FIRST VICTORY
David Weber
Shadow Tree Tower,
City of Grendel,
Planet Beowulf,
Beowulf System,
March 1846 PD.
“Mother, I don’t think this is a discussion you want to have.”
“Really?” Jennifer Feliciana Benton-Ramirez y Chou’s tone was less than encouraging as she looked over her shoulder at her son.
“Really.” Captain Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou nodded. “I love you, and I love Allison, and I really don’t see this having a good outcome.”
“I’m her mother,” Jennifer pointed out. She turned to face him and crossed her arms, which was not, he thought, a promising change in posture. “This is the sort of conversation mothers and daughters are supposed to have.”
“Oh?” Jacques’ expression was skeptical. “And how well would you have reacted if Grandmother had decided to have the same conversation with you?”
“Your grandmother would never have needed to have this conversation with me.”
Jacques began a quick response, then paused. That might, he acknowledged, actually be true. In fact, he was sure his mother and grandmother would have been on the same page for this topic. Well, half of it, anyway. But . . .
“You may be right about that,” he acknowledged. “But you and Alley aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this one. You and I both know that. And that was true long before Alfred ever appeared on the horizon.”
“I have absolutely nothing against Lieutenant Harrington,” Jennifer said a bit sharply. “In fact, I will be eternally grateful to him, and you know it! And I totally understand why she chose to move in with him afterward. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s remotely wise of her to be . . . tying herself down to just one man when she’s still so young. She can’t possibly know her own heart—know she’s not going to bitterly regret an obviously impulsive decision in the fullness of time. And, grateful to Lieutenant Harrington as I am, and as courageous and decisive as he may be in combat, he isn’t—and never will be—her equal as a physician. Nor is the Star Kingdom the place where her gifts can serve the most people! I refuse to stand by while her infatuation with him makes her throw away her entire life on a backwoods planet where winter lasts over a T-year and the snow is three meters deep! No, and despite what he did for her, he has no business enticing her into creeping off into obscurity that way so he can lock her into an exclusive relationship! She’s not some . . . some trophy for him to drag home and hang on his wall!”
“Mother—!”
Jacques stepped down—hard—on a solar flare of anger that would have been counterproductive, at the very least.
It wasn’t easy.
If there was a gene for stubbornness, his mother had inherited it from both her parents. Unfortunately, she seemed unable to recognize that . . . or the fact that she’d passed that same stubbornness along to her own offspring.
Especially to her daughter.
The occasional fireworks between those two personalities had been lively since the day Allison learned to talk. Over the past few years, they’d become downright spectacular, and he couldn’t understand how his mother had let things get to this point. Whatever else she might be, Jennifer was almost frighteningly intelligent, and she loved both her children dearly. So why couldn’t she see what she was doing to her relationship with her daughter? She’d been unhappy with his own decision to go into the Biological Survey Corps instead of medicine, but she’d accepted the inevitable with remarkably good grace in his case. Their family’s generations-long commitment to the fight against genetic slavery had probably had something to do with that, but how could she not realize that Allison’s determination to live her life on her own terms was at least as strong as his had ever been? Or not realize how disastrously any effort to browbeat Alley into submission had to fail?
And then there was Alfred. How could his mother not see how any attempt to force Allison to choose between family and Alfred Harrington had to end? Where it damned well should end? If there was a single man in the explored galaxy worthy of his sister, it was Alfred, and whatever his mother might think, Alfred would never see Allison as a “trophy”!
“Mother,” he said after a moment, gathering up his uniform cap, “everyone makes mistakes. If you push this, it’ll be one of the worst of your life. Yes, I care very deeply about Alfred, and that may color my own thinking. But the one thing Alley isn’t is ‘infatuated’ with Alfred Harrington, and there’s no way in hell he—or anyone else in the universe—could force her into a monogamous relationship. Trust me on this. And having said that, any decision she makes about where she goes in her life is up to her. You taught her that. Of course, at the time, you assumed she’d be smart enough to make the same decisions you would. But she’s not going to do that, and I’m afraid you’ll just have to live with who she grew up to be, however deeply you may disagree with the choices she makes. If you can’t see that, this isn’t going to end well.”
Jennifer glared at him. The dark brown, almond eyes she shared with both her children were agates, and her lips were a thin, unyielding line.
“I love you,” he said as he turned toward the door. “I love you both. So, please, listen to me.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” she told him in a liquid-helium voice.
He started to say something more, then shook his head and stepped through the opening door.
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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