Arkwright by Allen Steele

Author:Allen Steele
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466886438
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2016-02-29T16:00:00+00:00

10

Grandma Kate had aged well for a woman in her eighties who’d never taken retrotherapy. Although she’d undergone the usual geriatric treatments available to the elderly, including cardiovascular nanosurgery and organ-clone transplants, genetic revitalization had come along too late for it to be effective for a woman of her years. So unlike her children, Kate Skinner looked her age, but nonetheless, she managed to get around, albeit slowly and carefully.

Matt and his mother met Grandma when she arrived at the airport. She was the last person to come off the plane, and once she endured the indignity of being helped down the stairs by a flight attendant, she gratefully took a seat in the two-wheel mobil that had been carried in the G8’s belly compartment. Once in the chair, though, she returned to her old self. The customs official who’d given Matt a hassle a few months earlier quailed before the old woman who wasn’t about to let him waste her time by opening each of her suitcases, and even her daughter-in-law knew better than to keep her waiting long at the curb for the van she’d borrowed from the space center to take her to the hotel. Kate didn’t suffer fools gladly.

To Matt’s surprise, though, Grandma treated him with a little more tenderness. She insisted that he ride with her in the back of the van, and once she’d dispensed with the small talk, she turned her attention to her grandson.

“So you took a job here, after all.” Not a question; a statement of fact.

“I didn’t have much choice, Grandma. The plane ticket was one way.”

“I know. I bought it, didn’t I?” A tight-lipped smile. “You didn’t need a handout from me, kiddo. You needed a chance at a fresh start. Ben tells me you’ve done pretty well with it too.”

“He has, Kate.” Jill turned her head slightly without taking her gaze from the road. “I couldn’t have done without Matt. He’s done everything from writing news releases to managing press conferences to booking flights for reporters. Everything you’d want from a good right-hand man.”

Matt said nothing. His mother was exaggerating; his first few weeks in the media relations department had been a train wreck, and even now he was still committing the occasional gaffe. Yet if she wanted to give Grandma a good report, he wasn’t about to argue.

“Are you enjoying the work?” Grandma asked.

“Yes, I am.” About this, he didn’t have to lie. “I’ve learned a lot, and I think I’ve got a better appreciation of what the project is all about.”

“Do you really?” She seemed to study him. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

He decided not to reveal his lingering doubts about the feasibility of terraforming a planet and populating it with children raised by robots. “I think Galactique will get there,” he replied, and he hoped she’d be satisfied to let it go at that.

Apparently, she was, because she only nodded and shifted her gaze to the rain forest they were driving through. Yet the conversation wasn’t finished.

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