Space Rocks! by Tom O'Donnell Read Free Book Online Page A

surprised. I don’t know that I’d ever confronted my originator so directly.
    â€œChorkle,” it said slowly, “the success of this plan is crucial to the very survival of our species. If humans are hurt or, yes, even killed, that is the price that must be paid. Do you understand this?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œDo you understand, Chorkle?”
    â€œYes,” I mumbled.
    â€œGood,” said Kalac. “Now I must go.” And my originator walked out the front door of our dwelling. The next time I saw Kalac—at dinnertime, I supposed—the human problem would be solved.
    I looked at Hudka. On most days, it would have had the hologram game out the instant Kalac was gone. We both would have been gleefully stomping evil mushrooms or racing motorized vehicles in endless laps in a human city called “In-dee-uh-nap-oh-luss.”
    Not today, though. My grand-originator sat at the breakfast table, staring at the wall. Hudka looked as small and worried as I’d ever seen it.
    â€œI don’t want anyone to get hurt,” I said. “I mean, if the human race came up with hologram games, then they can’t be all bad, can they?” It was an odd defense of an entire species. Hudka stared at me.
    â€œNobody is all bad,” said Hudka. “Not Xotonians. Not humans.”
    â€œI think—I think I should do something.”
    â€œThen do what you need to do,” said Hudka.
    Twenty-seven turns later, I stood at the entrance to the surface.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    I walked across the surface of Gelo, running through human phrases in my mind. Red T’utzuxe hung heavy in the sky.
    Up ahead, I saw their mothership for the first time. A huge metal globe squatting on the surface of our asteroid. Rusted and pockmarked, bristling with spiny antennae, emblazoned with the flags of many Eo countries. I recognized a few of them from a particular hologram game in which two teams of human males attempted to kick a white ball into the net of their opponents.
    A series of smaller pods radiated out from the mothership, each connected back to it via a flexible tube. I guessed this configuration allowed the humans to travel among the various pods, using the mothership as a central hub.
    In the distance, big mining machinery sat parked in silence. If the human workday was over, then at least no one would be underground when the mines collapsed.
    Why was I even here? Was I going to warn the humans somehow? Had I come as some sort of self-appointed Xotonian diplomat? Even if the young humans turned out to be friendly, who knew how their adults would behave? What if they took one look at me and decided to shoot me with their primitive—yet still quite lethal—projectile weapons? Standing this close to a bustling hive of them, I felt far from safe.
    I checked my chronometer. Still three hours until the asteroid-quake. Then, if Kalac’s calculations were correct, the ground here would begin to shake and churn, possibly destroying the human mothership. I didn’t want to be here when that happened.
    Something crackled over the Nyrt-Snooper. It was a human voice I didn’t recognize. It sounded female. I heard it command another human called “Danny” to remove . . . something from their pod, immediately. Then there was a grudging yet affirmative response in a familiar register. It was Crackle-Voice!
    So Crackle-Voice was named “Danny.” Or at least I thought so. My human language skills were still pretty bad. “Danny” might actually be the human word for “digestive ailment.”
    I scanned the pods. There was movement inside one of them. The small light outside its airlock changed from red to green. I snuck closer, my skin a perfect Gelo blue-gray.
    The pod’s airlock slid open with a hiss. It was Danny. He was wearing a spacesuit, and he had two large metal cylinders with him.
    He hefted one of the cylinders, walked about a