Fugitive From Asteron (12 page)

Her expressive face brightened
again with a smile, but Kristin tried to suppress it. Sitting down next to me,
she searched my face with eyes that held real fear, if not real anger. “Tell
me, please, why you were about to hit Officer Hodges with a bottle. Tell me, so
maybe I can understand what you saw that was frightening in a room full of
people eating and having a good time.”

I thought of the publisher of
seditious material standing tall on a wooden stage, with eyes whose flames
would be extinguished in an instant to stare coldly for all of eternity. I
rubbed my hands over my own eyes to wipe away that sight. “Kristin, I was
afraid that the officer with the gun would . . . hurt you.”

“Why?” She asked incredulously.

“You wanted to overthrow the
government.”

“Huh?”

“You wanted to replace the mayor.
You expressed views that threaten his rule. I have seen people punished . . . severely . . . for
that. You made your traitorous remarks in full, brazen hearing of the police. Indeed,
you nearly leaned into their food.”

She shook her head at me. “That’s
not how things work here.”

“But you cannot criticize a public
official. Kristin, you cannot refuse to obey your mayor.”

“But I don’t obey him.” She waved
her hand, dismissing the notion. “I mean we’re the citizens.
He
works
for
us
.”

I stared at her, trying to
understand.

“I realize you just got here, and
you have a lot of new things to get used to. It’s not fair to expect you to
handle a complex job—”

“Expect me to, Kristin. Expect it.”

“But I can’t recommend you to my
boss, and then have you be a loose cannon.”

“Then I will be a tied cannon, a very
well-fastened one!”

“Look, why don’t we put this job
interview off for a few weeks . . . or months? That’ll give
you time—”

“Kristin, I swear I will change my
thoughts! I will alter them immediately. If I am hired and I become disturbed
just once more, I will ask permission to leave the company, if I am allowed to
do that.”

“Of course you can leave! Do you
think you’re a—” Her hands covered her mouth in horror. Her voice whispered
incredulously. “Is . . . that . . . what
you were?”

“Kristin, if the matter of my
interview is settled, then I have many questions to ask before your feeding
time is over.” I quickly changed the subject. “Who is Dr. Merrett, the man the
officer referred to? Is he connected to Merrett Aerospace Systems?”

“Dr. Charles Merrett is the
president of MAS. He owns the company.”

“And how are those guards involved
with your air show on the Reckoning Day?”

“The air show is a fund-raiser for
the city. MAS helps the city by donating the pilots and planes for the show. Other
companies donate the food. The police sell the tickets and run the show.”

“Why should the officer ask
you
to convey his message to Dr. Merrett?”

“Because Charles Merrett is my
father.”

As I was absorbing this information,
the computer terminal at our table asked for our order.

“I’ll have the Ultimate Sub with
the works, a chocolate milk shake, and French fries,” Kristin replied.

The computer repeated the order and
flashed images of the items on the screen.

“And make it the 300-calorie
version today.” She turned to me. “That costs extra. It cuts out a lot of
calories to keep your weight down,” she explained.

Then the computer asked for my
order.

“Bread.”

“Is that all?” Kristin asked.

“I do not eat your food.”

“Bring him a piece of cheesecake
too,” Kristin told the computer, “and make
his
food with the
full
amount of calories.”

The computer repeated the order and
signed off.

“Kristin, do all Earthlings know
their fathers?”

“Of course. Our parents have us and
raise us. Then when we’re old enough, we go out on our own.”

“Why do parents raise their
offspring?”

“Don’t you know about families?”
she asked, astonished.

“Not very much.”

I waited while she looked at the
ceiling, pondering her reply. “Our parents raise us because they enjoy watching
us grow up and they care about what happens to us. You see, children are more
than
offspring
, as you put it. Animals have offspring and walk away
from them. But humans have
children
, who are a part of them, so the children
are . . . special in some way.”

I thought of a female with golden
hair humming music by a lake, and of a fierce struggle to protect something
that was special in some way.

“Alex, why do you stare so intensely?”

“Do you know your mother?”

Her eyes dropped. “I did,” she said
sadly. “I lived with my mom and dad at our house. We were so happy. But she
died almost three years ago.” Her eyes closed for a moment against a pain that
suddenly surfaced. I placed a consoling hand over hers, because I knew how she
felt about losing someone special.

A robot soon brought our food.
Kristin described her Ultimate Sub, layer by layer. It was a precarious
mountain of meat, cheese, and vegetables jammed between two thick slices of
bread. I feared she would be permanently disfigured when her mouth stretched to
take a bite out of this monstrous concoction.

“Why are Earthlings so fascinated
with their feeding?”

“Take a bite and find out,” she
said, holding the frightful object out to me, but I recoiled. “And we don’t
call it
feeding
, unless we’re talking about what birds do. People
eat
or
dine
, and we have
meals
, not
feeding times
.”

Earthlings set their activities apart
from the lower animals. I wondered why such distinctions were vanishing from
the same language on Asteron.

I consumed the bread served to me.
Then after some prodding by Kristin, I poked at the wedge on my plate called
cheesecake
.
I placed a tiny piece of it on my fork, raised it to my mouth, studied it, then
cautiously tasted it.

“Alex! Are you okay? Your eyes look
wild and crazy!”

I took another, more ambitious
bite. I thought of the fireworks exploding in the sky when the alien Alexander
performed his home run, because I now felt as if similar sparks were exploding
inside my mouth. A great upheaval was occurring, a bursting of taste sensations
I had never known I could experience. I took another bite. I closed my eyes in
deep contentment. I also realized that I was quite hungry.

“Do you like our food?”

“Yes, I definitely prefer dining to
feeding.”

So pleased was I with this
cheesecake that I consumed the entire ration. Kristin ordered another for me,
which I also dispatched with ease.

When the robot asked for payment, I
showed Kristin my coin. “An Earthling . . . visitor . . . to
my planet gave this to me after I got him a cup of water.”

Kristin eyed the coin. “Wow, that’s
some tip! It’s a five-dollar gold piece. You’re almost rich, Alex.” I dropped
my coin into a slot in the robot’s chest marked “payment.” Then I picked up several
smaller gold and silver coins that dropped into a tray labeled “change.”

After we left Big Eats, I found myself
irresistibly reaching into my pocket to shake the coins and to hear the jingle of
my first real possessions. Kristin explained that the entrance to MAS was
nearby, and we headed toward it. We had barely walked a block when I doubled
over with a sudden, violent pain ripping my insides.

“Alex! What’s wrong?”

“My stomach! I cannot digest
Earthling food. I am going to die!”

With my arm draped around her
shoulder, Kristin led me a short distance to a cylindrical steel booth on the
street called Quick Fix. She explained that Quick Fix stations, common all
around town, were well-equipped, portable medical-treatment facilities.

“You go inside, the instruments
scan you, and then they tell you what’s wrong and what to do. If you need a
doctor fast, they call one to fly here and pick you up right away. Now go in,
Alex. Be quick! I’ll wait here,” she said, guiding me into the booth.

Before she slid the curved door
closed, I lifted her chin until her eyes met mine, and I whispered gravely,
“Good-bye, Kristin.”

Once locked inside the silver
capsule, I heard buzzes and hums; I saw lights; I answered the questions of a
computer that had a compassionate voice. Within minutes the door slid open.
“Here’s the diagnosis,” Kristin said, grabbing the paper that had dropped into
a slot outside. The document read: “stomachache.” Quick Fix dispensed tablets,
which I promptly swallowed with the water it provided, and I listened to its
assurances that I would feel better in minutes.

“You see, Kristin, I am different
from Earthlings, different inside. I knew this.” My voice was heavy with
disappointment.

“Hey, wait,” she said, scanning the
report. “According to this, you just went too fast. Quick Fix says you have to
introduce foods slowly, because apparently, you haven’t had much of them. But
it says you’re completely capable of digesting the food you ate.”

I took the report from her,
searching for something I did not find. Quick Fix said what Kristin had told me,
but it did not indicate what human species I was.

“You see, Alexander, you’re like
us, inside and out.”

“Quick Fix does not say that.”

“I do. I think you can smile and
laugh, and be happy just like us.”

Laughter: a musical note rising
from the throat and floating out of the lips, a natural sound for Kristin and other
Earthlings. Was there any laughter inside me?

Quick Fix was worth the small coin
I gave it, because my pain subsided by the time we reached the fenced complex
of buildings, fields, and aircraft hangars called Merrett Aerospace Systems.
There was a garden at the entrance, and in the center of it was a tall
sculpture of the MAS logo, the soaring silver rocket with the letters
MAS
imprinted on the body.

After Kristin arranged for my
clearance through various security points, we entered a building of glass and
steel. The lobby contained a wall of miniature relics of Earth’s early rockets,
spotlighted in a glass display case, and over it the building’s name imprinted
in steel-gray block letters: SPACE TRAVEL DIVISION. We took an elevator and exited
into a hallway where dense mazes of computers and spacecraft components were
visible from every room. My eyes feasted on this amazing electronic universe.

We came to an office with a plaque
on the door that read: DIRECTOR OF SPACE TRAVEL. Kristin introduced me to
Mykroni Whitman, a tanned, light-haired man with a trim, youthful body and a
face that looked a bit more than twice my age. His hand grasp was firm, and his
eyes were direct and probing as they met mine. I recognized the first name,
which was accented on the first syllable, as Asteronian, whereas the last name
must have been Earthling. As if reading my thoughts, Kristin remarked that her
father had given Mykroni his last name after he had arrived on Earth.

“Dr. Merrett gave it to me when I
learned what the last syllable meant,” Mykroni said.

I looked at him curiously, but he
offered no further explanation. Kristin commented that I had just arrived from
Cosmona, and to my great relief, Mykroni showed no reaction. He seemed
uninterested in my origin.

He took me to a room in which a
large computer screen resting on a small glass table seemed suspended in midair.
He sat me down, tapped an option on the screen to begin my testing, and said,
“Let’s see what you can do.” Then this Asteronian, who looked and spoke like an
Earthling, vanished, leaving me alone with the keyboard and monitor.

The computer seemed determined to
explore every facet of my mind. It posed mathematical problems. It wanted to
know how well I comprehended English. It placed me in different hypothetical
situations around the galaxy, giving me a problem to solve in each
circumstance. It simulated a spacecraft’s controls, gave me instructions on how
they worked, then tested how well I grasped the information.

After placing me in command of a
spacecraft, it blew out a computer onboard, sprung a leak in an engine, and
otherwise caused my craft to malfunction, in each case asking me how I would
solve the problem. I finished with time to spare and began to review my answers
when a sudden fear gripped me. I remembered the test I had failed long ago when
I tried to become a pilot. I failed because I had gotten all of the answers
right. I could not be trusted to follow instructions because my performance was
too good.
That cannot happen here
, I assured myself.
Why not?
a cold terror replied.
The boss is from
Asteron
!
In the time
remaining, I changed some of my answers to responses I knew were wrong.

Uttering not a word, Mykroni
returned, sat opposite me, and swung the computer screen around to face him.
The room, darkened for viewing the monitor, formed a gray background around his
face, which was dappled with light from the screen. I watched his eyes scanning
my work while he pressed icons to turn the electronic pages. He paused a
moment, resting his chin on his hand, saying, “Hmmm.” He glanced at me and
cocked his head, as if considering a laboratory specimen. Then his eyes returned
to the screen to read the rest of my test answers.

Finally, he leaned back in his
chair, folded his hands, and looked at me. “I’m disappointed.”

“Oh?”

“Because you could have gotten a
perfect score—you would have been the
first one
ever to get a perfect
score!—but you made some stupid mistakes that I can’t understand. If you know
what this test shows you know, you couldn’t have made the mistakes you did.”