Alien in the Family

sounded.
    Michael shrugged. “My mother told me about it. She was . . . concerned I would use our Unity Necklace . . . inappropriately.” Oh, wow, so him being a womanizer was relevant. Doubly interesting.
    “What did she tell you?” White sounded guarded.
    “That we were close enough from a blood standpoint that it could affect us.”
    “What could affect you?” I figured the rest of us were getting as impatient as I was.
    Michael gave me a wry smile. “Jeff and Christopher are part of the Alpha Centaurion royal family.”
    I sat there. This didn’t compute. At all. “Come again?”
    “Royal family. You’re marrying into it.” Michael seemed to find this funny.
    I looked at White. “He’s kidding, right?”
    “No, he’s not.” White looked as though this was a conversation he’d never wanted to engage in. “Alfred and Theresa were the grandchildren of the reigning monarch when we all left.”
    “They exiled their own grandkids?” Oh, I did not want to meet this part of Martini’s family at all.
    “No. Alfred and Theresa made the choice to come with us to Earth.”
    “Hang on. Paul and Michael aren’t that close to this bloodline, from what you all told me. You and Lucinda have another sister, and their father is her husband’s brother. So, what’s the connection?”
    “Our other sister also married into the royal family,” White admitted.
    “Farther away from the monarchy,” Michael added. “More like a distant cousin of the reigning monarch’s, versus his direct grandchildren.”
    “Is your home world a lot less populated than ours?”
    “No, more populated, at least it was when we left,” White replied. “Why?”
    “It’s a little odd to have this many people married into the monarchy, at least around here.”
    “America doesn’t have a monarchy,” Michael reminded me.
    “England does,” Chuckie said. “Were you all in someplace smaller like that?”
    “I suppose, maybe smaller. Think of it more like living in Washington, D.C. Our families were politically involved, after all.”
    I turned to Christopher. He looked as shocked as I felt. “You didn’t know?”
    “Not really. My mother never talked about her family. She only spoke about the family here on Earth—she told me and Jeff they were the only A-Cs who mattered.”
    “I can understand why.” I looked back to Michael. “So, what else?”
    He shrugged. “My mother was worried this sort of thing would happen. When a member of the royal family declares for someone, it’s a huge political deal. It’s never done lightly.”
    “Your mother’s an Earth woman. How did she know this?”
    Michael laughed. “How to put it? She’s a lot like you. She badgered our dad until he gave her all the history.” I resolved to meet Mrs. Gower sooner as opposed to later.
    I thought about the one image of Terry that Christopher had created for me in the air. She was in a tiara. For whatever reason, that hadn’t seemed odd to me at the time, possibly because I was half-dressed and trying to figure out how to hide what had happened from Martini and marveling over Christopher’s imageering talent. Christopher had called me princess, too—I’d never made the connection that his mother had been one.
    Christopher hadn’t, either, if his reactions were any clue. “Dad, why didn’t you tell us?”
    White sighed. “It just didn’t seem . . . relevant. You boys had so many other pressures. Why tell you that in addition to everything else, you were related by blood to the monarchy? What good would it have done?”
    “Did they put the PPB net up to keep humanity in, or to keep Martini and White on Earth?” Chuckie had recovered the quickest, and I could hear the conspiracy theories whirling through his brain.
    “Both,” Martini snapped from his corner. “Almost done here.”
    “So, I’m just spitballing here, Richard, but I’d have to guess Terry’s family were no more thrilled with you marrying her than your father was.”
    “Less, if you can believe it.”
    “How excited were they that Alfred married Lucinda?”
    “Much less so. They married well before Theresa and I did. Alfred was disowned, it was a huge controversy.” White shook his head. “They did offer to let Alfred and Theresa rejoin the family if they renounced their marriages to us and remained on our home world while the rest of us went to Earth.”
    “So, since they both passed on that offer, why would they care about whatever Jeff’s doing