The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [79]
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55
Patrick Fitzpatrick III
As the Gypsy flew off bearing a message from King Peter, Patrick could hardly believe he was actually going back to visit his grandmother. Voluntarily. He remarked on the impossible turns his life had taken.
“Some people just start out going in the wrong direction,” Zhett teased. “You were so spun around you didn’t even know you had a Guiding Star, much less where to look for it.”
“That’s not how my grandmother will see it.” His lackluster parents were living in obscurity away from Earth, but since the Battleaxe had believed in him and wooed them to let her take him under her wing, Patrick had been raised in the upper crust of Earth society. Frankly, he had grown up to be a spoiled and ungrateful little snot. If the Battleaxe had ever suspected he would one day run off to join the Roamers, she might have drowned him at birth.
And now he had to convince her to leave the Hansa and endorse the Confederation government. Patrick prayed she would at least give him two minutes to explain himself. After all, the King had chosen Patrick to be one of the most important ambassadors in the Spiral Arm.
“My grandmother is a smart and sensible woman,” he had told King Peter when he responded to the original request. “She can’t be blind to what Chairman Wenceslas is doing, but she won’t take drastic action for purely altruistic reasons. However, she may jump at the chance to be important again. She hates being retired.”
“Use your discretion, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Promise her anything you think is reasonable in order to secure her cooperation. She can pave the way for Earth to join the Confederation.”
“I’ll flatter her, call on her patriotism . . . but she’ll make up her own mind,” Patrick said.
Once they had packed, refueled, and said their farewells to Del Kellum and the skyminers on Golgen, Zhett piloted the Gypsy. Although the space yacht’s systems were state-of-the-art, she still complained about the inefficient and non-intuitive setup. “We should have taken a Roamer ship.”
“But this yacht was owned by the former Hansa Chairman. It’s got access codes and pass routines that’ll let us slip through Earth security without raising any alarms. Nothing trumps that.” He frowned to himself. “Besides, I did promise to bring this ship back after I . . . borrowed it.”
He sounded more confident than he felt, and he knew that Zhett could see through him. “I bet your grandmother’s not as big a monster as you make her out to be, Fitzie.”
He gave her a wry smile. “You two should get along just fine. You have a lot in common.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t pretend for a minute you meant that as a compliment.”
Upon reaching Earth, he transmitted the stored authorization identifiers from Maureen’s private log. As they approached what he had once called home, Patrick took over the controls and flew the Gypsy over the Rocky Mountains, zeroing in on the former Chairman’s private mansion. He landed on an empty pad outside the house, hoping his grandmother wasn’t in the middle of some diplomatic reception or cocktail party with wealthy industrialists.
Jonas, Maureen’s longtime personal assistant, acknowledged their arrival on the comm, his voice a barely restrained squawk. As Patrick and Zhett emerged from the ship, smiling hopefully, the old woman marched out onto the deck alone. Patrick studied her expression and let the silence hang for just a moment, surprised that she hadn’t taken charge of the conversation already.
Before either he or the old Battleaxe could say anything, Zhett broke the ice by extending her hand. “You must be Maureen Fitzpatrick. Very pleased to meet you. Patrick has told me so much about his grandmother.”
Maureen turned to her with