He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (67 page)

“Yes,” he muttered reflectively, “and look what happened after Gordon got his bell rung by the lad!”  He held his hand up.  “I promise not to be condescending or patronizing.”

“You better not, Max, especially if you ever want him back here.”  He didn’t have to add anything more, but Max gave him a sharp look.

*  *  *  *  *  *

“Messenger on the gangway, Skipper.”

“Military or civilian?”

“Civilian, a female, young, mid to late twenties, Skipper.”

“Humm, hold what you’ve got.  I’m on my way.”  It only took a few moments to reach the boarding hatch and find out who the message was from.

“Hello, Michael.  How are you?”

“Well, I’ll be d...,”  he stopped, “I’m delighted to see you Aunt Iris.  I’m doing great.  How are you.  Come aboard, please.

His aunt walked up and gave him a hug and a kiss.  He didn’t tell the gangway watch that his aunt was well into her fifties.  He walked his aunt thought the ship, pointing out this and that on his way to his cabin.

“Coffee for two, please Jenks.”

“Yes, Skipper, coming right up.”

“Sit, and please and tell me what bring you here.”  She did, looking slightly uncomfortable.  For a moment she looked at this confidence young Leftenant, now the Captain of his own ship.  So different from the justifiable angry young teenager who vanished so many years before.

“Two reasons.  Michael.  One to see you and invite you to dinner, and secondly to deliver a message.”

“The dinner invite, you could have called in, so the important part is the message.”  She nodded in agreement.  “If I were to make a guess, I’d say that the message was from either Gordon, or Max himself, right?”  A startled look crossed her face for a moment.

“That's easy to figure out?”

“Not really, just a guess.”

“Max keeps walking into a wall.  Every time he starts to comm you he freezes.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No, I didn’t think you did.”

After his aunt departed, Mike pondered the question of meeting his Great Grandfather, and the implications.  For a world that supposedly had few secrets, there seemed way too many when it came to him.  Never in all the time he was growing up with his other Grandfather, he’d never found out why Max Tregallion was so angry with him.  It went way beyond the fact that he survived in the crash of his parent’s air car, or even how he survived in the first place.  The records he’d seen indicated that there was a total power failure at 10,000 feet, and that the car crashed into dense jungle on South Continent.  If that was true, how he’d survived, and how had they managed to find him?  Considering that he was only a month old when the accident occurred.  The report also didn’t explain how he lived for three months on his own before they found him.  If nothing else, the mystery of that accident drove him to accept the unspoken invitation, and it was with some trepidation he drove over to his Great Grandfather’s estate the next day.

The place wasn’t as grandiose as he expected, seeing as Max owned the whole planet , more like a semi-rustic English country estate than the Palace he half expected.  Being the idiot stepchild of the family, so to speak, this was the first time in his life he’d even seen it, other than a few quick view of it from the air as he passed over on his many outing.  His guts tightened as he stepped out of the Range Rover, and he wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on the side of his pants.  For a moment, he was in half a mind to get back in the air car and get the hell out of there.  Without warning, Max stepped out of the back door and stood there looking at him, a puzzled look on his face.  At that point, Mike was loathed to turn his back on the old man, thinking he might see it as an act of cowardice if he ran away now.

“Wondered if you’d had the gut to come here?”  Max said for openers.  Mike clamped down on his anger.

“Yes, it takes a lot of guts to come and see a grouchy old man who can’t keep a civil tongue in his mouth!”

“Feisty, aren’t you?”

“No more than you, Max.”  Suddenly Max smiled, and for a moment Mike was taken aback.

“You old enough to drink the real stuff, or are you still on mother’s milk?”

“I’ll drink you skinny old ass under the table any day of the week, and walk home after.”

“The hell you say!  I’ve drunk better men than you under the table.”

“Don’t play the crusty old sea dog with me Max, it won’t work.”

“Don’t intimidate easily, do you.”

“You forget, your other son brought me up.”  Max’s face suddenly pulled into a frown, and for a moment he looked down at the ground, nodding slightly.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid…”  He whispered, but who he was calling stupid he left unsaid.  “Come.”  He said at last, and Mike followed him into the house.

They ended up sitting across from each other in what seemed to be a cross between a cozy living room and a study, the walls almost hidden by the hundreds of photos and pictures displayed across them.  Max produced a dark bottle of something out of his desk and carefully peeled off the wax seal.  Mike had only seem a seal like that on the bottle his OX had presented to the mess.  They were hand dipped in red wax and stamped with the family crest, but these seemed to be even older.  Max looked at the bottle a moment before he poured.

“This was bottled over 500 years old, and I swore I wouldn’t open it until…”  His mouth scrunched up, as if he’d bit into something sour.  “But never mind that, this is a much better occasion.”

“I hope the other occasion was something a little more important than the two of us sitting down and talking?”  Max looked at him a moment.

“It was.”

“Oh?”

“Yu know what makes this bottle so special?”

“Can’t say that I do.”  Mike felt his anger rising again, but couldn’t put his finger on why.  There was something in the way Max said it that irritated him.

“I took a special trip to Earth, and it took me almost a year to find this.”  He help up the bottle and looked at it a moment.  “This was bottled the day that I was born, and I swore that I was going to drink it in celebration on the day you died!”  Mike went ridged.

“You what?”  He stammered.

“Thought that would take the wind out of your sails.”

“You are one mean old man Max.”  Mike took a deep breath, wondering if he should punch the old man out, or just leave.  Max nodded in agreement and calmly poured three fingers into the glasses and set back after placing the bottle on the table.

“You going to tell me why, or keep that a secret along with all the others?

“Others?”

“Gordon told me to ask you about the secret of Ag technology.”

“Secrets?  What do you mean?”

“He said you knew the story about you and Avalon having the secret to Ag technology?”  His Grandfather wasn’t angry, yet he definitely wasn’t happy that he knew.

“Humm... did he now?”  He said, looking into his drink.

“Yes, sir.”  His Great Grandfather pondered the subject a moment, as if making up his mind.

“Do you know what your mother’s maiden name, Mike?”

“Um...  no, sir, can’t seem to remember anyone telling me.  Always thought it was just mother.”  He said with a slight smile.  Max responded with the same.

“It's Enright, although it doesn’t say that on any official documents you will ever find.”

“Enright...  You mean as in
Enright
!”  Max chuckled at the stunned look on his face.

“That’s right.  She is… was Enright’s daughter.”

“My God!”

“He wasn’t comfortable with the fact that all the secrets of his invention resided solely on Earth.  If anything happened, say a catastrophic disaster on the plant, which was always a possibility, then the secret would be lost.”

“So why didn’t he...  no of course he couldn’t trust it with anyone else.”

“Right, so he gave it to his daughter as a wedding present when she married my grandson, you father.”

“But.. but…”

“Oh, he knew who your Grandfather was, and the circumstances of why he was forced to resigned his commission.  If you can call it that.”  Max didn’t try hiding the bitter tone of his voice, and Mike renews his promise to find out under what circumstances his Grandfather was forced to resign.

“Why?”

“I’m not going to go into that right now, Mike, for your sake rather than his.  You don’t need to know at this time, and it's better if you didn’t.”  Mike knew he should push the point, but if Max was as stubborn as his reputation, his Grandfather would tell him when he felt he was ready, and not before.

“Yes, sir.”  There was a definite softening in the old man’s tone now, but seeing they were on their fourth glass of Highland brew, it was understandable.  Mike knew he’d probably regret this in the morning, again, but he wasn’t about to let this old man put him under the table.

“I brought the sole colonization right to this planet, and told Enright what I intended to do here.  He agreed, but was also smart enough to see that without Ag technology of our own, this planet would be just like all the others, depending on other people for their transportation.”

“So, he gave mother the secret.”

“And she gave it to me.  In some way we act as a balance between many different factions, favoring none and giving equal opportunity to all.”

“So that’s what the Free Trader are.”

“Yes.  We service all the human worlds and many of the alien ones as well, acting as a conduit for the free flow of information, technology and trade.”

“So, how many people on Avalon know the secret?”

“Only a handful.  We, like Enright do not give it away.” 

“Some would argue that wrong.”

“True, and I hope you aren’t one of them.”

“No, sir.  I’m not.  I’m just saying what that some people in high places feel that way.”

“To hell with them.  They only want it so they can control it themselves, and garner a fortune doing it.”

“Like we have?  The family I mean.”  The old man let out a snort of a laugh.

“You think it’s cheap to startup your own planet?”

“Haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well, it’s not, and most of what we make off the production and trade in Ag plates went right back into building this place into what it is today.”

“It wasn’t a criticism, sir, just an observation.”

“Good. If you have an edge, Mike, you never, ever give it away, no matter what the cost, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you do, Mike.  Even your life, and that of my other Grandchildren is not worth more than that.”  Mike gulped, realizing the dilemma owning the secret of Ag technology placed on his Grandfather.

“That’s why you were never told before now.  Only a very few people here know who has the secret, and it is to remain that way.  For your protecting as well as that of the rest of the family.”

“I understand, Max.”

Now things were falling into place.  Why his Grandfather was so against his joining the Royal Navy, for one, and why he had people watching him.  Almost unconsciously he looked around, wondering where the defenses of this house were.   There had to be some, even on the remote chance someone found out and tried to steal the secret, or kidnap members of the family.