Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction (6 page)

"I should go. I've lived with her. I
communicated with her. I could tell those people all kinds of
things about her," Kayden said.

"Tell you what. We'll let whoever's in
charge, know about you. Meanwhile she gets a free ride." They began
to work the stall out.

"Why did you bring a Ming-thraw to this
station?" the duty free woman asked, a shadowy line formed between
her eyes. He examined the fresh face, searched it for a ripple of
real feeling.

"She thought I'd know where to look. I
figured the Koalakins would come here. I was sure, sure hers'd be
here." He took a breath. "I used to hunt her kind. She caught me.
Injured my leg. I stayed with her a long time and learned her ways.
Left her alone after a while."

"When I saw you taking them, I thought
you might be—putting something in them or that something might
already be inside them, smuggling perhaps. I warned a purchaser and
one of the Koalakins was returned. Maybe that one was hers?" She
collected the scattered Koalakins, handled them as if they were
fragile.

"You knew I was taking them; why didn't
you report me?"

"I did. There is nowhere to hide on
Habitat."

"She knew it'd be dead. We just wanted
to do the right thing by it. I owed her that," he said. He
approached the cage, looked in, and motioned for one of the men to
open it up.

"Go ahead," said the one in
charge.

They'd set the temperature for her,
condensation creating a soft fog. The Ming-thraw lay quietly, still
sedated. He lifted her arm and tucked the Koalakin she'd been
clutching back into place.

"Can't linger. That's the ship." The
man nodded toward the forward arc, to the docked Shadow Hunter.
"Got to hook up with an Earth transfer in thirty
minutes."

Kayden stood back. They closed the
door. He had just enough money for one passage on the Shadow
Hunter. He glanced around the duty free.

The Koalakins lay neatly on the black
desk. He went over to them. The young woman was wiping the floor.
He rested the cane against the edge of the table and quickly
stuffed the creatures into his pockets.

He grabbed his cane.

"Did she have a name?" the clerk called
to him.

"Yes," he said, and pulled the rubber
tip from the metal stick. He played its tip across the glistening
surface of the floor, creating a delicate patina.

She gave him a sad smile. Her eyes
flicked to the empty table.

"I hope you've found what you're
looking for," she said.

He nodded. "I have." He replaced the
rubber tip, leaned for a moment against the desk, looked out at the
Shadow Hunter, and wondered what it would be like on
Earth.

END

Chronos’ Christmas

Any minute, two more kids
would be arriving
at Daycare.
Two
replacements at once. That was unusual.
Normally we arrived one at a time. Two would give us a small
advantage over Deemi’s Daycare unit, but I’d already decided not to
keep them both. I’d give one to Deemi. That would make for fair
play, and I figured that this year my unit could still beat Deemi’s
to Christmas.

Three of us sat in different corners of
the large activity room, across from Ceep who filled an entire wall
of the pentagonal room. Except for his flashing red eye and the
blue glow from his vidscreen, we waited in the dark; it was better
for the arrivals of the replacements, less of a shock for
them.

I could hear Snuks sucking her thumb,
and I tried to see where she was hiding. She must have noticed,
because she leaned out of the shadows and into the vidscreen’s blue
glow, looking eerie. Her round eyes made contact with
mine.

Ceep’s red eye, located at the other
end of the room where Geebo waited, became a steady red.

“They’re coming,” I said to the
others.

“Chronos?”

It was Ceep. “Here,” I
answered.

“Stand by for replacement 1313M and
replacement 1315M, both chronological four.”

“Double chrono four?” I asked. I
thought that was strange. I went over to Ceep and touched him for a
pause and repee. He repeated, and I’d heard the computer correctly.
Chrono fours,
two
of them.
Snuks, Geebo and I had all arrived when we were five, and as far as
I knew the kids at the other unit had all arrived when they were
five, too. This Christmas I would be nine and Snuks would be six.
This was her first Christmas at Daycare. “We’re ready here, Ceep,”
I said. Instantly, above our heads, pink finger-thin laze shot
across the room. It was a soothing, hypnotic color, and I had to
walk away for a moment. The beam began to pulse, expanding in all
directions and filling the room with a warm sleepy glow. A low hum
caused vibrations in the floor and walls. I looked over at Snuks,
her hiding place was exposed by the light, and she was really
pulling on her thumb. She’d never seen the arrival of new
kids.

At the centre of the room appeared a
blue dot as big as a fingernail. It hung in mid air, and then
another appeared beside the first. They grew simultaneously. Snuks
was engrossed by the process, or maybe she was just affected they
the light. Whichever the case, she appeared to be watching very
carefully. The miniature dots started to take shape the tiny human
forms looked like holos suspended just above the floor. They stayed
that way for a moment, and then quickly grew. The pink light
intensified, became brighter, and a sudden white flash blinded us
for an instant.

“How long?” I asked.

“Two hours before they are fully
awake,” Ceep replied.

I heard Geebo set down the gadget he’d
been tinkering with while the new kids arrived. He’d been preparing
the gadget for Christmas, but now that the replacements were here,
he was more interested in them. He began looking the new arrivals
over, checking their pockets, cutting the Velcro from their clothes
and stuffing the strips into his own pockets. Ceep’s red light
shone in Geebo’s hair making it almost the same color as mine. It
was the only time Geebo and I ever resembled each other. We were
the same age, but he was a head shorter than me. His dark eyes were
almost black, while mine were pale, almost colorless. I was the
only one at Daycare with freckles.

I could see that Geebo was completely
absorbed with the sleeping kids, while Snuks sat back in the
shadows like she always did when something was new to her. There
was little to do except wait for the arrivals to wake up so that we
could orient them to Daycare and Christmas, which would be the next
day. Deemi and his unit would be anxious to beat us to it, if they
could. But we were ready, too.

“You gotta see these kids, Chronos,”
Geebo said. He came over to me, brushing his dark hair out of his
eyes and exposing a thin, raised white line that ran horizontally
across his forehead – a scar from a gadget that had backfired on
him when he was younger. Geebo hadn’t been much of a talker when he
first came to Daycare, and after he was killed the first time, he
spoke even less. The only time I’d ever seen him excited was over a
new gadget he’d created and now, with these new kids. He tugged my
sleeve insistently.

I followed him, and we crouched over
the small bodies. He pulled a tube of glow grease out of his
pocket, squirted some into his palms, and then rubbed them rapidly
together.

Snuks crawled over from her corner. Her
long golden hair, curling delicately at the ends, became blue as
she passed through the light cast by the vidscreen at her end of
the room. Sitting cross-legged, she looked at the sleeping
arrivals, then at me. One of her fingers was curled over he nose as
she sucked her thumb. Geebo had made her a warm-doll which she held
by its head in the crook of her arm. I thought the doll was dumb,
with its gaping mouth exposing its large front tooth, but Snuks
would fight anyone who tried to take it from her. She took her
thumb out of her mouth. ‘Ith that how I came here?”

“Yeah, ‘cept you were a pink dot, not
blue,” I said.

“Why?”

“Cause you’re a girl.”

“Why am I the only girl?” she
insisted.

“I asked Ceep about girls once,” I told
her. She shifted her warm-doll from oone arm to the other. “He said
that girls used to be a lot more popular, but for a long time now
girls haven’t been requested as much.”

“Why am I here, then?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Doth Theep know?” She looked from me
to Ceep.

I was relieved when Ceep didn’t say
anything. Sometimes he’d give answers but other times he wouldn’t,
but by that time he’d only told Deemi and me about girls like
Snuks. He said that she was a longlifer. All girls were. It’s the
way the dults wanted them. When she was ready to leave Daycare the
dults would eventually trade her to Offworlders. She wouldn’t get
to be immortal like me and Geebo and the others at Daycare, like
the dults. Ceep told me not to tell Snuks just yet. When I asked
Ceep who the Offworlders were and why they weren’t immortal, he
just stayed quiet.

“Look.” Geebo elbowed me. He grinned
and held a green glowing hand over the face of each replacement. I
was surprised to see their faces were identical, and I had a
feeling these two would be special. Christmas, and now the
replacements, had me excited and a little nervous.

They awoke earlier than Ceep had
calculated and sat quietly in the same place they had been
deposited. Fair- haired and shy, they looked up at Ceep. He was
talking to them, telling them about Daycare.

“Since the skirmishes with the
Offworlders first began more than a century ago, it became
economically unfeasible to restore Daycare to its original
standards. When those in charge of maintenance were destroyed in a
particularly violent encounter with the Offworlders, the dults, who
long ago lost the ability to nurture their young, also lost the
maintenance knowledge needed to make sure I continued to perform
the task for them. Now it is entirely up to me to make the
necessary adjustments in both of you if you are to fulfill the role
the dults have prescribed for you.”

“What adjustments?” one of the
replacements asked Ceep.

“Those cannot be determined until you
have spent more time at Daycare,” he replied.

I knew that Ceep was talking about the
times they’d be killed. Any desired abilities they displayed before
their first three deaths would be “sharpened” by him.

Ceep continued: “A basic foundation of
knowledge is given to all of you before you come to Daycare, but
the dults can never be sure, any more, what your pre-Daycare
knowledge along with your adjustments and experiences at Daycare
will result in. It is during your time in Daycare that your
intrinsic abilities will – or will not – manifest.”

One of the little kids turned to me.
“What do you call him?” he asked.

“Ceep.”

“Why do you call him Ceep?”

“He makes a noise that sounds like
‘ceep.’ But forget him,” I said. If these two were going to
participate in Christmas, we would have to orient them to Daycare
pretty quickly. Officially, Christmas started at 1900 hours, now
only a few hours away.

“One of you has to join Deemi’s Daycare
unit. Now who wants to go?” I looked from one to the
other.

“Does Deemi have one of those?” One of
them pointed to Ceep.

“Yeah. His unit’s identical to this
one, and Ceep is over there, too.”

“I’ll go,” said the one who’d been
doing all the talking so far.

“Good. Ceep, has Deemi responded to my
message about the new arrivals?”

“Yes. He says that if you want to take
Christmas this year, you should keep them both. You need all the
help you can get.”

I ignored the message. When I first
came to Daycare, I arrived at Deemi’s unit. He taught me everything
he knew about getting Christmas. Together, Deemi and I used to be
on the same team, we were invincible. Every year, Christmas was
ours. But when he started making his own rules, I left his
unit.

I looked over at Geebo, and he seemed
to have forgotten the new kids and was completely absorbed with his
tinkering. I waved over the kid that had volunteered, and he
followed me to the exit.