Homesick

Ian held the ornate, china teacup to his lips, enjoying the bright blue sky beyond his study window. The glass was original, old enough that its ripples distorted the scene beyond. The village was not crowded that day, but a steady stream of light traffic rumbled by on the cobbled street. He studied the overhanging thatch of the roof. The tar work was holding up nicely, but the sun and rain were always at work. He admired the evenness of the overhang. Even after a year, there were no loose pieces of straw dangling below. It looked like a clean trim of a little boy’s bangs.

He could hear Angela shuffling cards at the table. He lingered next to his father’s books, trying to remember the essence of each old volume. At his request, Angela had taken the photo of his grandfather out of the album and displayed it in a frame on his writing desk. He looked at it for a moment, letting his mind reflect.

“You up for a game?” Angela asked, drawing him back.

“Yeah, go on then. We’ll play what you like.”

He sat across from her and set his cup down on the table, treating it with the respect he would real china.

“One of your friends from the pub called ’round yesterday. Alex, I think he said his name was.”

“Alex Ross, yeah, I remember him,” he chuckled. “Not much of a snooker player.”

“He’s running a sponsored site on the net. He wants to feature you’re mission apparently.”

“Funny, I always thought he didn’t like me. I guess they’re coming out of the woodwork now, aren’t they?”

She continued to shuffle the cards, as if needing to keep her hands busy. “I wish you wouldn’t always turn down offers like that, Pet. It’s not like you’ll be news forever, you know. You might do well to take advantage of some of it.” She paused, glancing at him. “I mean, don’t let the Captain steal all the glory.”

He looked at her, annoyed and a little surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought she was.”

“Well, the air strike is all over the news and we hear about her every few words!”

“Well, that’s not her fault. And she never authorized the strike in the first place, assuming you want to call it that.”

“But she is Captain,” Angela pressed. “And, if that’s true, she’s getting entirely too much credit if it wasn’t her idea. And, of course, now that’s the big story, nobody’s talking about you fighting the aliens anymore.”

“Now that she did endorse, and she did a good job of it, too! If the news media got the idea I masterminded it just because I had a bit of a row with one of them on the way out, that’s not my fault either, now is it?”

She shrugged. “But she’s always going to be in the news anyway because she’s a pouf!”

Ian had picked up his cup again, but at that he set it down hard and narrowed his eyebrows.

“Well, you don’t have to take offense, Luv. It’s not like everybody doesn’t know. I mean that is why they sent her, isn’t it?”

“Where do you come by that?” he asked in genuine surprise.

“We all know she’s a token!” Angela laughed. “She’s just a doctor, and she’d have been an unemployed doctor at that before you came along. You should have been captain, or at least Scott should have been. Buds is nothing more than window dressing to keep the bleeding hearts happy!”

Ian started to protest, but Angela gave him no room.

“And she does sooo love the attention, now doesn’t she? Just look at the way she parades about with that bizarre friend of hers! Do you know how many times the press interviewed that girl? Why, it’s hard to find anything weird she doesn’t do! Now they’re saying she’s a fortune teller or a witch or something.”

Ian sighed. “Even so, what the press chooses to paint the net with isn’t up to Sally. And she’s no figurehead either.”

“Sally?” she said, startled. “Oh, it’s Sally now, is it? Be careful, Pet. She may try to chat you up on a long voyage and I’m sure that’s all well and good, but I’m not sure you want to associate with her so much here at home, especially if it comes out she wasn’t responsible for the air strike. That’s the only thing the media’s pinned on her that’s actually good!”

Ian sat back in his chair, unable to respond at first. “Good? Are you actually saying the bombing was good?”

“Of course, wasn’t it? You had to deal with the aliens somehow. They were trying to kill you, weren’t they? And, my God, what they did to Scott sounds unspeakable!”

“Well it is, and they certainly weren’t our friends, but the Captain had negotiated a truce. We were leaving. The aliens weren’t a threat to us when Coronov launched his bomb. And he did that without Captain’s permission!”

She sighed. “Well, maybe somebody had to see reason! Those beasts threatened you and they threatened Earth, too. Why, the mere thought of it!” She shivered. “And they knew where we lived, didn’t they? What was your captain going to do about that? Kill them with kindness, perhaps?”

“Why kill them at all? It’s not like we were at war, you know.”

“And maybe now we never will be,” she said, sealing her argument. “I think you nipped it in the bud, isn’t that the point?”

“Or we might have thrown the first punch!” he countered. “They could be after us with a vengeance now! And, what’s worse, they’d be right! There was no call for what he did. It was against Captain’s orders and all. It killed a lot of innocent people for no real reason, that!” He looked down at his reflection in the polished wood table. “And it did lots of other damage, too.”

“But, what about those brutes on the planet? We’re safe now, aren’t we? Isn’t that what’s really important? Don’t you feel safer now?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, looking into his folded hands. “And, even if we are, it still wasn’t right. Nobody asked us to come there, after all.”

“Nobody warned you to stay away either. And, after what they did to poor Scott, I can’t see letting them get away with it. Scott was your friend, had been for years!”

“Well, I won’t give you an argument there,” he admitted. Then he leaned closer to her. “But most of the people we killed down there were just like Scott, you know. Poor, miserable sods tricked into working their hearts out for filthy slime.”

Angela settled back in her chair, picking up her cards again. “How is he?” she asked, feeling the need to change the subject.

“Poole’s got something she wants to try. Mind you, she’s dragging her heels on it. It’s been about a week. Other than that, he’s just one sorry bloke.”

“They would have done the same to you, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes, they would have done.”

“Then the bomb was self-defense,” she said, rekindling her argument. “I don’t see as you had any real choice. In war, sometimes that’s how it is. And your granddad must have known that just as well as your father did.”

“Then maybe I’m the black sheep of the family. Besides, I know my dad. He wouldn’t have fired on innocent civilians without reason. It was damn cowardly, that was, what Coronov did.”

“But did you really think you were safe? Dr. Poole thought they were trying to take over Earth and they still might have been trying to get to you! But now we know you’re safe! As far as I’m concerned you could burn the whole bloody lot of them!”

Ian sat quietly, letting out a deep sigh. He stared at the inside of his cup as he swirled around the last few drops of cold tea.