The Gen

Chapter 10

TAILA GHANIK STOOD over her parents, who sat small and meek side by side on the sofa of their living room. Taila had chewed them out for an entire hour already. Nal wasn't exactly sure why, but he found the whole situation highly amusing, especially because his daughter got ever angrier. They were not taking her rage as serious as they should have.

"And come to think of it," Taila shouted. "How the hell could you two terrorists dare to produce children?"

Nal squirmed, not sure whether he should laugh or cry.

"I want an answer to that!"

"Actually, you weren't planned," Meilo finally said.

"What?" Taila shrieked.

Nal knew he shouldn't say that, but found it impossible to resist the temptation. "You're quite right, honey, responsible terrorists don't produce children."

"Dad! This is not fucking funny!"

"I'm sorry. As your mother said, you weren't planned. We wanted to stay childless. To this day we don't know how your mom got pregnant. She took birth control pills, but nevertheless..." Nal shrugged.

"I seriously thought of suing the birth control pill manufacturer, but being a terrorist kind of prevented that," Meilo said. Nal had trouble not to bursting out laughing.

"Why didn't you have an abortion?" Taila shouted.

"We discussed that," Meilo said. "But then your father said that if that baby is so determined to come into the world that it sneaks its way past birth control pills, we should let it have its way. And apart from recruiting and marrying me, that was the best idea your father ever had."

"Thanks." Nal grinned at his wife, then up at Taila.

Taila groaned and finally slumped down into an armchair opposite the sofa.

Nal took a deep breath and went serious, leaving all mocking and sarcasm aside. "Taila, we're sorry to do this to you, but it's the way it is. We have worked for more than twenty years on this mission and we will complete it, one way or the other. We're not expecting to survive this, no matter if the mission is a success or not. You'll leave for Shilas as planned and there'll be no arguing about that.

"You are our legacy and we love you more than anything. We cannot complete our mission without knowing you're safe and out of the way. You won't help us. You won't get involved--"

"Dad--"

He raised a hand to silence her. "I mean it. We mean it. We chose this life for ourselves. You did not. We don't want you to suffer for our decisions."

"I'm an adult as well and I can choose now, too."

"You won't in this matter. You'll have plenty of opportunity to choose whatever you like in the years to come, but not before the mission is completed, which will be in a mere couple of months. I mean it, Taila. You will not be our accomplice."

"Dad--"

"No! No discussion. As our last act of parenting we forbid you to get involved in our activities. Period. You'll go to Shilas when the winter term starts and that's it."

Taila grunted in anger but finally kept quiet. Nal had an awful feeling his daughter would find ways to circumvent his orders.

✜✜✜

Kania looked skeptically at Timon's geek friend, Rilad Klapps, who eagerly examined Sirid's secret communicator. Thanks to the murder incident on board the Gen, Timon and Kania were now on the same shift schedule. Sirid had indeed played sick and delayed his latest ascent to the Gen by a day, giving neither Kania nor Timon the opportunity to find out how Sirid smuggled parts onto the Gen. But his delayed shift opened up a day without Sirid for Kania too, with her and Timon already on the ground.