Powers That Be by Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Read Free Book Online Page A

computer access, and he could entertain as well as educate himself. He was good at languages, having started out speaking both Spanish and English from when he was a little kid, and he enjoyed reading actual old hard-copy stories in both languages when there was nobody he wanted to hang around with, so he got by.
    He had gone to visit his dad and Steve about once every calendar year, and that was okay. He really loved his dad, even though he was a little on the perfectionistic and ultraserious side, except with Steve. Steve got him to knock it off, to relax and laugh a little. Steve was always finding neat things to share with them. He had given Diego his first hard-copy book—a Spanish-language text of
Don Quixote
—for Diego’s ninth birthday.
    “Pay close attention to Sancho Panza and Dulcinea,” he had kidded Diego. “I’m a little of both.” He struck a flamenco pose.
    No wonder Dad and Mom hadn’t gotten along. Even if Dad hadn’t discovered he was gay, he and Mom were too much alike, both studious and serious and very literal-minded. So Diego didn’t mind Dad and Steve’s arrangement all that much; it just had never occurred to him that he might end up living with them.
    He had just begun to get used to
that
—and he had even come to find out that Dad had wanted him all along but had been second best when it came to custody because in the eyes of company management theirs was a less-preferred sexual orientation to Mom’s. Diego didn’t see what difference that made. Nobody tried to tell
him
which way to swing, even if he had been ready to do any swinging of any kind. So far, he hadn’t met anyone who instilled in him a desire to implement the procedures his manuals and texts described.
    So he had just been getting used to his new situation and settling in when Steve had come down with some kind of virus just before Dad was due to take off for this mission to investigate something or other on Petaybee.
That
was when Dad had gotten the bright idea that Diego should come along, too, as his assistant instead of Steve, and “broaden his horizons.”
    In fact, he hadn’t actually seen a horizon before, since he was
in
it, by dirtside reckoning. Pointing this out had caused Steve to rasp at him not to be a smartass and to give new experiences a chance. So he had come along, and to his surprise, the landscape of Petaybee looked more open and spacious than, well, than space.
    But where space was black, Petaybee was blue and white, even when it turned dark, as it quickly did on their way from SpaceBase to the dinky little town where their guides met them. The sky was sort of dark ivory, and he could still see Petaybee’s sun, like a small snowball hanging in the sky, as well as its two moons, one organic and one company-manufactured, in the sky.
    Being here was sort of like being
inside
the moon, all pale and shining. SpaceBase was a hole and the town was ugly, but the countryside was really pretty fascinating, and the snocle ride into Kilcoole seemed all too short. The place was so much like something from his books, and yet so different that he knew he would never forget it even if he didn’t decide, as his father obviously hoped, that he would become a great geologist like his old man.
    Then, when they started unloading the equipment from the snocle, and a whole fleet of dogs, about fourteen to a sled, pulled up in front of the station, he started getting hooked.
    The dogs were the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen. They were red as a Mars moonscape but delicately featured with foxy, intelligent faces. At first their barking scared him a little bit, but then the lady—when she spoke he could tell she was a lady—driving his sled said they were friendly and he could pet them if he liked. They were soft! The tops of their coats were a little icy, but when he took his mitten off and dug into their fur with his hand, it was as soft as anything he had ever felt, and warm enough to keep his hand from