He doesn't use a last name, and is a bit of a hippy poet.

Background

Parents run a crummy ship (called Lucky Lou) trading around the outer planets of the Vesk-system, using Forget on Vesk-7 as their main base of operations. They travelled to vesk-8, the moons on vesk-5 and (occasionally) to Vesk 4 and vesk-6 – but those last two were rare visits, as they were either dangerous (Vesk-6) or not very profitable (Vesk-4). Their primary customers were Kothamas on their mountain tops.

Jem (and his siblings) were mainly home-schooled, using video-lessons and CBT lessons -so they spent a lot of their childhood and youth in Space. Between lessons Jem got to work the ship, and help out with the business - learning about manifests, what cargoes to carry and generally gaining a decent understanding of both the ship and the Merchant’s profession, In between time there were a lot of old vids, reading (often e-versions of old books that were out of copyright) and poetry.

He has occasional stays at a boarding school (often just a semester at a time) in Forgotten, to get some more formal education, and he ’sort of’ enjoyed it - but he was always ready to go back aboard ship when the time came. One teacher, a Pahtra called Mr Felix, encouraged his poetry, although he was disappointed with Jem’s lack of musical ability. Mr Felix also said his face said good things about him, and he would go far (but he didn’t elaborate). One of the older students told Jem that Aklo was the language of space - so he decided to learn to speak Aklo, so he could talk to other spacers.

Various field trips, at school, taught him more about surface worlds, and nature. It was fascinating how ‘nature’ worked so differently on different planets. And he loaded more and more old videos of the ‘lost on a strange world’ type, and even checked some of the things they portrayed against the computer records. Boy did it sound interesting …

He knows lots about some things, and next to nothing about others. Space, in its many forms, is his home.

The Lucky Lou – is an old Light Freighter, with worn out (and underpowered) drives, that just about keep her moving.

Dad = Richard (Dickie) Mum = Sonia

Sister = Perl (14 years old) she into ZG Dance - llike most girls of her age. (ZG = Zero-g)