Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction by Rhea Rose Read Free Book Online

the kids at the other unit had all arrived when they were
five, too. This Christmas I would be nine and Snuks would be six.
This was her first Christmas at Daycare. “We’re ready here, Ceep,”
I said. Instantly, above our heads, pink finger-thin laze shot
across the room. It was a soothing, hypnotic color, and I had to
walk away for a moment. The beam began to pulse, expanding in all
directions and filling the room with a warm sleepy glow. A low hum
caused vibrations in the floor and walls. I looked over at Snuks,
her hiding place was exposed by the light, and she was really
pulling on her thumb. She’d never seen the arrival of new
kids.
    At the centre of the room appeared a
blue dot as big as a fingernail. It hung in mid air, and then
another appeared beside the first. They grew simultaneously. Snuks
was engrossed by the process, or maybe she was just affected they
the light. Whichever the case, she appeared to be watching very
carefully. The miniature dots started to take shape the tiny human
forms looked like holos suspended just above the floor. They stayed
that way for a moment, and then quickly grew. The pink light
intensified, became brighter, and a sudden white flash blinded us
for an instant.
    “How long?” I asked.
    “Two hours before they are fully
awake,” Ceep replied.
    I heard Geebo set down the gadget he’d
been tinkering with while the new kids arrived. He’d been preparing
the gadget for Christmas, but now that the replacements were here,
he was more interested in them. He began looking the new arrivals
over, checking their pockets, cutting the Velcro from their clothes
and stuffing the strips into his own pockets. Ceep’s red light
shone in Geebo’s hair making it almost the same color as mine. It
was the only time Geebo and I ever resembled each other. We were
the same age, but he was a head shorter than me. His dark eyes were
almost black, while mine were pale, almost colorless. I was the
only one at Daycare with freckles.
    I could see that Geebo was completely
absorbed with the sleeping kids, while Snuks sat back in the
shadows like she always did when something was new to her. There
was little to do except wait for the arrivals to wake up so that we
could orient them to Daycare and Christmas, which would be the next
day. Deemi and his unit would be anxious to beat us to it, if they
could. But we were ready, too.
    “You gotta see these kids, Chronos,”
Geebo said. He came over to me, brushing his dark hair out of his
eyes and exposing a thin, raised white line that ran horizontally
across his forehead – a scar from a gadget that had backfired on
him when he was younger. Geebo hadn’t been much of a talker when he
first came to Daycare, and after he was killed the first time, he
spoke even less. The only time I’d ever seen him excited was over a
new gadget he’d created and now, with these new kids. He tugged my
sleeve insistently.
    I followed him, and we crouched over
the small bodies. He pulled a tube of glow grease out of his
pocket, squirted some into his palms, and then rubbed them rapidly
together.
    Snuks crawled over from her corner. Her
long golden hair, curling delicately at the ends, became blue as
she passed through the light cast by the vidscreen at her end of
the room. Sitting cross-legged, she looked at the sleeping
arrivals, then at me. One of her fingers was curled over he nose as
she sucked her thumb. Geebo had made her a warm-doll which she held
by its head in the crook of her arm. I thought the doll was dumb,
with its gaping mouth exposing its large front tooth, but Snuks
would fight anyone who tried to take it from her. She took her
thumb out of her mouth. ‘Ith that how I came here?”
    “Yeah, ‘cept you were a pink dot, not
blue,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “Cause you’re a girl.”
    “Why am I the only girl?” she
insisted.
    “I asked Ceep about girls once,” I told
her. She shifted her warm-doll from oone arm to the other. “He said
that girls used to be