= = = = = Chapter #2 = = = = =

	[07:00-WAKEME]

	All it takes is one battle, lasting longer then 48 consecutive hours, to learn how to fall asleep in one's battle suit and think it's a blessing.  It takes a couple of years, however, to learn how to not jerk upward and smash something when a wake-me hits you.  In my case it had taken a couple more years to learn how to stop thinking about all the monetary damage I'd caused while acquiring that particular skill.

	It was still dark, but there was a hint of grey telling me that sunrise would be along shortly, and I decided to brave the outside world.  Popping the suit open is never an easy task, and un-attaching all of the data cables and long-term plumbing one handed seemed to take forever in the biting cold.  By the time I could access the suit's small storage and drag out my artificial limbs and start attaching them, my teeth had started up a nice chatter, and I put a priority on getting my communications vest, along with the thick sweater and winter pants I'd bought at Port last night, over my skinsuit as quickly as possible.

	I'd just gotten my feet into a new pair of snow boots when the house's front lights came on, bathing the whole area in light, and the door was opened by a young woman, late adolescent I figured.  Blinking at me a couple times she stepped out onto the porch and said, "Papa wants to know if you're hungry."

	"Just a sec, I need to check-"

	[CUSTOMALARM0015933-TOMMI-IS-AWAKE]

	Perfect timing, of course.

	With a sigh I stepped over to the cargo container and cracked open the electronic seals, then stepped back as a gentle puff of warm air was released and the lid lifted open.

	Eventually a young sleepy voice from within called out, "Saaam?" and Tommi's fuzzy face appeared, yawning widely and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  Looking around a bit his eyes finally found me and he began climbing out, a rather involved process as the containers lip came to his shoulder.  It took the girl's ...Melissa... gasp to mentally kick me, however, and realize that Tommi had taken his clothes off, again.

	"Tommi, put your pants on."  Half-way over the lip at this point I grabbed him and gently but firmly put him back inside.  "Tommi, put your pants on."  He replied with another huge yawn before saying, "Tommi hungry."  "Of course you are, but right now you need to put your pants on."  Recognizing the fact that he wasn't completely awake yet I carefully pushed a mental picture of his pants at him, something I now had a ridiculous amount of practice at, and he finally ducked down to fish them out.  Leaning over I helped him struggle with his custom overalls before going back to the suit for the new winter coat and one-size-fits-most boots I'd bought him.  My last-second midnight shopping trip at Port's only all-night and fully-automated apparel shop had cost me a small fortune, but neither of us had any clothing appropriate to the climate here, and I had been in a hurry.  With another sigh I grabbed those and turned back to find he'd already climbed out of the container, with predictably nothing but his overalls on.

	Standing at only 137 centimeters in height, short even compared to my own diminutive 160, Tommi sported all of the usual genetically engineered traits of a felinoid Graft.  Large cat-like eyes, a slightly triangular face, honest-to-hell feline ears, a prehensile tail that was just over a meter long, and covered in a very fine fur that, in his case, happened to swirl about his slender body in a simple light and dark brown coloration.  He was gloriously cute, but then out of the dozen or so engineered felinoids, caninoids, and other breeds of Graft that I've encountered over the years, which I considered a lot as the techniques for manufacturing them were outlawed in just about every solar system there was, I've never met one that wasn't.  Shifting from one fuzzy foot to the other he complained, "Cold."

	"Well duh, there's snow everywhere you silly.  Now put these boots on."  Getting his patented "No" in reply, as he hated wearing anything on his feet, I dropped them next to him and instead busied myself leaning over the cargo container and hunting around for a clean shirt he'd wear.  "Cold!"  "Then put your new boots on."  "Nooo."  Finding something I turned around and found him sitting on ground, poking at one of the boots with a finger and a great degree of reluctance.  It took a bit but I finally got him in boots, shirt, and coat.  Mussing the more human-normal hair on top of his head I stated, "Done.  Time for breakfast."

	Turning back to the house I found both Melissa, and now May, staring at Tommi with open shock on their faces, and decided that maybe a meal in town was a better idea.  "Thank you kindly for the offer of a meal, but a friend finally called, and I was going to join him.  It's only four or five kilometers to town, right?  Would it be okay if I left my suit here until I find a place?  Shouldn't be more then a few hours."

	Getting a slow hesitant nod as a reply I tossed out a final, "Thank you kindly," and snagged Tommi's travel bag before sealing up both suit and container.  Then grabbing his hand I started walking.  Knowing that Melissa had likely gotten an eye full before I had managed to get Tommi's pants on earlier, it didn't take a psychic to know what the sharp whispering was about, which had started before we even reached the main road.

	Yep, one didn't get much more exotic, or male, than Tommi.

	It took us almost an hour before we finally hit Midtown, and I spent most of it assuring Tommi that food WAS in our immediate future while simultaneously fiddling with my comm vest.  While it didn't have even a tenth of the electronics package that the suit did, it still managed to qualify as illegal outside of Military use, and I was getting tired of the constantly nagging E-blips the slightly increased morning traffic was generating.  Finally getting it settled down into a more 'civilian' mode I began our hunt, and was quickly rewarded by finding a place called Mary's, a moderate sized dining hall that pushed a frontier rustic decor.  Stepping inside I stomped the loose snow from my boots, and then helped Tommi with his coat while firmly stating, "Tommi, best behavior."

	The restaurant's only visible occupant, a waitress ...Beth... immediately started scoring points with me.  She approached us as soon as our coats were off, and only paused a moment on Tommi's face and twitching tail before showing us to a booth and calling up a holo menu for us.  Not seeing much that I was familiar with I smiled at her and said, "I'm really sorry, but we're going to be your difficult customers for the day," and proceeded to ask for a dozen samples of the local cuisine, then watched as she disappeared into the food prep area.  She managed to look over her shoulder at Tommi only once.  Yep, a professional.

	Then we waited, or rather, I waited while Tommi fidgeted, of which he is a champion at.  Overall I was pretty happy though, as he hadn't started screaming his head off yet.  New place, new people, new smells, still shaking off the last lingering effects of the tranquilizers I'd given him for the flight down from the ship, and he still managed to quietly sit in one general spot.  A real trooper.  When Beth returned with a sample platter, however, I still had to level a finger at him and say, "Wait."  

	It was very difficult not to laugh when he unleashed his patented pouty face in retaliation.

	Getting down to business I quickly took a small nibble of everything on the plate, asking Beth questions about ingredients as I went, and quickly decided on things I liked, I might want to try in the future, and what I was going to avoid.  Then leveling the finger at Tommi once more I said, "Spoon" and waited as he found, and grabbed, the named utensil.  The plate was then pushed to his side of the table where, over the thirty seconds it took him to scrape it almost clean, I monitored his ever expressive face.  Don't order the grimaces, do order the plainly eaten, and be careful around a couple that were maniacally consumed, as it indicated either a current lack in his very particular diet or something that his body was having an excessive pleasure reaction to.  I'd once seen him get horribly sick on a particular dish, not because it had been bad for him, but simply because he literally couldn't stop eating it.  The result hadn't been pretty, and I'd taken the lesson to heart.

	I firmly took the plate away when it looked like he was about to start licking it.

	"Saaam!  Tommi hungry!"  

	Turning back to Beth once more I stated, "Okay, we are now ready to order breakfast," and shortly after that we began to gorge.

	It was almost nine o'clock when I pushed my plate away, pleasantly full, and initiated a call to Chris Fenris's shop.  A gruff voice eventually answered with, "Fenris Repair.  We open at ten, call us back then."  The voice reminded me of a combat instructor I'd once had, long ago, and I grinned while shooting back, "Perfect, that gives me an hour then.  Tell Chris to get his ass on down to Mary's and join me for breakfast."

	With a gesture to Tommi to cue the surprised pause, which he ignored, I waited until the voice more carefully asked, "Who is this?"

	"Well, that currently depends on if I'm talking to Chris."

	"You are."

	"Then my name would be Samual Karish, and I'm calling you on recommendation from Judge Killian in the hopes that you'd be able to help me out a little."

	"And why would I be wanting to do that?"

	"Probably because as of... oh, eleven hours ago or so, I became Chalion's new Judge, though I bet we could just as easily pretend it's due to your natural tendencies to help out those in need, a nasty little habit of yours which I will take great endeavors to hide from the your fellow neighbors."  Taking a breath I tried to tone down that playful but nasty edge in my voice.  "You can call Killian to confirm it, and it would probably be best if you did.  All I ask is that you make sure he understands the call is NOT about something I've screwed up already.  When he hung up on me early this morning he was sounding a tad frail."  Lowering my voice some I added, "I'm kind of flying blind here."

	He grunted once, in kind of a thoughtful way, before disconnecting on me, and I started the waiting game again.

	Which didn't last nearly as long as I had expected it to.  Having finished stuffing himself I'd just dragged out Tommi's color pad and stylus when I heard the restaurant doors open.  The man entering was large, both tall, at least 185 centimeters, and muscular, with a clean but worn face.  Approaching us as he caught my wave I found myself wanting to chuckle a bit.  He even looked a little like my old combat instructor.

	Reaching our table he nodded while saying, "Ms. Karish, what-" and stopped as soon as he spotted Tommi.  Watching him pale while a brief guilt-ridden expression crossed his face I suddenly found it hard, very hard, not to ignore psy protocol and go trouncing through the man's mind right there and then.  Nobody looks like that without having seen, or done, something in the past, and I now had a bad habit of taking anything involving Grafts very personally.

	"Sam?"  Turning to Tommi I found him watching me, clenching his stylus in both hands and looking nervous, and I got out of my seat, rudely pushing Chris out of my way in the process, to sit down next to him.  Giving him a hug and ruffling his hair I put on a smile and asked, "What'cha drawing, Tommi?"  Deliberately making a bit of a production out of it I slid his coloring pad closer to me and examined it before commenting, "What is that?  Is it a house, or a rock?  It's very yellow and green.  No, wait, it's a blob, right?"  Successfully distracted Tommi took the pad away from me and complained, "Saaam!"  Pointing to the splotch of yellow he stated, "flower", then further labeled a small and large green blot as 'leaf' and 'grass'.  Then he changed the stylus color to a light blue and started drawing what I presumed was another flower.

	One issue dealt with I took a deep breath and then pointed at my now vacant seat and told Chris, "Sit."  He paused just long enough that I wondered if he was going to make a run for it, before he slowly slid into the seat across from us.  His expression was now guarded, but his eyes kept flicking between the two us, and his shoulders started to nervously twitch a bit.

	Trying to keep a light tone I said, "This is my son, Tommi."  Hearing his name he glanced back up at me, and I took the opportunity to plant a quick kiss on his forehead.  "Officially, I'm the one who found and adopted him.  The reality, however, is basically the opposite.  He is also, in my completely biased opinion, a bloody genius."  Taking a deep breath I then carefully asked, "I take it you've had the misfortune of meeting a Graft before?"

	We gazed at one another a moment before his eyes fell, and placing his big hands on the table he nodded.  "Unfortunate.  Yea, I think... I think that is a good word for it."  When the following silence stretched out to the point where it was obvious that he wasn't going to add anything more about it I exhaled loudly, pushing the matter aside for the moment.  Leaning back into my seat I moved on to dealing with the here and now.

	"So I'm the new Judge.  What do I do next?"

	Taken a little back by my question Chris asked, "M'am?"

	"See, here's the thing.  I've never been a Judge on an established world before."  I shrugged my shoulders for emphasis.  "I don't have the right training, and I doubt I have the right temperament.  This isn't a job I wanted or asked for.  In fact, I didn't even know about it until I was handed my orders while they were in the middle of booting my ass off the ship late last night.  Hell, I was already on the ground before someone bothered to tell Killian about me, and he's supposed to be my upline!"

	"So, here I am.  I ain't got any place to stay.  I don't know what finances I have to work with.  I've got a list of comm codes for people that I've never heard of or met before.  I haven't a clue as to how things are done around here, and finally," I waved my hand at Chris at this point, "I have you.  The only person the Judge appears to like enough to specifically point out to me.  There you have it."  Then in afterthought I asked, "You called Killian, right?"

	He shook his head.  "No, I thought I would take a peek at you first before calling him."  That said, he proceeded to just that, take a long look at me.  I followed his eyes as they categorized my short hair, my slightly mismatched eyes, my artificial hand that was poking out of my sweater.  It was kind of an odd moment, as over the last year I'd gotten used to people generally not noticing me anymore.  They're generally too busy staring at Tommi.

	"You aren't Ministry, are you?"

	I grinned.  "Nope."

	"So Military.  Which branch?"

	"Let's just say that a long time ago, back around the era of the caveman, I was a darned good Gorilla, and let us leave it at that for now."

	He gave another one of those short noncommittal grunts, so I asked right back, "What about you?"

	"Hmm?"

	"I figure you were either a Gorilla, or it's a case of a misspent youth.  You've still got that stiff fighting man walk, so you were in long enough for it to become habit, but you're too damn big to be an Eagle, or a Rhino, I think, and I can't imagine you as a Tiger.  So which is it?"

	He frowned and turned his attention away from me, then started drumming his fingers before he shrugged and said, "130th Terran Irregulars."

	That made me pause.  The Terran Irregulars were tough, some of the best ground infantry that the Terran League possessed, and almost pound for pound equal to a Collective World Gorilla, electronic warfare training set aside.  Of course, I was about as anti-League as one got, not terribly surprising since they and the Collective Worlds have been shooting at each other for over fifty years now.  Would probably still be doing it too, if the aliens hadn't shown up.  My own pet peeve, however, was in their tactics.  Where as the Collective liked sending in strike teams, the League had a tendency to toss atomics, so I just nodded and said, "Misspent youth."  He shrugged again.

	"Okay, last couple of questions, I promise.  Think you can stand our company for another fifteen minutes or so?"

	With that guarded look back on his face he slowly answered, "Probably."

	"You married?"

	"Yea."

	"Have any kids?"

	"Two.  Why?"

	"Then you know exactly where a well behaving little boy can pick up a reward or two, right?"

	Any reply of his was cut off as Tommi, suddenly very interested in the conversation, grabbed my arm and practically started to hop in his seat.

	"Sam, candy?"