“So Dad caught you skating,” Sean prompted, “and he brought you orchids. Then what?”

At first I wasn’t going to tell them, and then I thought, Why not? It was the truth. “And then we practiced making you.”

Sean blushed to the roots of his hair, but Paddy demanded, “And all he did was bring you flowers? Boy, Mom, you were easy.

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