Decision Reached

Contract Marriage #4

“Well, Daughter, shall we speak?” Jellia looked up, a bit startled, from the study program she was working on. Her study of Libertas had told her that they had great need for soil engineers, and that looked to be a fascinating field! It tended to mean a great deal of getting out and all, going visiting places nominated for new construction.

She shut down her three large, opaque screens, jumped to her feet, and bowed. Not ‘daughter greets mother’ but ‘decision reached’. Her mother gave a bit of a smile and bowed ‘anticipation’ back to her.

“Well, Daughter, what is this ‘decision’ you have reached?”

“Mother, I have done my meditation as directed.”

“You are perfectly correct that this will be a difficult transition for me. The cultures are extremely different in several areas. I will have a great deal of learning to do, and the transition will probably be painful… in some cases, literally.

“One of the things I will probably find the most difficult will be that there will now be two adults telling me what to do. At my age, I am ready for there to be no one, so to go from one to two will be hard. Hopefully I will be able to play the two of you off of each other.”

Her mother grinned.

“But I am convinced that this will be a good opportunity for you, and I am prepared to support you. And my further research showed that it would also be profitable for me. People who have been exo seem to have a higher rate of advancement, and, quite frankly, the economy on Libertas seems better than here on Ephemera.

“There is no educational lack, either. They are a bit weak in the theoretical fields, but their practical education is excellent.”

Her mother sighed. “I was afraid you would say that. My study was extremely mixed. The posting is fantastic on its own. It comes with free housing in a very good part of town… not even town, really. And it is very flexible, I wouldn’t even have an office but could do all of my work, or almost all of my work, on the wristcomp and in meetings.

“I would be the master trader, with only local hires under me, a phenomenal opportunity. Indeed, they are all contract labour, so they aren’t even part of the company. Thus, all honour would be mine.

“And honour there would be. The trade goes well on Libertas, and all the indicators are it will go even better in the future. 

“The culture there seems like it will be extremely difficult to adjust to, but overall I think I can manage it. I might even find parts of it that I end up liking. So, I had decided that it was very much a net positive for me, and I had only been holding against because of you.

“And now you have thrown yourself to the winds… as befits a youth. You are eager for adventure and see only shining newness where I see difficult transition.

“But it shall be as you say. That is the decision I made during my meditation. I decided I would try for this nomination if you were willing. So…”

She opened up her wrist-comp and they both stared at the screen she had open… with the snip entitled ‘request for nomination’ lit. A link that would snip… her mother stabbed down at it and rose. “Come, let us celebrate. If not getting the nomination, at least for being brave enough to try. We will open our cellars. I know you have been dying to try that expensive Mango soft that has been sitting on the back shelf, and I bought some interesting cheese the other day.”

The two of them had finished the first bottle of mango soft and were into a plainer but still excellent bottle of apple soft when, in a very small gap in the conversation, there was a ‘ding’ from her mother’s wrist-comp. They both stared. Her mother seemed frozen and then darted across and opened the snip.

“Accepted! Nominated!!’ she raced across and grabbed Jellia… throwing her into the air. Something she had not done in years, and Jellia shrieked, and, truth be told, her mother almost dropped her.

“Oh, Mother!” she said, hugging her frantically. “Oh, Mother, I am so pleased.”

“Oh, oh, so am I. I am a Trade Master… or I will be after I finish training and we get there, and I assume control. Oh, this is such a leap! Everyone will be so jealous!”

They hugged again, and then Mother said. “No work tonight! We will bring out a dozen bottles of soft… indeed I will bring a hard for myself… and we will watch Screenies till our eyes bubble, and we fall asleep.”

“I’m going to put my pyjamas on,” Jellia said. “Screenies all night means pyjamas. And blankets. And Pillows!”

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Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

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Links

Links

Contract Marriage Chapters, Newest to Oldest

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I would like to give credit for the genesis of many of these ideas to the Liaden series by Mr. and Mrs. Steve Miller, which is available for free on the web. They do a great deal of cultural exploration, although they rather dramatically skip the moral exploration. (And their math doesn’t work.)

Other concepts were taken, in one form and another, from the book Freehold by Michael A Williamson.