was his idea. He was Erie's representative on the CU legislature, and for years he argued that people from established colonies should be able to colonize, not just people from Earth. Finally the Department of Colonization agreed with him - and then it gave the leadership of the colony to your parents instead of him. They told my dad it was a political compromise."
"What did your dad think about that?" I asked.
"Well, I just met you," Gretchen said. "I don't know what sort of language you can handle."
"Oh. Well, that's not good," I said.
"I don't think he hates your parents," Gretchen said, quickly. "It's not like that. He just assumed that after everything he did, he'd get to lead the colony. 'Disappointment' doesn't even begin to cover it. Although I wouldn't say he likes your parents, either. He got a file on them when they were appointed and then spent the day muttering to himself as he read it."
"I'm sorry he's disappointed," I said. In my head I was wondering if I needed to write Gretchen off as a possible friend; one of those stupid "our houses are at war" scenarios. The first person my age I meet, going to Roanoke, and we were already in different camps.
But then she said, "Yeah, well. At a certain point he got a little stupid about it. He was comparing himself to Moses, like, Oh, I've led my people to the promised land but I can't enter myself" - and here she made little hand movements to accentuate the point - "and that's when I decided he was overreacting. Because we're going, you know. And he's on your parents' advisory council. So I told him to suck it up."
I blinked. "You actually used those words?" I said.
"Well, no," Gretchen said. "What I actually said was I wondered if I kicked a puppy if it would whine more than he did." She shrugged. "What can I say. Sometimes he needs to get over himself."
"You and I are so totally going to be best friends," I said.
"Are we?" she said, and grinned at me. "I don't know. What are the hours?"
"The hours are terrible," I said. "And the pay is even worse."
"Will I be treated horribly?" she asked.
"You will cry yourself to sleep on a nightly basis," I said.
"Fed crusts?" she asked.
"Of course not," I said. "We feed the crusts to the dogs."
"Oh, very nice," she said. "Okay, you pass. We can be best friends."
"Good," I said. "Another life decision taken care of."
"Yes," she said, and then moved away from the rail. "Now, come on. No point wasting all this attitude on ourselves. Let's go find something to point and laugh at."
Phoenix Station was a lot more interesting after that.
PART I Chapter Seven
Here's what I did when my dad took me down to Phoenix: I visited my own grave.
Clearly, this needs an explanation.
I was born and lived the first four years of my life on Phoenix. Near where I lived, there is a cemetery. In that cemetery is a headstone, and on that headstone are three names: Cheryl Boutin, Charles Boutin and Zoe Boutin.
My mother's name is there because she is actually buried there; I remember being there for her funeral and seeing her shroud put into the ground.
My father's name is there because for many years people believed his body was there. It's not. His body lies on a planet named Arist, where he and I lived for a time with the Obin. There is a body buried here, though, one that looks like my father and has the same genes as he does. How it got there is a really complicated story.
My name is there because before my father and I lived on Arist, he thought for a time that I had been killed in the attack on Covell, the space station he and I had lived on. There was no body, obviously, because I was still alive; my father just didn't know it. He had my name and dates carved into the headstone before he was told I was still around.
And so there you have it: three names, two bodies, one grave. The only place where my biological family exists, in any form, anywhere in the universe.
In one sense, I'm an orphan, and profoundly so: My mother and father were only children, and their parents were dead before I was born. It's possible I have second cousins twice removed somewhere on Phoenix, but I've never met them and wouldn't know what to