The Return Home – Part 16

Prime Minster Susan Blakely arrive in her office in the Parliament building on Londinium sharp at 9 am as usual, her bodyguards stopping outside the door and taking up their posts. She said hello to her secretary, who always arrived early, received her daily schedule, and went into her private office. Today would be a busy day, with a new hospital opening, a meeting with her security council concerning Cutter’s fleet and the rebellion, and a million and one other things to do and which couldn’t wait. But the first order of business was to contact MacCready on Osiris and find out what the hell was going on. As she waited for him to return her wave she recalled her conversation with Gabriel Tam just yesterday.

“My children? What…I mean…I don’t understand?” Tam began, shocked that she wanted to speak about his children.

“I know they are wanted by the Ministry of the Interior and that there is a 400,000 credit bounty on their heads, dead or alive.”

“That was four years ago,” he said, subdued, and she sensed he was feeling some shame about his children. “No one can even tell me what crimes they have committed.”

“Perhaps I can shed some light on this matter,” Blakely told him and then she launched into the story Book told her, as much as she dared, telling him about the escape from Athenian Island, about being on the run, hiding from the Alliance, leaving out the stuff about Serenity for now, and of course she said nothing about Cutter and River’s mind reading skills.

He could neither corroborate nor deny Shepherd Book’s story. His daughter River had been selected for an Academy for Advanced Studies, which Gabriel and his wife Regan believed was on the same continent as Capital City was but which was in fact on Athenian Island. Tam had never heard of Athenian Island and was flabbergasted to learn what it was and what Blakely suspected was going on there. They thought their daughter was attending a school for brilliant, genius level students. Now the Prime Minister herself was