Damia's Children by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online

exhaust fans or those tube lights?
    Damia paused for a moment, considering her answer.
You know, I’m not quite sure.
    They don’t seem to use bedding or pillows or anything,
Thian went on.
They do here.
    Cruel and unusual torments, they are,
Afra said judiciously spooning mashed vegetables into his daughter’s mouth.
    Ah, Dad!
Thian said.
    They adapt to our ways,
Damia said, shooting a quelling glance at her lover.
    And I’ll have to adapt to their ways?
Laria sounded dubious.
    When in Rome
 . . . her father said.
    Afra!
Damia turned to reassure her daughter. Laria’s time to exchange was nearing and such questions must be answered truthfully.
We asked and asked all the ’Dinis what comforts they needed.
She gave a sigh of exasperation.
They said they needed no special ones. They are quite happy with everything we do for them.
    But will I be happy?
Laria replied, wondering how she could ever cope with windowless rooms, exhaust fans and long tube lights. She hadn’t really thought about the conditions she’d be faced with on Clarf even if she had never been uncomfortable for a moment with Tip and Huf. At least on her own turf. Or even when they vacationed on Deneb with Great-Grandmother Isthia.
    The Tower personnel at Clarf have assured me that they have spacious and elegant quarters,
Damia said so emphatically that Laria began to feel less insecure.
    But Lar won’t be living at the Tower, will she, Ma?
Thian asked, looking as innocent as his youngest sister.
    â€œThian!” his father said in a firm voice and Thian immediately subsided.
Of course you will be required to enter a hibernatory for two months out of every year just like every other ’Dini.
    His tone was so prosaic that Laria stared at him and then burst out laughing and consequently felt very much better about her future. Another thing: her parents would never have committed her to something that wasn’t absolutely safe for her, their eldest daughter. Laria was a little puffed about herpremiere position in the Raven-Lyon family: not badly, but enough for her to be aware of her seniority.
    During the next week that was put to practical application as both she and Thian joined their parents in the Tower to shift the first big daddy drones.
    â€œIt’s the mass that’s hard to shift, not the physical weight,” Afra told the two as they settled themselves in the extra couches that had been fitted into the main Tower control room.
    Thian was twitching with excitement but Laria was able to control her own, though she’d a dreadful fluttering in her middle. Not that she hadn’t already assisted her parents during emergencies. They all had during the cave-in at the Maltese Cross Mine. Telekinesis had saved every one of the hundred and eight miners from sure death by asphyxiation. Afra had even managed to salvage the bodies of the dead: a great comfort to their grieving families. Laria hadn’t been quite sure about
that
aspect of the rescue but she’d been very glad when she’d linked with her mother to extricate the live ones: she, Thian, Rojer, and even Zara had added their strength to their mother’s in a spontaneous link. They’d practiced such joinings—for just such an emergency as it had been used for—but this had been life and death.
    Today’s exercise was merely a union of the four high Talented minds to lift dead weight of refined iron ore and fling it across the galaxy to Betelgeuse and the manufacturies there. They had five to transport.
    â€œThis is by way of being a practice session, children,”Afra said. “Easily within your present abilities and strengths.”
    â€œYou’ll be doing it often enough and with considerably more drones so that this could become a boring exercise,” Damia added as she settled herself in her couch. “It is
never,
” and she waggled a finger at each of them, “to become either boring or