Keirou burst into laughter.
‘Ayaka!’ Hiromi called her daughter as though threatening further action. ‘Pull the dress back at once and eat on! Why are you encouraging her, Keirou?’
’I am sorry, Hiro-chan. Sorry,’ he smiled while struggling to hold his smile and throwing a glance or two at his wife. ‘Aya-chan, Mummy was right to turn the air conditioning on. Otherwise it would be too hot inside—you see, it is about two o’clock, and it’s like 30° out there right now. And it probably will get hotter yet! Meanwhile, it is cool and nice in here, isn’t it? And the tights—you were sitting on the floor, so that’s why Mummy did that.’
‘Yes, Daddy, I do agree. It is right. It is warm in the tighties.’
‘The lunch is great today, Hiromi. Thank you!’
‘I am glad you like it.’
‘I like it too, Mummy!’ Ayaka supported her father.
‘Keirou, do you remember that we need to go to Tōkyō next week with Ayaka?’
‘Tōkyō? Why would it be?’ Keirou asked, surprised.
Hiromi looked at her husband with some disapproval, ‘Next week, Keirou, our daughter is turning six. That means we need to go to the Destiny House.’
‘I sure do remember that Ayaka’s birthday is next week, right. But I did forget everything about destiny.’
‘Well now you do remember—so please, we need to think everything out.’
‘Daddy, dad-dy! Look, I’m already done with it!’ Ayaka ran up to her father showing him a finished module of a Martian atomic power plant. A lamp on the module was blinking green, indicating that the module was ready to be connected to the main energy network of the base.
‘Aya-chan, and when did you open this constructor kit? when did you start assembling it?’ Keirou was asking.
‘Sorry Daddy, I had absolutely no time for that!’ Ayaka protested, shaking her head from side to side. ‘Mummy gave me a big reading task last night, it took all my time. I only managed to start it today before lunch.’
‘Oh, I see, Aya-chan. Great job! Let’s see what you got there.’
Keirou picked up the constructor kit box from the floor: ‘For children aged 10 to 14’.
Mt Fuji
‘Have you fastened your seat belt well back there, Aya-chan? Let me check,’ Keirou turned back to the passenger seat with his daughter settled comfortably in a child safety seat. He still had that certain mistrust of the autopilot—as well as of all those novel automatic stuff like artificial intelligences, automata, and robots, which had replaced humans in so many spheres of life—Keirou preferred to drive his car by himself. And it was quite a feat to find a manually-controlled electric car. The production of such cars was limited and in the first place they were designed for special emergency services, military, and some other detachments. However, as Keirou was related—even though only quite distantly—to the Emergency Service, being a member of the foresting service of the Fuji–Hakone–Izu National Park, he had had such a vehicle assigned to him by means of a special request.