Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri

Christy Harris stretched as she entered the penthouse suite of The Chateau Duflot. After tossing her floppy hat on the nearby sofa, she made her way to the kitchenette and grabbed a sizeable tumbler from the cabinet. After looking inside the refrigeration unit, she paused. “I just had grape. I think I will go with orange this time,” she muttered as she got out the transparent pitcher and closed the fridge door.

After pouring herself a glass of the sweet juice, she carried both the container and the drink into the main common room. The woman took a sip from her cup before putting both items on the low table in front of the sofa. After sitting on the comfortable couch, she let out a contented sigh.

“Call Coop, voice-only” she commanded the suite’s automated system.

After a pause, a response came from the speakers scattered around the room. “Cooper, here.”

“Heya Coop,” Harris said with a fairly heavy inflection quite distinct from the way she was speaking at dinner. “All done.”

The person on the other end of the discussion also shifted her voice. If anyone with a knowledge of Old Earth dialects had overheard her, they would have realized she had a Britanian intonation. “Christy, how did it go?”

“It went well. Jus’ like we though, she wanted to be wif her sis,” Harris replied.

“Ok, back off on the Belter slang. Even I am having a hard time following you,” Cooper responded.

The young lady giggled when she heard this. “Says the person with the North Folk accent. I just do that to get a rise out of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I’m trying to correct this report from the President before I send it on to Duflot while talking with you,” Cooper retorted. “You know how he gets if there are any grammatical issues. He seems to forget that the documents are drafts typed directly by the head of state herself and not by her secretarial staff.”

“His Highness does have some weird hangups,” Harris noted. “I just think he needs to spend more time with Rose to release his backed-up tensions.”

“Hey, show some respect. He is your grand-sire after all,” Cooper came back absentmindedly.

“Yes, Mom,” Harris responded with a snicker. “Still, he has a lot of hang-ups when it comes to reports. It’s like he has a stick up his butt when it concerns them.”

“That dates back from the time he was very young,” Cooper replied. “He used to double-check his father’s communications from his early teens onward. He saw so many mistakes that he had to rewrite half of them before passing them on to the king. It is weird that the crown prince had to do this, but Alsace-Lorraine couldn’t afford a court scribe. All of their money went to defense since they didn’t want to get gobbled up by the Franks to the west or the Germanics to the east.”

“If Duflot hadn’t been so highly educated, he never would have been turned on his deathbed,” Harris pointed out.

“It wasn’t just his education, it was his literal genius,” Cooper stated. “Plus, it was only through the mages his family had secretly rescued from the Purge that they were able to make the arrangements when he fell ill. So if he had not been in the right place at the right time then he wouldn’t be here today.”

“And neither would you and, in turn, neither would I,” Christy noted.

“I doubt this colony would be here if not for Duflot, but then you and I have discussed that ad nauseum over the centuries,” Cooper replied.

“The only reason you know all of this is because you’re his favorite child,” Harris teased.

“I’m no more his favorite than Simmons is,” Cooper replied in exasperation.

“Ummm hmm, that’s why Simmons is currently aboard Destiny studying a-cent-a two, three, and four while he keeps you at his side,” Harris pointed out. “You could be out there exploring those planets just as well as he is.”

“For the millionth time, he has to keep me here to act as his liaison to the colony,” Cooper retorted. “A male simply would not work because of their gynocentric views.”

“You aren’t the only female member of Stella Sanguine on the planet,” Harris teased. “However, you are one of two starship captains in history. Wouldn’t it be better resource utilization to have you out there exploring and have someone else take over your current role?”

“You’re not saying anything that I haven’t told Christoph over and over,” Cooper replied.

“See, he even lets you use his first name,” Harris teased yet again.

“So, you get to call Tomoko by her first name,” Cooper replied in exasperation. “Isn’t she more important than Duflot?”

“Yes, I get to call Tomoko-SAMA by name, but that’s because she considers you her older sister,” came Harris’s response. “Therefore, I am her niece by her way of thinking. Even so, I have to still refer to her as ‘Lady.’”

Cooper’s sigh could be easily heard through the speakers. “Look, I’m busy and we’re getting nowhere. Could we please get to the reason for your call?”

“Aww, you’re no fun. I want to tease you a little more,” Christy said in a whiny, almost child-like voice.

“You’re lucky that you are cute or I’d be pretty mad at you by now.”

The blonde woman burst into giggles, which lasted for quite a while.

“Okay, okay. The meal went well. Just as we expected, she was reluctant to leave her sister’s side,” Harris continued after her giggles subsided. “That was the reason she wasn’t taking her combat training seriously.”

“Hmmm, she doesn’t want to be parted from her sister,” Cooper said in a teasing manner. “I wonder who she got that from?”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Harris retorted. “As I feared, the addition of the male child into the equation is causing unforeseen difficulties and stress on her.”

“Stop saying I told you so. I believe that this tension might be a good thing for her,” Cooper pointed out. “After all, you were quite stressed when you were eight and you were selected to become a colonist. If anything, I am worried that the anxiety is coming later than it should since she is now twelve.”

“True, but her academic achievements have only recently reached comparable levels from when I was seven,” Harris noted. “Of course, her athletic skills have vastly outstripped my own when I was twelve.”

“The physical abilities are all well within expectations,” Cooper responded. “You were raised in the Belt and you rarely experienced anything greater than a Mars gravity. Luckily, you were under a Martian gee from age nine on and you started getting enough food as soon as you boarded Hope. I hate to think what would have happened to you if you had to continue living on that tiny mining ship without proper nutrition.”

“As for the delay in academic ability, that was due to her family environment,” Harris noted. “As the youngest of six in a wealthy household, she was pampered by the other children as well as the staff. If she hadn’t started applying herself when she did, she would be even further behind. Of course, the Washington tradition of self-reliance would have kicked in when she entered middle school next Year but I think that would have been too late for the program.”

“She’s pretty quick on the uptake, though,” Cooper pointed out. “While consistently oblivious to love and some social cues, she seems well adjusted and optimistic.”

“If anything, she reminds me more of Mary than myself in that respect,“ Christy interjected.

“Mary used to try to make things seem more cheerful and happy than they truly were. She always wanted to protect and cheer you up. She was more concerned about you than for herself.” Cooper’s voice began to waver as she continued. “She was a great big sister.”

“Yeah, Mary was the best,” Harris replied with tears in her eyes. “Okay, enough of this. Let’s get back on the subject at hand.”

“So, overall, what are your thoughts on the success of the project thus far?” Cooper asked.

“I would say that it is working, but there are minor differences despite our constant efforts,” Harris answered. “I still don’t understand why Duflot is doing this. The truth is that I kind of feel sorry for the girl. She’s a sweet kid with a lot of potential on her own without using her as a lab rat.”

“By exposing her to as many of the same life events that you went through as possible, we want to see if we can reproduce your outstanding intellect,” Cooper reminded her. “Plus, if this works, we have her frozen twins. So we will be able to replicate her experiences and bring out the clones’ potential as well.”

“It’s a shame we don’t have any copies of my own embryo, then we could directly test Duflot’s hypothesis the first time around,” Harris noted.

“Unfortunately, we can’t clone and produce embryos beyond the blastocyst stage,” Cooper reminded her. “So we have to make do with your genetic child. Luckily, it seems to be working.”

“Lucky for us, but how lucky is it for the kid?” Harris asked.

“Let’s move on. Has Holly been keeping up her end of the bargain?” Cooper asked with interest.

“Yes, she has,” Harris answered. “She’s been maintaining her distance from the children, as ordered. She has made a few mistakes, but not enough to have an impact on the project.”

“Good,” came Cooper’s answer. “Have Sara provide Holly with another vial of the serum.”

“I’ll give little sis a call as soon as we are done,” Harris responded.

“I still can’t believe that a mother would willingly distance herself from her offspring for such a silly reason,” Cooper said wistfully. “Humans will do anything for eternal youth.”

“So says the woman who’s been walking around for over three hundred years but looks to be in her early twenties,” Harris pointed out jokingly.

“Ahhh, shaddup.”

Harris burst into another fit of giggles. “Just teasing.”

“I know, I know. So any dinner plans?” Cooper asked with interest.

“I think I’m in the mood for Asian.”

“What type?”

“O positive.”

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End of Part One

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