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Book 2: Chapter 65: Grandpa
Book 2: Chapter 65: Grandpa
Book 2: Chapter 65: Grandpa
Bob
January 2195
Delta Eridani
Archimedes hovered like a nervous father as Belinda cleaned up her new pup. Buster smiled at him, but I could see an edge of irritation as well.
It’s the sacred duty of every parent to drive their kids crazy. Especially when they become grandparents. I grinned at the thought of my mother and father as grandparents, doing their best to make Andrea and Alaina insane. Then I had to wipe my eyes as the thought brought back a cascade of family memories. A quick frame-jack allowed me to get it together without missing anything.
Belinda handed the pup to her mother-in-law and started cleaning herself. Diana rocked the baby for a few moments—very likely another universal—then smiled at Archimedes.
It was a picture-postcard moment, if you could ignore the bat-ears and pig snouts and fur. And I wanted, more than anything I’d wanted in a long time, to be able to share in it. Archimedes and Buster would have been fine, but Diana would go screeching to the elders at the first sign of a drone. Damn, I disliked her.
In his forties, now, Archimedes still showed exceptional good health. He was, of course, the first generation of Deltans to grow up with the improved nutrition that The Bawbe’s inventions had brought to the tribe. But even so, he seemed to be aging slowly for a Deltan.
I thought of pestering Bill again about the androids, but he had so many projects on the go, not the least of which was the terraforming of Ragnarök. Bill was good-natured about it, but I had to believe that I was being a bit of a pain.
Just the same, he said he was close. A decade or two at most. It just wasn’t a priority. I suppose I could offer to help out, but realistically the Deltans and the armaments project still occupied most of my time. And anyway, no one likes a kibitzer.I pulled out of the surveillance drone, and picked another that was spying on Caerleon, the new Deltan village. Caerleon was situated in another of the old abandoned village sites—not surprising, since whatever made it a good location the first time would still hold true. With the reduction in gorilloid populations and alteration in gorilloid behavior, the village was a good deal safer now. I smiled sadly at the thought. That was the result of my efforts, and they couldn’t take that away from me.
Caerleon sat at the top of a rise, barely classifiable as a hill. But the thin soil prevented trees from growing there, resulting in a nice open space. Good for living, and easy to defend.
I found myself constantly worried, though, about relations between Caerleon and Camelot. The establishment of the second village had been peaceful in that no one got stabbed on the way out. But the acrimony had been strong, and tensions still ran high between the two villages. It boggled my mind that so soon after almost becoming extinct, the Deltans had managed to develop into some kind of cold war mentality. The real problem seemed to be that most of the residents of Caerleon were in the adolescent age range, and apparently felt a need to prove something.
The antagonism of the Caerleon Deltans concerned me enough, in fact, that I’d set up a surveillance system that would warn me if a significant number of them started a march on Camelot. I was probably just being paranoid, though. I hoped. ???????