Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page B

pretty devastating stuff when you were eight.
    It was doubly devastating if you'd just had a counselor so stupid he didn't even shut his office door when he was talking about you to your foster parents—who didn't want you anymore because they were pregnant and thought you'd interfere with the baby.
    It hadn't been fun. The administration eventually changed his psychiatrist to somebody who still asked stupid questions and put him through the same getting-to-know-you routine that by then had just about stopped hurting. It had bored him, by then, because he'd been switched so often, to so many people with court-ordered forms to fill out, you got a sample of the routines and you knew by then it was just business, their caring. They were paid to care, by the hour.
    The station paid foster-families.
    They paid downers, but not in money, and not to take care of stray station kids: Melody and Patch had cared for him for free.
    A hand slipped over his shoulder. He thought it was Melody, and felt comforted.
    But it wasn't Melody. It was Bianca who knelt down by him and touched her head to his so the faceplates bumped edges, and he was just scared numb.
    "What's the matter?" she asked. "What did I do?
    God, the world was inside out. What did
she
do? She was kidding. She had to be. But Bianca hugged her arm around him and he hugged her, and if it wouldn't have risked their lives he'd have taken the mask off and kissed her.
    "Oh," Melody said, from somewhere near. "Look, look, they make love."
    "Dammit!" he said, breaking the first ten rules of residency on Downbelow, and never would willingly curse Melody. He broke his hold on Bianca to rip up a stick and fling, and double handfuls of flowers. "Wicked!" he cried, thinking fast, and turning his reaction into a joke.
    Melody squatted down, out of range of flower-missiles, and turned solemn, watching with wide downer eyes. "Fetcher no more sad," Melody said "Good, good you no more sad"
    What did you say? What
could
you say, in front of the girl you hoped to impress, and who knew what an ass you'd just been with downers you were here to protect from human intrusions?
    "I love you," he said to Melody, and fractured the rest of the rulebook, "You my mama, Melody. Patch, you my papa, Love you."
    "Baby grow up"Melody said. "Go walkabout soon, make me
new
baby."
    God, what did it say about him, that he was so suddenly, so irrationally hurt?
    He shifted about on one knee to see what Bianca thought, but you could hardly see a human face through the mask.
    As she couldn't see his. "Melody used to take care of me," he said to explain things. The truth, but not all of it. To his teachers and the admin people and his psychs and everybody, he was just trouble.
They
had families and Bianca had Family, and he was always just
that boy from the courts
.
    "Where was this?" Bianca asked, not unreasonably confused.
    "A long time back on the station. I got lost, and they sort of—found me. And got me home." He'd no desire to go into the sordid details. But he couldn't get a reaction out of her masked face to tell him where he stood in her opinion. He committed himself, totally desperate, a little trusting of the only girl he'd ever really gone around with. "I used to sneak into the tunnels, to be with them. And first thing I wanted when I got down here was to find Melody and Patch."
    "You're kidding." she said.
    He shook his head, "Absolute truth."
    "Is he making fun?" she asked Melody, breaking the first rule: never question another human's character.
    "He very small, very sad," Melody said, "Long time he sad. You happy he."
    Sometimes you didn't know what downers meant when they put words together. He guessed, with Melody, and thought that Melody approved of Bianca.
    "Make he walk lot far," Patch chimed in helpfully,
    "This is way too far," she said, teen slang… which you weren't supposed to use, either. He guessed Bianca was overwhelmed with it all, and maybe adding it up that she was with a kid who