Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

An excerpt from the forthcoming Rosalie’s World, Volume Four of the Ngu Family Saga

 

Our nation was built by pioneers—pioneers
who accepted untold risks in pursuit of freedom…
—Ted Strickland

The two men cast long shadows across the sandy shoreline they walked beside. It was late in the day and they were very nearly home.

Each man wore a light utility spacesuit and slung a helmet from his left hand. They kept their right hands free to reach their weapons. There were things in that inlet, forty-foot things that, given the encouragement of a shadow on the surface, would surge up out of the water and snatch their prey, nearly cutting it in half with a powerful jaw full of long, ugly, serrated teeth. They’d both watched it happen to deer-like animals. Their weapons were formidable, as they needed to be: one man carried an antique but potent .45 magnum automatic pistol, a family legacy, the other, the latest model force-projector, a one-way recoiless kinetic energy producer.

Together, they cut a heroic, swash-buckling image, but their mission had been a long one, and they were much too tired to swagger. Morgan Trask, originally a Newfoundlander and former Olympic skating champion, the young man carrying the force projector, felt his heart lift when he caught sight of the log cabin in the center of a copse of 1000-foot trees that no botanist had named yet. There was smoke issuing from the peculiar twisted metal chimney he had installed, himself. It was meant to cool the smoke before it was released amidst the trees.

Finally, one of his children, playing with the others in the meadow before the cabin, saw them coming, gave a joyful shout, and started running toward them. Julia would be seven, now. Little Ardie, three, tried her best to keep up and got some help when she was scooped up by her cousin, fifteen-year-old Tieve, the daughter of Wilson Ngu—the former Pallatian with his great-grandfather’s pistol on his thigh. Tieve adopted a more sedate pace alongside her stepmother Jasmeen and Wilson’s sister (Morgan’s wife) Llyra who carried a baby in her arms.

Morgan wondered where his eldest, ten-year-old Emerson was.

Both men embraced their wives and hugged their children. Wilson’s family, though smaller, was just as dear to him as Morgan’s was to him. He’d more or less grown up with Jasmeen Khalidov, who had been his sister’s companion and figure-skating coach since Llyra was six years old. After ”sowing his wild oats” in his teens and early twenties, Wilson had finally realized that Jasmeen, the daughter of Chechan colonists on Mars, was the girl for him. Tieve’s mother Fallon, one of his romances, had been murdered tragically, right before his eyes, by eco-terrorists in the Moon before Tieve was born. Jasmeen was the only mother she had ever known. The little girl’s first full sentence had been spoken with a Chechan accent.

“Yo, Dad!” Morgan glanced up when he heard his son’s voice shouting at him. It had come from somewhere beside the house. A strange sight greeted the asteroid hunter: Emerson sat astride a strange, two-legged beast they’d never seen before, which he galloped expertly over to them. He controlled it with a bridle, by way of a bit between its teeth.“This is Topper,” he proclaimed, “my cayuse!”

The blood seemed to rush from Llyra’s face, and Morgan was afraid she’d drop the baby. He wrapped his big arms around both of them and sat down on the ground. “I think it’s okay, darlin’ girl. He seems t’know what he’s about.”

“But—” Llyra almost whimpered.

“Just look at the lad!” Morgan crossed his ankles and held Baby Jasmeen in his lap where she seemed perfectly content. “Y’know, when I was about Emerson’s age, I had me own secret accomplishments and concerns. Not far through a spruce forest from our home, there was a subarctic swamp. If me mother had known, she would have fainted dead away. I built a raft and poled m’self around in grand fashion. One day, I picked up a small piece of wood floating beside the raft, and bingo! a leech which had been resting on its underside latched onto me index finger, which instantly turned dead white. I shook it away—which shouldn’t have worked—and was right as rain.”

Llyra’s eyes seemed huge. “Did you ever go back to that swamp again?”

“Bedad, of course I did! It became me favorite playground—though as I say, if me mother had known… ”

“but I just think—” she started.

“I know, m’dear, that y’didn’t grow up in absolute safety. What about those flying-belt trips out into the wilderness, half a world away, just so you could skate on frozen ponds?”