Pills and Starships Read Online Free Page B

Hawaii and this fancy hotel and one or two daytrips, but all the rest of the money they had budgeted went to cover the travel permit and the ship we took from Seattle.
    Our contract’s not lux, but it’s a few steps up from Vacation Basic.
    The corp that my parents chose likes to boast how it hires locals, down to the complex where the contractor lives. Of course its parent corp is huge; it’s more a style choice than a structural difference. I mean, no corporates are exactly mom-’n’-pop boutiques.
    So our rep, when it came down to it, was a lady my mother had once played smallgolf with.
    My mother isn’t the sporty type, by the way. Just this one time she did a game for charity—smallgolf’s a game they used to play on grass, on huge hills that went on forever, so big they had to ride around them in buggies. Now the courses are set up in rec rooms of complexes with green carpets.
    Anyway, because my mother had a good sense of humor, at least till recently, she was basically the comic relief, I think. And that one day of smallgolfing was where she first met Jean, the service rep.
    Jean had a low-key way about her. She showed up at our condo a couple of months ago, in the comfortable hour before dinnertime when we usually hang out together and talk about our day, what feeds we’ve seen and friends we’ve made on face. The four of us were drinking cocktails in the living room. Being fourteen Sam wasn’t drinking intoxicants much yet, but my mother, in a celebratory gesture we didn’t understand then, had offered him a mini pharmabeer.
    And there was Jean at the door—a compact, middle-aged woman from the tenth floor, frosted hair, braided wedge heels. I’d seen her in the elevator once or twice but I never knew she was a family acquaintance.
    “This is Jean,” said my mother softly. “Jean, these are our children, Nat and Sam.”
    Oh yeah, spacefriend: my name is Natalie, but I go by Nat. I should have introduced myself before.
    The woman smiled and sat down and looked at us with a friendly but businesslike expression. “Your parents thought it might be good to have me here,” is how she started in.
    Sam glanced up. He had been reading off his handface. He looked stricken, I noticed immediately. “You’re service,” he said flatly.
    “I do work with a service company,” said Jean, smiling again. (They call themselves “companies,” not “corps,” because it’s more positive sounding.) Jean didn’t miss a beat and didn’t seem awkward; she had a forthright attitude, without being domineering.
    “You’re the counselor, or whatever they call them,” said Sam.
    “I’m coordinating the personal aspect of outreach,” conceded Jean.
    “On the contract we purchased recently,” added my mother, softer-voiced than usual. “Mine and your father’s.”
    Sam picked up his beer and drank the rest of it down quickly, a flush rising on his skin.
    I had been sitting at the bay window, looking out over the garden. Our complex was nice, with trees and water features and squirrels in the courtyard—no, wait, they’re not squirrels but rather little striped chipmunks, because chipmunks always poll higher.
    Squirrels = vermin. Chipmunks = cute.
    I liked to drink and take in the view. It was usually just as relaxing as it was meant to be.
    But now, without really noticing my own movement, I had turned so I was facing into the room, my back against the view of the trees. Even the next instant I didn’t remember swiveling. In the pit of my stomach was a heavy new stone. And at the same time my arms and legs felt light and liquid, like the bones in them had weakened.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” was the thing I said, obviously stupid.
    “We’re telling you now, sweetheart,” replied my mother, and came to sit beside me on the ledge. She put one arm around my shoulder—her left arm with the two-finger hand. She calls it her claw sometimes.
    I’ve never been grossed out by it, but on the couple of