Uly's Father
The idea for this story was suggested by DaveK, a semi-regular visitor to the Terrian King forum at EZBoard. Over a series of emails, he and I hammered out the plot and I wrote the story. I guess anyone who knows anything about Earth 2 knows the established belief is that Uly was an in vitro baby.
Dave's basic idea was: what if he wasn't, and Danziger knew Uly's father?
ULY'S FATHER
D. A. Kline
R. Salway
Uly...
Wintering on the arid side of a coastal mountain range had it's advantages. Unexpected warm snaps were one. The people of the Eden Advance team were enjoying the second day of sunny, balmy weather with temperatures well above freezing.
Ulysses Adair saw his chance to slip away from camp unnoticed, and he ran quickly into the trees on the north side of camp. He stopped running as soon as he knew no one had seen him leave, and he headed for his favorite spot which was just out of earshot from the main camp.
The ground rose sharply at this part of the Disputed Plateau, but climbing upward between the trees was easy. There were plenty of handholds and flat places for your feet. At the top of the rise was an out-thrust of rocks forming a tiny clearing where the rock was flat and just big enough for half a dozen or so people to sit or recline. Hidden from camp by the intervening trees, True and Uly had found it soon after the group had chosen to stop here on the plateau to wait out their second winter on the planet.
Uly liked the vigorous climb to the top almost as much as he liked the panoramic view from the clearing. Up there the wind blew through the trees with a hushed murmur that sounded like rushing water. It was a soothing sound and helpful for thinking.
Perched high on the rocks, he could see beyond the edge of the plateau and into the dry lake bed below it, all the way to the last mountain range they'd crossed. That formation was now the eastern horizon. It was a good spot for thinking, and remembering, and making plans for the future.
Today he was going to his favorite spot to think, to mull over a subject that was lately on his mind too often to ignore, but which he knew very little about. Never before in his life had he ever been so curious about his father as he had been in the last few weeks.
In a way, it was a puzzling thing. Why would having a stepfather make him think so much and so often about the real thing? It wasn't as if he missed his real father. He didn't. He had thought of Danziger as the closest thing he would ever have to a father since the day after the crash landing on the planet when the man had hoisted him onto his backpack like Uly was just a regular, tired kid. In the days that followed he had never treated Uly like anything else.
Oh, he knew very well he was thinking about the man who had helped bring him into the world because of his mother's more open relationship with John Danziger. Though they hadn't gotten married like the Martins, and they hadn't moved into the same tent like Julia and Alonzo, Uly knew his mother and John were as much together as either of the other couples.
Uly had been able to figure that out for himself easily enough.
They were letting what they had between one another develop at it's own pace, much like the doctor and Alonzo had tried to do, but with better results, and Uly was finding it just as much fun to watch as everyone else did.
That was because his own relationship with Danziger had started a long time ago, years before his mother's relationship with him had. It was one of Uly's secret thoughts and the one he held most dear to his heart, and he was happy to know the only man who had ever come close to being a father figure in his life was actually going to be his father one day soon.
Therefore it was probably inevitable, and thus, no great surprise, that when he reached the clearing in the trees he saw John Danziger was already sitting on the rocks enjoying the view and the warm sunshine as if he hadn't a care in the world. Uly smiled to himself and climbed the last few feet to the flat perch.
"Hi!" he called and crossed the rock to the man's side.
Danziger turned his head slightly. "Hey, kid. Good day for a climb, isn't it?"
"Sure is," he called back and scrambled onto the rocks. He sat down cross-legged on the rock beside Danziger, and with elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his fists, he looked over the treetops.
"What brings you all the way up here? Got something on your mind, too?"
Uly nodded awkwardly. "Yeah. This is the best place to come for that, isn't it?"
"Almost perfect."
The boy looked into the valley below the Disputed Plateau, trying to see what Danziger might be looking at. The other mountain range was almost hidden in a shimmering haze. It must be hot on the floor of the old lake bed, he thought.
Danziger picked up a small pebble and flicked it idly, sending it arcing over the trees, and then he pointed to the southeast.
"I've been thinking whether or not we should take a chance on the weather staying good another day and go hunting before another storm comes over the mountains. There is a herd of prongs to the southeast. See there? They're moving north. Matt spotted them early this morning."
Uly squinted hard and tried to find the herd, but all he saw was the haze, and dark areas here and there that might be animals or trees or even piles of rocks.
Danziger flicked another pebble. "They were moving earlier, kicking up a lot of dust."
Ulysses picked up a handful of pebbles and began flicking them one by one over the side of the rocks, too. Knowing the answer would be "no", but feeling compelled to ask anyway, he said, "If you do go hunting, can I go?"
From the corner of his eye he saw Danziger turn to look at him for a few seconds before answering. "I don't see why not."
Feeling his jaw drop, Uly quickly closed his mouth. "Really? I can go along?"
"Sure. The herd isn't far. We all have to learn how to hunt sooner or later, don't we?"
"Wow."
Danziger laughed a low rumble. "Of course, the first time you'll have to stay in the vehicle."
"I will!" He sat up straight and looked at Danziger.
"After a little more experience, you'll learn to cut and track, too."
"I remember how you and Alonzo and Matt caught the first prongs we saw last fall."
"Do you? Well, that will come in handy later."
"Wow!"
Uly leaned back on his elbows and grinned at the sky, already imagining a fantastic adventure to go along with his first participation in a hunt. Oh, he knew what staying in the vehicle meant, but it didn't stop him from imagining himself driving the dunerail through dust and dirt to miraculously save his companion hunters from a stampeding herd of prongs just in the nick of time.
After a while the grin relaxed and Uly decided to confide his thoughts to Danziger. He sat up and gathered another handful of pebbles and began flicking them over the side of the rock perch, too.
"I've been thinking about something, a lot, lately," he said.
"Oh, yeah? What?"
"Uh... Well, my father, I guess."
"Oh."
Uly sighed. "I don't know very much about him. Mom and I talked once, but she didn't tell me anything at all; and Yale just said it was a subject for my mom and me to discuss. She showed me his picture, and she told me his name and why he went away, and I heard her tell Yale once that she doesn't say more because she doesn't want to say anything bad about him to me."
Danziger studied the boy's carefully neutral expression and posture. He was hunched forward slightly and shooting pebbles at the treetops as if it was the most interesting game he'd ever played. The tension in his shoulders was noticeable.
John's gear unit was on the rock beside him. He'd been talking to Devon a little earlier on the frequency they'd set for private conversations. He reached down and quietly turned on the transmitter. If she still had her gear unit on, and chances were she probably did, she would hear what he and the boy were talking about.
"What is it about your father you've had on your mind, Uly?"
Flick. "Well... Just regular stuff. Sometimes I wonder if I would have liked him if I ever met him. I mean, in his holo he looks like a nice man, and my mom and Yale used to like him. Until he left, anyway. So I s'pose that's why she doesn't want to talk about him when I ask her. She's mad at him." He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I should be mad at him, too, you know what I mean? But... I never knew him, so, what should I be mad about?"
Flick, flick.
Danziger placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. "I've never told your mother this, Uly, and it really isn't my place to tell you anything about your father, but I think you would have liked him. I met him a few years ago, on the stations, and I liked him."
Uly was thunderstruck. His handful of pebbles forgotten, he very slowly turned his head to look at the man next to him. "You knew my father?" he asked in a breathless voice.
Danziger moved his head to one side like a shrug. "We weren't friends or anything like that, but, yes, I met him."
"What was he like?"
Danziger pressed his hand more firmly on the boy's shoulder. "Look, Uly. There is something you have to understand. By the time I met him, it was almost six years since he and your mother ended their marriage contract. He had changed from the man he was when Devon knew him. She might not believe that, but it's true. The years after he left you and your mother were not good ones for him. The man I met had a lot of things bothering him. Anything I might be able to tell you about your father will be different from what your mother can tell you. She knew him better than I did, and that's probably why she told Yale she was afraid of saying something bad about him to you."
He stopped talking and watched the boy, wondering if he had used the right words for the boy to understand.
Uly ‘s father had indeed been a man with regrets and too many sorrows. He still had the power and the wealth and the family name to be a man of consequence in the social and business worlds, but all the power and wealth at his fingertips couldn't buy peace of mind. The man Danziger had known was on the fast track to self destruction and he had felt pity for the man.
He suddenly wondered how long the poor guy had lived after the phony announcement of the Eden Advance explosion was broadcast and all connected with the project were pronounced dead.
"But you liked him?" Uly said again, his voice quiet but firm, demanding an answer this time.
Just like his mother. Danziger couldn't help but smile.
"Yes," he said. "I did like him."
"Why?"
"Well, like I said, he had a lot of things on his mind, but once in a while he would forget his problems and when that happened a little bit of his old self, his real personality would appear. He could be funny, nice and a real talker. When those times passed, he would go away again. You see, coming to the Quadrant helped him to forget. It was as far away from his life on the upper levels as he could get. After a few months, his family sent him to oversee their business interests in the outer stations, and I never saw him again."
Uly was silent for a few moments. He said, "I guess I have been kind of mad at him. My mom had to bring me so far away, and she almost had to die to find a father for me."
"That's okay, Uly," John told him quietly. "It's good to face your feelings about him."
Ulysses raised himself onto his knees and turned to face John. There were tears in Uly's eyes. John wrapped his arm around him and the boy lowered his head onto his shoulder, and for the first time in his life, he grieved for his lost father.
Devon...
Waiting for Uly and John to return to camp was the hardest thing Devon had done in a long time. She tried to stay inside her tent, but it was too small to contain her restless pacing, so she was trying to expend her restless energy by pretending not to pace in the clearing beyond the cooking fire. If she was fooling anyone, she couldn't think of who it might be.
It seemed hours before she caught a glimpse of the two coming through the trees from the high ground behind the campsite. She stopped in her tracks, waiting...
They were walking slowly because Uly seemed to be carrying something. The front of his jacket was rolled up to form a pouch and he was holding it in place with one hand while gesturing with his free hand. Danziger, his hands in his pockets, seemed to be hanging on to the boy's every word. He nodded now and then, never looking up toward the camp.
They were in the clearing near the vehicles before he raised is eyes and saw Devon standing apart from the others in the area around the fire.
Uly saw her at the same time and broke into a trot. "Look what we found, Mom! Fossils! Leaves and stuff in the rocks!" He held up a rock for her to see. "John said I get to name them because I found them!"
Devon ignored the rock, instead looking anxiously at her son's face. He was bright with excitement, and so she smiled. Cupping his grinning face in her hands, she said, "Why don't you ask Yale and Diane to help you decide what they are, so you can find just the right names for them."
Danziger stopped at the dunerail, sitting on one of the tires while he watched Uly run off towards the big tent. He had turned off his gear when Uly began to cry, and that was more than an hour ago.
Devon walked over to stand near him, turning slightly to see that Uly was showing his rocks to Denner and True, one by one.
"He's all right now?" she said, as if she didn't quite believe it. She crossed her arms, hands on elbows, fingers moving nervously.
"Kids are resilient. He'll be fine."
She kept her eyes on Uly. "I had no idea he was thinking about his father. He never let on to me. Nor to Yale. Yale would have told me."
"He will. He's curious now, and ready to hear anything you have to say."
Devon sighed deeply. "I had no idea you knew him," she said quietly.
Danziger knew to whom she was referring. "There is a lot I didn't tell Uly."
She looked at John, at Danziger, and the relief was evident in her face. "You were right, and you were wrong when you said it wasn't your place to tell Uly about his father." She smiled a little. "You were right to tell him about the man you knew. You were wrong if you held anything back out of regard for my feelings. Listening to the two of you, I knew you were the right person for him to confide his thoughts." She looked away, sighing in exasperation at herself. "It's true what Uly said, you know. I can't talk about his father calmly for very long. I still have a lot of anger toward him. I never believed he would feel guilt about his choices. Are you sure about that?"
Danziger reached out for one of her hands and held it firmly between his own. "Did you know he had another child? A daughter?"
She looked at him. "Yes. I heard about his second marriage contract."
"And did you know she died? The girl?"
"Yes," she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
"He started coming to the Quadrant after she died. Over the past two years those of us on the Ops crew who knew him have had time to think about it, and you can believe this or not, Devon, but we think he was trying to warn us how deeply into the Eden Project the Council had infiltrated. He couldn't get to you, so he tried to warn your crew about what was to come. He kept calling the project doomed from the start, a waste of time and credits. We ignored him because of who he was, but after the crash, after we found out about Alex Wentworth we remembered what he used to say. I mean, it would be quite a coincidence to think he just happened by accident to start hanging out in the bars and taverns where Alex Wentworth and her friends went to unwind." Danziger got to his feet. "In spite of everything he did, or did not do, in his life, John Harmon still knew how to be the decent man he was inside." He leaned his head toward Uly. "Don't you see it in your son?"
Devon looked at Danziger steadily, saying nothing.
In Uly isn't the only place I see decency.
The End
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