Loop by Brian Caswell Read Free Book Online

around.
    Home …
    Her hair is in her eyes and she raises her hand to brush it away, but freezes as she catches sight of the unfamiliar ring on her little finger.
    Then she remembers. An old woman holding out the tiny box, carefully wrapped in pink paper and ribbons. An old man, smiling.
    A birthday present.
    She remembers …
    Vaguely she can hear her father’s voice, still worried. ‘Ellie, are you crying?’
    She can taste the tears.
    She is.

CASSANDRA’S SECRET
    One’s friends are that part of the human race
with which one can be human.
    George Saruayana
    Cassie’s story
    The problem with being an alien is … well, everyone treats you like an alien.
    At least they do if they know you are one.
    Which is why the Grand Council spends so much time training us before it sends us to primitive planets to ‘check them out’.
    I mean, it’s not so bad on some planets. They’re so excited to meet someone from another world that they treat you like a hero. The worst thing about those places is that you don’t get any privacy and everyone wants you to show them stuff.
    But then you get the places where they’re just as likely to shoot first and ask questions when they’re in the lab dissecting your body. Because they’ve always been told that you just can’t trust anyone who’s different.
    On planets like that, you don’t go up to someone and say, ‘Hi, I’m from the planet Yyedda in the Galactic Federation. Could you please take me to your leader?’
    So when I found out we were going to Earth, I was a bit nervous.
    Earth doesn’t have a very good reputation. I guess it comes from the fact that Earthlings can’t even get on with each other.
    I mean, there are only four planets in the whole Galactic Federation which even have a word for war, and three of those haven’t had a war in the last forty thousand years.
    Of course, there are a number of primitive non-Federation planets scattered through the universe where the natives still kill each other as part of their way of life. But that’s what makes Earth so dangerous.
    Earth isn’t all that primitive.
    On Earth they have computers and TV and cars and space-shuttles, and they’ve even landed humans on their moon. They should have already been invited to join the Federation. Except that at last count they have, world-wide, fourteen thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one different words for war, murder and other forms of violent killing.
    Of course, they do have a lot of different languages on the planet, but still, all those different words. It’s a scary thought.
    Jamie’s story
    No one saw them move in. Not even Mrs Preston, who spends just about her whole life sitting at the window of her front room watching the street. When she isn’t out walking her psychotic poodle, that is.
    Of course later, when everything that happened had happened, Mrs P was the first to say that it was suspicious that no one actually saw them move in. But she’s really good at saying ‘I-told-you-so’ when she never actually did.
    Me, I didn’t think it was particularly suspicious at all. I was just interested to find that there was finally someone in my street who was the same age as me. Especially a girl.
    Of course, she did have these strange violet-coloured eyes, which was another thing that made Mrs P suspicious – afterwards.
    Spencer Street is a funny place. It’s a very long street, full of old people and families with grown-up kids or tiny babies. I was fifteen years old and I was at least eight years younger or older than anyone else in the street. This meant I was lonely a lot of the time.
    So when Cassie moved in two doors down, I was interested.
    Interested?
    I was excited.
    I even got my mum to bake scones and let me take them over, as a welcome-to-the-street present. It was the day after they’d arrived, and Mum said they probably wanted to be