Jack let the matter of Josie taking the kids camping drop. He thought she would either

  do it, or not. Just pushing on things wasn’t the way to go.

  He didn’t have to amuse himself at her expense.

  He stepped out of the elevator to the general quarters. He smiled at the girls hard at

  work on their reports. He wondered if his kids were going to be that studious. He might

  have to program them to be better people than he was.

  Laura sat down at the dining room table and pulled a sheet of paper close. She grabbed

  a quill pen. She started writing with a small bit of concentration.

  “Missus,” said Matilda. She had her report done. She looked at it on the table. “It wasn’t

  Melanie’s idea to cheat the writing. We went in together and had Beatrice copy my

  report.”

  “Is that so?,” said Josie. She glanced at Jack. He smiled back. “Thank you for being

  honest, Matilda.”

  Aviras tapped her face with a paw from his spot in her hair.

  “Jack says we should go camping and get away from the city for a while,” said Josie.

  “Would you like to do that?”

  “I don’t think any of us have done that,” said Beatrice. She looked at the younger girls.

  They all seemed as surprised as she was.

  “I came up from the south, but we didn’t really stop for long on the road,” said Matilda.

  “Challenge?,” asked Jack. He doubted she would want to race him and Elaine with a

  bunch of kids in line behind her.

  “No,” said Josie. “We can pack up two days worth of supplies and take it easy for a bit.

  How hard can it be?”

  Jack looked at the girls. They had done well with the fishing trip. How would they do

  just being bored in the woods for two days?

  “I would have preferred a race,” said Jack. “But just taking it easy for a bit should be

  okay.”

  “So we don’t have to scrub the Enterprise’s hull?,” asked Melanie. She almost smiled

  in disbelief.

  “Do you want to?,” asked Jack. “It might need a little touch up work after all the

  torpedoes we’ve dropped. I can teach you how to use climbing gear to hang upside

  down on the saucer.”

  “I’m well with not having to do that,” said Melanie.

  “How about the rest of you?,” asked Jack. “They tell me hanging upside down at thirty

  thousand miles with no net is good for the blood pressure.”

  “I think most of us would like not to have to do that,” said Angelica.

  “So we’re not going to be punished?,” asked Beatrice.

  “I’m not happy that you cheated the reports when you know better,” said Josie. “Jack

  has reminded me that I don’t spend enough time with you, and maybe I should change

  that a little.”

  “Beatrice, ask Thad if he wants to go along if he doesn’t have anything to do here in

  town,” said Jack. “Obviously Case is going to want to go wherever Caroline goes, and

  Caroline has to go where we go unless I just put her on the Enterprise and wish her the

  best of luck. So we should get ready with our arrangements. How’s the homework

  coming along?”

  “Still struggling,” said Alicia.

  “I think most of us are still trying to figure out what we should be writing,” said

  Angelica. “Matilda is done naturally.”

  “Matilda, help Alicia,” said Jack. “Elaine, help Angelica. Josie, take Beatrice and Laura.

  And I will try to help Melanie. We’ll separate a little so we can talk without causing

  problems. After we get done, we’ll start getting ready for our camping trip.”

  “We’ll have to let Jane and Guin know we’re heading out of town,” said Josie.

  “Same for Seven,” said Jack. “All right, let’s split up and get this done.”

  “All right, Mel,” said Jack. He led the way to a portion of the track next to the archery

  room. “Show me what you have so far.”

  Melanie handed over the paper. She looked down at the track.

  “Still having problems reading and writing?,” said Jack. He frowned at the shaky

  handwriting on display. “Sit down. I think you only need a hundred words to show that

  you were there and did something. You did do something, right?”

  “I put the burning stuff that Elaine mixed together inside the house with my

  teleportation,” said Melanie. “I can do farther holes now, but not bigger. Not yet. I am

  missing something that allows me to judge the size of the gate that I need so they are

  small for the moment.”

  “You probably need some math,” said Jack. “I’m sure you will figure it out.”

  “Math?,” asked Melanie.

  “The gates run on esoteric math,” said Jack. “You probably don’t have it here. When

  you figure out the calculations you need to shape the gate, you will be able to create one

  as big as you want.”

  “Really?,” said Melanie. She smiled at the thought of just taking a house anywhere she

  wanted to go.

  “Or you will turn yourself inside out and explode across wherever you make your

  gates,” said Jack. He shrugged. “I’m sure you won’t do anything that will cause that to

  happen.”

  “I’m sure,” said Melanie.

  Jack counted the words on the page.

  “All you need is a hundred, and you have ten,” said Jack. He handed the paper back.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “You just need ninety more.”

  “What am I supposed to say?,” asked Melanie. “I’ve never done anything like this

  before.”

  “The first thing is you don’t have to report everything,” said Jack. “You just have to

  write down what you did personally. So you put the alchemist stuff in the house, right?”

  “Yes,” said Melanie. “I took it from Elaine after she mixed it.”

  She wrote that down, and nodded at the lines of text.

  “And then you put it in the house,” said Jack. “Did you light it?”

  “No,” said Melanie. “We asked Beatrice to light it.”

  She wrote that down, and how the house had gone up in the blaze after Beatrice had

  used her ring.

  “What happened after that?,” asked Jack.

  “The men streamed out, and we arrested them,” said Melanie. “I didn’t do much. I just

  let them come after me until someone else did something.”

  “Write that down, and you might have enough to satisfy Josie,” said Jack. “Was that so

  hard?”

  “A little,” said Melanie.

  “You just haven’t written anything,” said Jack. He took the paper and counted the

  words. “You need to practice more and quit being lazy. All right, you have enough to

  say you finished the work. Congratulations.”

  “I’m glad that’s over,” said Melanie.

  “Is it?,” asked Jack. “Every day for the rest of your life you’re going to have to make

  statements, written or otherwise. If you get in with a guild of some kind, you are going

  to have to keep records of what you did, and how much it cost.”

  “Why must you ruin things?,” asked Melanie.

  “It’s easy,” said Jack. “Let’s go make your big sister smile in joy so Elaine and I can be

  really happy.”

  “I can’t wait to find someone I can court so I can move out of here,” said Melanie.

  “I can’t either,” said Jack. “It will give me a chance to practice my dad talk.”

  “I think you like that too much for not being a father,” said Melanie.

  “It’s that, or stand back and watch Josie turn your potential suitor into spaghetti,” said

  Jack. “I don’t know what would amuse me more.”

  “Josie would never do that,” said Melanie.

  “That’s what my parents said after she pushed that old lady down the stairs,” said Jack.

  “Do you have a report to give me?,” asked Josie. She seemed to have ignored their talk

  as they crossed the room.

  “It’s a hundred words,” said Jack. He handed over the paper.

  Josie scanned the report, pausing at certain places. She went back and read it again. She

  nodded in satisfaction.

  “Laura and Beatrice are in the library looking at the model,” said Josie. “Go ahead and

  help them pick a place out for our trip.”

  “Yes, missus,” said Melanie. She turned to go into the library.

  “Melanie,” said Josie.

  “Yes, missus,” said Melanie, pausing in midstride.

  “That was brave of you to take the whole blame,” said Josie. “A lot of people would

  have sold their family down the river. I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Yes, missus,” said Melanie. She hung her head for a moment. “I didn’t feel brave.”

  “You best feel it when you get a boyfriend, missy,” said Jack in his cowboy twang. He

  grinned at her expression. “Cause by the time that happens, I will have my dad talk

  perfected and will be able to melt the ears off anyone dumber than Case. You hear the

  bacon that’s sizzling.”

  “Oh please, no,” said Melanie. She looked aghast.

  “Go ahead, Melanie,” said Josie. “I will forbid anything like that.”

  “You don’t always have to ruin things,” said Jack. He smiled at her grim expression.

  “You don’t always have to scare people,” said Josie.

  “You would think that, but it isn’t so,” said Jack.

  “I’m sure,” said Josie. “Do you want to talk to Budd and Case about the camping trip?”

  “Not really,” said Jack. “Just send them a letter. It’s not like we’re going at the first sign

  of daylight.”

  “All right,” said Josie. “Enterprise transporter for the trip out?”

  “Sure,” said Jack. “We can even get her to stand watch for us in case something shows

  up in the woods that needs to be handled.”

  “I guess a phaser bolt will handle most of the local wildlife around here,” said Josie.

  “I would be surprised if it didn’t,” said Jack.

  “Let’s get the rest of this done,” said Josie. “Then I can write my letters to leave. We

  want Jane and Guin to call us if there is an emergency. One of us will have to come back

  to handle things.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Jack. “This is your time to hang with the girls. Two days without

  worrying about other people’s problems will do you some good.”

  “I’m not big on being in the wilderness,” said Josie.

  “It will be fine,” said Jack. “The girls will show you something. And if things get bad,

  you can use your watch to bail everyone out, or call the Enterprise for help. You can be

  a fussy baby when we get home.”

  “I thought no powers,” said Josie.

  “If we were racing, sure,” said Jack. “But we’re not. We’re just taking a leisurely walk

  through the woods.”

  “All right,” said Josie. “You’re going to have to show us how to set up camp, and things

  like that.”

  “As long as we can store our food on the Enterprise, the rest will be easy,” said Jack.

  “Go ahead and write your letters, and I will collect the papers and read them. The girls

  can pick a spot for us to walk home from on the model.”

  “All right,” said Josie. She sat down at the table and pulled off her messenger bag. It

  shouldn’t take more than a few minutes for her to send the notices.

  Jack wondered over to where Matilda and Alicia were staring at the paper on the table.

  He glanced at the work. The wording appeared mechanical to him. He read through

  what he could see of the block lettering.

  “We’re almost done,” said Matilda. “Alicia is doing a good job with this.”

  “What do you think, Aviras?,” asked Jack. The dragon glanced up at him from the table.

  “It seems accurate from what I can see,” said Aviras. “Alicia did hurt some of the men

  we arrested with her hands.”

  “The machine is making me a better fighter as I look at things,” said Alicia. “I feel like

  I will be able to do things like one of the heroes from Matilda’s stories.”

  “Are you feeling tired by it?,” asked Jack.

  “No,” said Alicia.

  “Let me know if you do,” said Jack. “It may only be operating in a crisis mode.”

  “Crisis mode?,” asked Matilda.

  “Human beings in general,” said Jack. “Have a mechanism in their body that operates

  when they are confronted by a danger. This mechanism dumps adrenaline and other

  hormones so the body can either run from whatever scared them, or fight it in the hopes

  of winning.”

  “So Alicia might only be using her talent if she is confronted?,” asked Matilda.

  “And the rest of the time, it is storing energy and calculations,” said Jack. “It might be

  saving itself for when Al needs to really go all out one way, or the other.”

  “I’m not tired either,” said Matilda.

  “You might be doing the same thing in a different way,” said Jack.

  “I don’t understand,” said Matilda.

  “Your talent may only be operating when you need to call up a memory of something,”

  explained Jack. “The rest of the time it may just be recording things until you have to

  use them.”

  “How much is it recording?,” said Matilda.

  “Don’t know,” said Jack. “Maybe everything you experience.”

  “Everything?,” said Matilda.

  “Maybe,” said Jack. “As long as your brain doesn’t explode, you should be okay. As

  soon as you get done, hand me the report and then join your sisters in the library and

  pick out a place for us to start our walk home.”

  “I can’t be a champion if my head explodes,” said Matilda.

  “I’m sure the Society will have words with me about how their youngest champion

  bravely faced such a gruesome fate,” said Jack. He grinned at them. “And I will say it

  happens. Now chop, chop.”

  “It happens?,” said Alicia.

  “Life,” said Jack.

  He walked over to where Elaine and Angelica sat in the kitchen. Angelica used the

  counter for her desk as she thought about her paper.

  “We’re almost done, Jack,” said Elaine. “I think we have covered most of what

  happened.”

  “When you’re ready, just hand me the paper,” said Jack. “Then you can go help pick out

  a spot where we can hang out for the next couple of days.”

  “All right,” said Angelica. “This is a lot harder than it looks.”

  “If it was easy, anyone could do it,” said Jack. He smiled. “All you need is a hundred

  words to reach the minimum effort. Even Mel did that.”

  “Melanie finished hers?,” asked Angelica.

  “Yep,” said Jack. “It was a little rough around the edges, but she got it done.”

  “I can do it too,” said Angelica. She scanned her report. “I have almost enough now.”

  “Go ahead and finish it,” said Jack. “I’m going to raid the icebox.”