– 2223 the Hon. Hasmita Joan Mundy-Chakravarthi joins the Board of Directors at Trafalgar Tech
At about the time I was sailing the waters around Peregrine, Hasmita was turning into a businesswoman. Not that she ever abandoned the lab, bio-chemistry was her chosen field, but she also realised that since one day she would inherit most of the company assets, she had better be qualified to run it. In this, too, our father was somewhat old-fashioned: rather than divide the company between us and run the risk of differences of opinion on its future management, he decided that his eldest would inherit the majority, while Horatio and I would receive a life-long income from a fund set up for the purpose. It’s just as well, I suppose, that he wasn’t quite Napoleonic enough to decide that his heir had to be male… though I suspect Mother would have had something to say about it if he had tried that.
– 2225 Adele Sophie Mundy applies to University of Paragon
I applied, was accepted, and moved to Steel Canyon to attend the courses in person. Of course, a significant amount of the curriculum came from the Inner Planets, and was available online. Of course, there was the University of Paragon Salamanca campus. But attending in Steel Canyon gave me the chance to move out of Chatsworth and try to be an independent adult. Relatively speaking. I had the kind of allowance that meant, even when I turned down my parents’ offer to buy me an apartment near campus, I still had no difficulty renting one. I worked almost as hard at paring down my possessions as I did on the academic subjects; discovering how much time it takes to look after oneself was almost as alien as Xeno-linguistics, and the realisation of the amount of privilege I enjoyed was profoundly embarrassing.
– 2228 Adele S. Mundy completes her first degree (Linguistics, with Xeno-linguistics)
There’s not much to add to that. Student days.
– 2228 the Hon. Hasmita Joan Mundy-Chakravarthi marries Alexander Blackwell
Weeks after my graduation, Hasmita got married. I had been aware of Alex’s presence for a while, but had not paid a great deal of attention, since I was living away from home. It seemed sudden to me, but really was not, that this young man, some sort of relation to the Blackwells who owned the bookshops all over Paragon City, was going to marry my sister.
The wedding was a lovely summer affair, held in the grounds in Chatsworth (the armed guards on the edge of the the wood were discreetly camouflaged; the bridal party’s guard of honour carried real guns as well as ceremonial, but functional, swords), with all the society notables attending, as well as a number of City of Paragon officials I had never expected would set foot outside City Hall, and of course a slew of Blackwell family members, some of whom I actually recognised from my frequent visits to their bookshops. And Great-Aunt Adelaide arrived with barely an hour to spare, fresh from the Inner Worlds and resplendent in her dress uniform with its array of medals and ribbons.
She was an Admiral at this point, and of course had been away from action for a good while, dealing with administration and things she dismissed as “all that desk stuff”. She told stories of her days as a Lieutenant on Chimera, and refrained from rearranging the silver or the crystal.
Hasmita and Alex went to Earth on their honeymoon, and when the aftermath of the wedding was cleared away and life in Chatsworth returned to normal, Great-Aunt Adelaide announced her intention to retire from the service. My parents invited her to stay on in Chatsworth for as long as she wished; Grandma Joan was not overjoyed, but at this point she was elderly herself, and mostly kept to her apartments, and so the thing was settled.