Junebug looked around, saw she would get no back up from her crewmates and sighed. She strode out of the concourse away from the security men despite the fact she had no inkling as to where her mother had parked.
 
“Neil, Taya, this is my mother Farah,” she said, completing introductions and allowing her mother to lead the way to a sleek black air speeder which lay among scores of broadly similar vehicles. Every few seconds there was a tone and a low pulsing note as one of the vehicles lifted or landed, carrying passengers too and from the star port.
 
“Any friend of Sayeeda’s is welcome here of course,” the older woman burbled as she climbed into the pilots seat, gesturing them to sit on the luxuriously upholstered seats inside. The buzz and roar of the spaceport shut off immediately as the tempered glass wings closed around them with a soft pneumatic hiss. The vehicle rose smoothly and boosted away. Farah turned her seat to face them, the vehicle set to the automated pilot beacons which allowed sky traffic to flow without constant accidents.
 
“Now when you say business partners…” Farah pressed eyes bright.
 
“Yes, Neil is my boyfriend,” Junebug responded to the unspoken question. Farah clapped her hands together delightedly.
 
“Oh wonderful, and so handsome, do you have a wedding date? Any children?!” she ejaculated. Junebug’s face remained the expressionless mask that it did behind a gunsight.
 
“I can’t have children Mother,” she replied. Farah’s face became pettish.
 
“Oh everyone says that but…”
 
“I had a partial hysterectomy six years ago,” Junebug responded. Her mother gasped.
 
“Sayeeda Selene Cykali! Why would you do such a thing!”
 
“Selene?” Taya mouthed to Neil but was ignored by mother and daughter.
 
“I mean  you have to make your own decisions but you know I love grand children and…” Sayeeda interrupted the diatribe by lifting up her shirt to reveal a knot of scar tissue on her muscular stomach.
 
“A uranium penetrator hit my LAV and spawled off a six inch piece of the inner hull,” Junebug reported, tracing the old wound with a finger tip. Her eyes were like gun muzzles, their focus years and light years away.
 
“I spent three weeks in the autodoc at Base Alpha,” she concluded. Farah’s face blanced with shock and then relaxed to a scolding disapproval.
 
“Well, I did tell you not to get mixed up in any of that,” Farah said, somewhat lamely.
 
“The countryside is beautiful,” Taya injected smoothly into the awkward silence that followed. The cityscape had faded away and vast arboreal forests, cut with streams and green hills flashed below.
 
“You sound surprised,” Junebug said, grateful for the change of topic.
 
“I just always assumed that….” Taya trailed off, clearly unsure how to proceed.
 
“That I came from some hell hole, red of tooth and claw?” Junebug asked, obviously amused despite herself. Taya shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
 
“Pretty much,” she agreed a trifle lamely.
 
“Celandine is a beautiful place,” Farah agreed as the vehicle banked close to an impressive waterfall before curving away to the south.

 “I don’t know why anyone would ever leave it,” she added. The older woman shot a meaningful look at her daughter but Junebug was already laying back in her seat, eyes closed in a veteran’s cat nap.
 
 
About an hour later the air speeder settled onto a private pad on the outskirts of a glittering city of pleasant white buildings and green parks. The Cyckali residence was typical of its type, several acres of gardens around a large single story structure with three distinct wings. A gravel path linked it to the tree lined boulevards that served pedestrian and ground car traffic. Three figures, an older man and a younger couple were already standing on the moss lawn as the flyer settled onto its gravel landing sight. Junebug started awake, eyes wide and hand reaching for a holster she wasn’t wearing. A moment later her eyes focused and she relaxed. They climbed out of the car and the trio came over.
 
“Sayeeda, it has been a long time,” the younger woman greeted her. The older man, a stocky powerful specimen with thining hair and a devil may care grin rushed past to enfold Sayeeda in a hug.
 
“By the Goddess it is good to see you girl!” he boomed. Sayeeda smiled inspite of herself as she returned the hug.
 
“It is good to see you too dad,” she surrendered.
 
“This is my boyfriend and pilot Neil Edward’s, and my friend Taya,” she introduced. The young woman who had spoken was introduced as Sayeeda’s sister Miranda and the other man her husband Tomaz.
 
“Aunty Sy!” a voice shouted as a red headed child of perhaps seven years erupted from a nearby hedge. She pounded across the gravel, shedding leaves as she came before throwing her arms around the mercenary. The child shared some facial features with Sayeeda but was paler and had some of the muscular build of her grandfather.
 
“If it isn’t little Madge!” Sayeeda crowed, scooping the girl up and spinning her around. The girl giggled and Sayeeda set her down, making a desultory effort to brush leaves and dirt from her clothing.
 
“Don’t call her that,” Miranda said in the tone of someone fighting a losing battle.
 
“If it isn’t Madge,” Sayeeda replied, deliberately misinterpreting the instruction, “all big now.”
 
Sayeeda’s father had crossed to deliver a formal kiss to the back of Taya’s hand before gripping Neil’s hand in his own and pumping it vigorously.
 
“I am Ibram Cykali,” he introduced himself, “but you must call me Brahm.” A robotic servant had emerged from the house and begun unloading what little luggage they had brought.
 
“We have lunch prepared in the dining room, come, come,” Farah clucked, attempting to get the party moving.
 
“Margaret, why don’t you go and wash…” Miranda began but the girl was already moving, deftly slipping behind Taya to cut off her mothers attempt to grab her before fleeing back through the hedge to her own entertainments. The younger Cykali daughter glared after her child but apparently thought better of attempting to coral the girl as the party headed into the pleasantly cool interior of the house.
 
“You must tell us of your self Master Edwards,” Brahm enthused as they entered a dining room dominated by a long table of dark polished marble, places already set.
 
“Sayeeda has never bought a man home before, so you are something of a novelty!”