SG: Rad #91 (1/2): Home is Where

[Gary]

He was facing the wrong way for watching the sunrise.  The sun was at 
his back, edging above the trees that screened the beach house from 
the road.  Its rays had not even directly reached his skin.  The 
beach was in shadows, even as the ocean filled with light.
      It was the ocean he had come out to see.  He had too rarely, 
even back in the day when he lived in this place, been out in the 
morning to greet the sun.  Waking before noon had been a challenge, 
and was accompanied by others, such as discovering his current 
whereabouts, the current whereabouts of his swim trunks, and a means 
of extricating himself from his companion of the moment and any 
proximate relatives who took dim views of what he considered to be 
healthy nocturnal exercise and were prepared to back up those views 
with weapons or power tools.
      *Like, ah,* Joe Moroboshi thought.  *The good old, like, days.*
      Days far gone, he knew.  He was a month away from turning forty, 
though thanks to [space science!] he looked closer to thirty.  His 
last visit to the mysterious and secretive Clan Bho'toqqs, on Planet 
California, had removed the age lines from his face and restored the 
oh-god-my-EYES gleam to his teeth.  Even with this, he knew, he did 
not have the look he had at age twenty-two.  Time took its toll in 
ways even [space science!] could not make invisible, having mostly to 
do with how it changed the eyes that did the looking.
      Not all the old days had been good.
      Still, he was back, and the sight of the ocean slipping from 
dark to brilliant blue was enough to peel back the years.  He could 
remember another beach, and another view of the same ocean, a view 
that turned weird for reasons having to do with [time travel!] and 
[space science! gone awry!].  It had been a day that transformed his 
body, his mind, and his life.  More importantly, it had transformed 
his tan from being merely impressive to incomprehensibly amazing. 
Even on a bad day, he could take comfort in that.
      The diffused light against his back grew momentarily cooler, but 
he did not turn.  His tan knew the shadows, as well as the light, and 
this shadow he knew like his own.  Its owner sat on the sand next to 
him, and kissed him on the cheek.
      "Good morning, darling," said Glum.  "Couldn't sleep?"
      "Like, nah," Joe answered.  He cracked a grin and kissed her 
back.  "I'm, like, too excited, like, y'know?"
      "I noticed."
      He adjusted his swim trunks.
      "Why do we have to wear suits, anyway?" she asked.  "We're alone 
here, and it's too early for anyone else--"
      "Like, you remember what, like, Manny said, right?" he asked. 
"Southern California, like, has been taken over, like, by the 
paparazzi."
      "I've been meaning to ask, darling, what are they?  They don't 
show up on any list of known, evil, invasion-minded spacefaring race 
that I know of.  I even asked Uncle Ragna about them, and he couldn't 
find anything."
      "Like, dunno," he replied.  "Manny, like, didn't get into, like, 
details.  They could, like, be the result, of like [mad science! gone 
awry!], y'know?"
      "Maybe," she said.  "I don't see what it has to do with this. 
And you shouldn't talk in brackets.  You know that irritates your 
throat."
      His wife smiled as she said this, as though even his bad habits 
could not break her mood.  The years had been kind to her as well, 
even discounting the assistance of [space science!] in rolling back 
the effects of gravity and time.  He could not say that she looked as 
good as she had when he first met her; if anything, she looked 
better.  Her body with its gorgeous curves and void-black hair was 
roughly the same, but the mind that owned them had roughly twenty 
years more experience.  The flower of youth had nothing on the rose 
in full bloom, as far as he was concerned.
      "Like, what about you?" Joe asked.  "You, like, have trouble sleeping?"
      "It's your daughter," she replied.  "She snores.  Like you."
      "I, like, do not snore!" he protested.  "And, like, even if I, 
like, did, I use those [space science!] nose strips, y'know?"
      "They're not [space science!]," said Glum.  "They... ow, that 
hurt... they even have them on this planet.  And your daughter isn't 
using hers."
      "I'll, like, talk to her," he promised, though he knew it would 
not work.  Rumiko could be stubborn when she was in the mood, and she 
had been in the mood ever since leaving Planet California.  She had 
wanted to stay with Ian and Chelsea, her older siblings, but Glum 
insisted she had to come to Earth with them.  Ian and Chelsea had 
reached the age of majority as both Planet California and the 
Ottsamaddawidu Confederation defined it (which translated into a 
little more than sixteen Earth years), and were due to go to that 
planet's branch of Hottentot University in a few months time, but 
Rumiko had a year and change to go.  Rumiko protested long and hard, 
but came with them in the end.  Snoring all the way.
      They fell silent for a while, and watched the waves lap the 
beach.  The sun had risen enough that direct rays now reached them, 
and he relaxed in the feeling.  He had been on many worlds, and 
tanned under many suns, but this one was special.  This sun was home.
      "There was a message from Symon Andro this morning," said Glum, 
after a while.  "It looks like they managed to get Pakilo to come 
back into the Confederation after all.  They want us to attend the 
ceremony."
      Joe snorted.  "Like, why?  We're, like, out of it, y'know?  And 
it's not, like, he needs us.  He, like, thinks he does, but, like, he 
doesn't."
      "Andro said it was just symbolic," she replied.  "He's the first 
non-Hottentotian head-of-state of the 
ex-Empire-slash-Confederation... ever.  He's done a lot to smooth 
over relations with the Outlying Domains, but he needs a confidence 
boost now and then."
      "Like, miss him?"
      She looked at him and smirked.  "Yeah.  Him, I mean, not the 
job.  He can have that.  Even with Uncle Ragna advising, it was a 
load of work.  Never realized how much until we finally let it drop."
      He nodded.  They had run Ottsamaddawiduan affairs for about 
thirteen Earth-years, overseeing its occasionally tumultuous 
transformation from Empire to Confederation, and beyond.  For the 
first five, Glum ruled as Empress, sharing power with an elected 
Parliament.  After the shortcomings and dangers of the arrangement 
became apparent, Glum did what at that time had seemed unthinkable -- 
nullify her own Imperial power, and giving it entirely over to a 
newly-elected Parliament with an elected Prime Minister and 
appointed, mostly ceremonial President.  When the new Prime Minister 
took over, her title as Empress became just that: only a title.
      The transition was made smooth by the fact that she *was* the 
new Prime Minister, having no serious opposition in her first 
campaign, or the re-election campaign of four years later.  Joe, in 
the President's position, did much to boost her popularity, even in 
the Outlying Domains, where anti-Imperial sentiment had grown common.
      Her decision not to run for re-election three years ago was, as 
she saw it, the final step in the transition.  All that was Imperial 
had finally been removed from Confederation government, save Glum and 
Joe themselves.  The election brought out a plethora of interests and 
factions, and resulted in a close contest that Symon Andro, her 
advisor and successor as head of the Party On Party, eventually won. 
Glum later called one of the hardest decisions she had ever made, but 
one she never regretted.  At least, she never *admitted* to 
regretting it.
      In a way, it was the bountiful free time that came with 
'retirement' that had brought them back to Earth, surly teenage 
daughter in tow.  Planet California was wonderful, but had a sameness 
to it that worked on their action-accustomed minds.  Planet Hottentot 
was Glum's birth-planet, but was the center of exactly the kind of 
action with which they were done.  Other planets in the Confederation 
on which Glum held land were nice, but in the end, there had been 
only one choice.
      *Most* of the good old days had been quite good.
      "So," Glum said, "when do our guests arrive?"
      Joe winced.
      "I, like, wish you hadn't, like, said--"
      A sonic boom sent sand, water, and the less-secure sort of palm 
trees hurtling into the air.  A tremendous crash soon followed, which 
shook the beach for several seconds.  He lowered his hands from his 
eyes and looked back in the direction of the beach house.
      "--that," he finished.
      "Good morning!" a deep and cheerful voice bellowed, causing a 
funnel or two to spin into existence and start sucking up sand as 
they hurtled toward the ocean.  "Sorry to arrive so early, but we 
couldn't wait to see you!"
      "Where is everybody?" a higher-pitched-but-just-as-cheerful voice asked.
      "Well," said Glum, as he helped her to her feet.  "Looks like we 
won't have to worry about waking Rumiko."
      He took her hand as they walked up the beach, to where a massive 
man in purple-and-bright-orange swim trunks was extracting himself 
from a crater next to the still-standing beach house.  The 
blue-haired man did not seem to mind that he was not receiving much 
help from the dark-haired, French-cut-bikini-clad woman next to him, 
and no help at all from the blue-haired five-year-old boy who was 
juggling anvils about six feet away.
      The sun had almost completed its rise past the tops of the 
remaining trees.  It was going to be a brilliant day.
      Joe Moroboshi, known to this world and many others as Rad, 
reflected the sun with his grin.

                                      ***

                                      RAD
                                  Episode 91
                        [ Rad Returns, Part One of Ten ]
                           "Home is Where the Tan Is"
                                      by
                                 Gary W. Olson,
         who knows he hasn't finished 'Arc of the Sun' yet, not to mention
       'Universal Solvents,' so don't even get started, you youngsters with
                 your iPods and your Britneys and your anvils...

                                      ***

*kzzzzzzk*
      "On the next Oprah, my Book Club pick of the month, the 
_Pnakotic Manuscripts_---"
      *kzzzzzzk*
      "--end of her third marriage, the former Mrs. Maccabee went back 
to work today on the set of her new horror movie, _The Vexation,_ 
which also stars---"
      *kzzzzzzk*
      "--welcome back as our guests, Dr. Sleaze and The Tapeworm, have 
more to say about how to become rich by buying abandoned villainous 
lairs for no money down---"
      *kzzzrp.*
      Rumiko Moroboshi, who went by the diminutive 'Rumi' and often 
disregarded any attempt to gain her attention by saying her name in 
full, tossed the television remote to the other end of the 
spectacularly fluffy living room couch and regarded the now dark 
plasma-screen television.  All she had heard about entertainment on 
this world looked like it would be true, which meant she might as 
well not watch at all.  Perhaps the problem was that it was only in 
two dimensions, but she doubted it.  The holovision networks that 
spanned the length and breadth and depth of the planets of the 
Ottsamaddawidu Confederation had far more possible choices, yet held 
her attention no more.
      But those planets had *other things to do.*  She could explore 
the capital city or the surrounding jungles with her friends on 
Hottentot.  She could play volleyball and swim and tell stories to 
her friends about her older siblings, their friends, and what they 
got up to when they did not know Rumiko was watching.  Most 
importantly, she could walk outside and breathe the air without 
feeling like she should jump into her parents' ship's autodoc a 
minute later.
      Not that the air around the beach house was *too* bad.  But they 
had stopped at a public beach in Los Angeles the day before, so her 
dad could point out the exact place where he had gained his 
superpowers.  It had just been sand, like all the sand around it. 
She kept her mouth shut this time, however, and managed to fake 
looking interested.  The air had been horrible, even though the 
people nearby said it was a *good* day, with hardly any smog. 
Staying quiet meant she could leave sooner.
      Worse, they had come here to *live.*  For, as far as Rumiko 
could tell, the rest of their lives.  No more intergalactic political 
intrigue.  No more parties, at least not on the scale that you got on 
Planet California.  They had come back forever to the weirdest planet 
in the known universe: Planet Earth.
      And how their eyes lit *up* when they woke up yesterday morning 
and saw Earth on the main viewscreen of their approaching ship.  She 
had expected her dad to get excited - it was his home planet, -after 
all - but her mom surprised her by looking even *more* happy to have 
arrived.  Mom had talked about all their adventures and intrigues of 
almost two decades before, with evil supervillains and death rays and 
disco and people wrecking the universe and putting it back together 
before other people noticed and felt inconvenienced.  Rumiko had no 
idea why any sane person could feel nostalgic for such a time.
      But all she had to do was make it through a year.  Then she 
could ride a Transmat beam out to Planet California, claim age of 
majority status, and that would be that.  It sounded like a good plan 
during the ride over, which was the main reason she had not voiced 
much protest.
      Less than a day on Earth had changed her mind.  A year was going 
to be an unbearably long time to wait.
      Exhibit one: the commotion from outside.  Two of her parents' 
friends from the 'good old days' had dropped in.  Rumi had known it 
would happen, but had not expected them to be so early or so literal. 
Were it not for the Awesomeantium reinforcement of the structure of 
the beach house or the self-repair upgrades her parents introduced to 
the structure last night, she would have woken up to the ceiling 
falling on her head, rather than a loud crash followed by equally 
loud bellowing of greetings.  Had she switched on the noise-dampening 
field in her room last night--as she had in the living room this 
morning after stumbling downstairs and ascertaining that the 
explosion she had heard had merely been the arrival of their 
guests--she would probably still be asleep, instead of exploring the 
wasteland that passed for entertainment in this section of the world.
      With a sigh, she headed for the kitchen.  If she greeted their 
guests before her folks tracked her down and dragged her in, it was 
possible they would let her go back to her room and log in to ConNet 
after maybe a half hour of the torture of listening to old people go 
on about old times and what their old friends were doing.
      Dad was at the kitchen counter, making an omelet out of tofu, 
eggs, shredded cheese, and several spices, while tapping his foot to 
the rhythm of the song coming at low volume out of the radio beneath 
the cupboard.  Mom was at the table, a cup of coffee in her hands. 
She was talking to the woman across from her about something that 
made her ears burn, even though she only caught the tail end of the 
last sentence.
      "'--fault!  The sand got into the cat, too!'  I... oh, good 
morning, Rumi!"
      "Morning, Mom," said Rumi, not bothering to hide the sullen note 
in her voice.  "Hi, Aunt Key."
      Key Clark, nee Li Pan, known to the world as MeltDown, had been 
forced to cover her mouth and nose to avoid snarfing her coffee, and 
so did not immediately acknowledge Rumi.  Rumi hoped that her mother 
had not told the whole story about the cat and the sand and Aran, her 
first and so far only real boyfriend (now her ex by reason of immense 
distance).  The telling only reminded her about Aran, another reason 
she wanted to get back to Planet California as soon as she legally 
could.
       Before Rumi could say anything, Key was out of her chair and 
scooped her up into a hug.  Key had done that the last time Rumi saw 
her, almost six years ago, at Key's wedding.  The problem, from 
Rumi's perspective, was that Rumi had been nine at the time, and much 
more scoopable than she felt she was now.  Actually being taller than 
Key was paramount among her reasons for feeling this way.
      She was already a few centimeters taller than her mother, though 
she had stopped growing as fast as she had when she was eleven and 
twelve.  She had also filled out a bit, though not nearly to the 
extent her mother, or Aunt Key, could be considered 'filled out.' 
Mom told her that it was natural, that the rest of her would catch up 
with her height if she ate right and exercised and avoided Baldwin 
brothers (whatever *they* were).  Rumi hoped it would happen soon.
      Key let her go and looked down, and then up, at her.
      "How did you get so tall?" she asked, a wide grin breaking 
across the smooth bronze tones of her face.  "And... you were right, 
Glum, she definitely has Rad's eyes."
      "And, like, I want them back," said Rad, as he let an omelet 
slide out of his frying pan onto a plate.  "I can't, like, tell if 
I'm, like, making omelets or, like, frying the newspaper, y'know?"
      "Grill me up the sports section, Dad," Rumi replied, as she made 
herself smile for Key, who was not really her Aunt.  She had only one 
*real* Aunt, and her parents had said nothing about Shadebeam 
Moroboshi planning to visit.  But out of all her *honorary* Aunts, 
Key was her favorite.  She was someone who would understand about the 
cat, and had undoubtedly got sand into a few cats in her day.
      To Rumi's surprise, Key actually had some lines on her face. 
Rumi realized she had assumed that all of her parents' friends made 
full use of whatever skin and body rejuvenating technology was 
available on this world, or made trips to Confederation worlds for 
that purpose.  Though Key never made the trip to Planet California to 
visit the Clan Bho'toqqs, it surprised her that she had not taken 
advantage of similar services on Earth.
      "Are Ian and Chelsea here too?" Key asked.  "Your mom was saying---"
      "They got to stay on Planet California," Rumi interrupted.  She 
did not add how lucky she thought they were to be older, and did not 
need to.  Her mother made a 'stop that' face.
      "That's too bad," said Key, after releasing Rumi.  "I haven't 
seen them in years, either.  I was wondering... well, never mind 
that.  How've you been?"
      Rumi knew exactly what Key wondered, and could have told her 
that Ian and Chelsea looked nothing like they had twelve to fourteen 
years ago, when an absurdly complicated series of circumstances led 
to them magically growing to adulthood and becoming powerful mages. 
Some even more absurd circumstances led to all this being undone, and 
them reverting to what their ages and body shapes would have been if 
the magic had never happened.  Now, they were adults all over again, 
only this time with appearances that owed much more to genetics.
      "Okay," Rumi answered.  "Where's Uncle Kent?"
      Rumiko was told later on by Glum that the crashing sound that 
followed was required by narrative convention.  She was almost 
certain her mother was pulling her leg, but always took care with 
that sort of question after that.
      Though the beach house had long ago been overhauled by 
Ottsamaddawiduan engineers (sober ones, unlike the inebriated Dalan 
ones who were responsible for the old CalForce HQ's more entertaining 
non-Euclidian features), was reinforced and anchored with 
Awesomeantium, and had the latest damage-resistance and self-repair 
upgrades freshly installed, her parents had warned her that a visit 
from the Clarks would provide the sternest of tests.  As an added 
precaution, they'd left their more breakable possessions on board 
their ship, and instructed the ship's computer to, for the duration 
of the Clarks' visit, remain in orbit around the planet.  Of Jupiter.
      Kent Clark, known to about all the world as Mighty Guy (though 
Kent himself remained blissfully unaware that the world was not 
fooled by his attempts to maintain a secret identity), bounded into 
the kitchen, trailed by all of the door and much of the surrounding 
wall behind him.  A five-and-a-half foot-long shark was tucked 
beneath his incredibly overmuscled right arm.  Two skinny human legs 
protruded from its toothsome mouth.
      "Dear," said Kent, "where is the sunblock?"
      "In here," Key replied, as she rooted through the 
orange-and-white striped beach bag by the foot of her chair.  "How'd 
he do this time?"
      "Three anvils, a shark, and the hot tub!" Kent exclaimed, 
sending plates and pieces of wall flying.  Most of the pieces 
appeared to bounce off a near-invisible wall that protected herself 
and her folks.  Her dad dropped his arm and grinned.  "But the shark 
was pointed the wrong way again!"
      "Like, what happened to the hot tub, dude?" Rad asked.
      Another crash followed, this one also no doubt required by 
narrative convention.
      "Like, never mind."
      The legs in the shark's mouth continued to wriggle.
      "Um," said Rumi, "shouldn't you do something about... that?"
      Key looked up.
      "No, the shark's fine," she said.  "Or will be, I expect, once 
Johnny gets his anvil back.  That was what happened, right, dear?"
      "Indeed!" Kent replied.  "And good morning, Rumiko!  My, you have grown!"
      He stuck out his hand to shake, and Rumi took it with a feeling 
of trepidation.  The technology of the house would not be all that 
would be tested that morning.

[continued in part two, following...]
--
Gary W. Olson
swede3000 at earthlink.net          http://gwox.livejournal.com/
swede at novitious.com              http://www.novitious.com/