Tibault & Daughter

The flyer sped over a landscape much changed since Tibault had been a boy. It had taken two and a half centuries of planetary engineering, but at last life had gained a momentum all its own. Ribbons of vivid green linked spreading circular farms that dotted the plain from the mountains to the sea. The edges of these corridors were not boundaries hard and fast; life was leaking rapidly into every crevice and pool of this once lifeless world. Home looked less and less like the pioneer world it had so recently been, and every year resembled more the picture-book illustrations of the distant Core Worlds.

It felt good not to be doing the flying. Tibault had time to think. He took in the scenery. In some ways he didn’t regret the transformation overtaking the world; some of his best friends were farmers.

He looked across at the young woman next to him, not a glance, but a long look, loving, almost awestruck.

‘What?’ the woman demanded without turning her face towards him. ‘What?’

‘I’m just looking at you.’ He smiled and kept looking.

‘Why?’

‘I’m allowed to look at my girl if I want to aren’t I?’

She fell silent, just a suggestion of a smile on her full young lips. She looked so much like her mother at the same age. Time and again Tibault caught himself like this, astonished by the similarities between the love of his life and her only daughter. His Little One had grown up to be beautiful, and not some shy country girl, but a confident woman.

He scratched his stubbly face and looked down at his loose-fitting old clothes; then he glanced again at his daughter. She was dressed more for getting the attention of boys than for going to work, all skin-tight fabrics and curves. It had to be admitted without bitterness that she was her mother’s daughter.

The flyer banked sharply and Tibault turned his head ground-wards, watching for a few seconds the traffic on a long straight roadway far below. Tibault recognised the route, it was the 119; it ran three hundred kilometres from the coast to the Three City Hub, the heart of the old colony settlements.

‘I bet they get a lot of tractors holding up the traffic down there these days’. He spoke quietly and his daughter showed no sign of having heard him.

Tibault sighed. The novelty of having time to think was wearing off.

Frederick had become an engineer. Fair enough. He had always been interested in how things worked. He had loved helping on the old ground cars and flyers from the first moment he was big enough to pass a spanner. Still, it had come as a bit of a blow when he said no to his Uncle Vincent’s offer of a job; Vince had expected Fred to jump at the chance of getting into the “re-cycling” trade, from one night to the next there was no knowing what vehicles were going to come into the shop.

But no, Fred had gone and got all of his exams and he’d joined The Fleet. He was a Naval Engineer Second Class now; seeing other worlds, other systems. He hadn’t been home in three years.

Leonard, three years younger than Fred, hadn’t had his older brother’s fascination for motors. He had always been a student, hard-working and diligent. It hadn’t mattered how much Tibault had tried, he had always had the impression that Lenny had wanted to be at his books or in that rat-infested library in the middle of town.

Lenny’s mother had given up on him in the end. Oh, she loved the boy, but knew that he’d never stay in the family trade. He went and got himself a job at the starport, that drain that sucked down talent from all over the provinces.

Lenny became an official, used his grandmother’s surname, and had, by all accounts, changed his accent to fit his position. He had come to his mother’s funeral, but he had hardly a word for anyone; he barely shook his father’s hand.

It was Tobias though who had really hurt his father. Tibault had cried stinging tears; his body had been wracked by sobs.

When Toby had been little he had been his father’s shadow, he had had one hero and that was his father, one ambition, to be like his father in all things. ‘That boy’s as dead to me as his mother is’ Tibault had said to his daughter when they had heard the news.

Tobias had joined the Civil Guard; he worked as a policeman now, out in the mining colonies, or so they’d heard; ‘No doubt breaking up union meetings’ Tibault had said to Vince. Some of their best friends were workers.

‘We’re nearly there Dad.’

Emily’s voice brought Tibault swiftly from his darkening reverie. He wiped his eyes, a finger and thumb drawn together across closed lids. It was nearly time to go to work. He reached across and patted his daughter’s knee.

‘I’m really glad to have you along with me girl. It’s all worked out fine.’

The flyer hummed smoothly as Emily landed it perfectly in the dust of a narrow street. She turned to her father and smiled that meltingly beautiful smile.

‘Well it’s not like you could bring Uncle Vince is it? And someone’s got to look after you.’

‘You’re right there child. Let’s go to work.’

And the way Emily ran the job that day filled her old man with pride. She had had the security guard kneel down in front of her and take the barrel of her blaster in his mouth. That boy had sweated. They had all danced to Emily’s tune that day, and no-one had been in any real danger.

‘I love those little country banks’ Tibault had laughed afterwards, and he had known that they were just at the start of a great partnership.