Chapter 13

"Why did we never notice?" Mom said, "Events ... BIG events ... disturb time ... and if that hole doesn't qualify as a BIG event ... I don't know what does." Mom was looking at the holos of the far side of the moon in question.

"We never explore the fringes," April said. "That's a perfectly lovely star quad ... but it's a hundred million light years from anybody."

"I'll admit it," Mom confessed. "We're always looking at galaxies for people to fuck with ... or over ... depending."

"Yup," April agreed. "Help out the good ones and hinder the badboys."

"Or girls," Mom said.

"We are non-gender specific harassers." Both ships grinned.

"Yup ... that we are," like twins.

"I just thought I needed to check in ... we need to pay attention to the outliers. Maybe we should sic Company on 'em?"

"If brains were money, he couldn't pay attention if attention cost a quarter."

"Mom, he's your son," April contended. "But it's true ... that boy is a minimum of three rounds short of a full clip."

"Two bubbles out of plumb," Mom added.

"A dull chisel in a short tool bag?"

Satisfied that they had used up a few of the regular cliches, Mom asked the question dear to her heart;

"Where are your pets?" Mom asked.

That was rhetorical ... Mom knows where every resident residing in her massive body is located at any given moment ... mostly. "Never mind ... the Japanese Baths and Tea House ... I swear ... those two are the soakingist couple."

"They like the warm up before they get it on ... and they are the gettingist-on pair I ever met. There are times they embarrass me."

"Haven't they a 22 year old daughter?"

"Well, yeah ... she's cute too. Looks just like her mom ... says it's the pr ˤ3's curse. Forever short, busty and redheaded. I don't find one taller than five foot two inches in the past five thousand years."

"Well ... are they still procreating?"

"Practicing," April said. "You remember David and Simone?" A Little Adventure in Time

"You betcha! Best porn vid ever made onboard!"

"Somehow ... someway ... they're related ... Wendy Five is related through marriage to David ... Gary isn't the line except as the father of Six and Six married an Austin ... Austin ... the most common of the uncommon names."

"So ... have they chosen a planet?" Mom asked.

"Not yet."

"They don't have a whole lot of time left."

"I know it. The odds are increasing daily."

"Odds? If there's just the pair of them ... survival will be odd."