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Earth’s First Galactic Citizen
The Finder’s
Fee.
Matuschka
©
2004
The first 25 of 269 pages
Prologue.
Iddi Klu in his scout ship got information from its ship control chip that the ship had serious problems, needing repairs immediately. The scout vessel was passing through a solar system unknown to the Galactic civilization. The control chip informed Iddi that there was a planet with one citizen who not only seemed to have the mental quality needed for repairs, but a mind superior in comparison to Galactics it had looked at before anywhere. Iddi gave the ship discretion to make land close to the Galactic. With erratic flight entering the atmosphere the ship settled in the hillside yard of a structure which may well have been the residence of the Galactic.
A two legged creature walked up the incline of the hill and the ship recognized it as the Galactic by its mental activity. By its telepathic transmission to its passenger the ship advised Iddi that the visible individual was the Galactic it discovered from space before landing in its proximity. Iddi got out of the scout vessel and walked to what the ship’s chip had advised him to be a Galactic. The eight year old David was looking at the bloodhound head of Iddi who via its teleamp communicated with him telepathically: ‘I need your help to fix my vessel David.’, pathed Iddi. David unaware that the communication was a transfer of thought shook his head as he answered Iddi in spoken words: “My dad is an engineer and he comes home about five. I will bring him here to help you.” David still looked at Iddi with wonder at his dog face as he turned to walk up the hill to his home.
The ship’s controller advised Iddi: ‘Iddi if you do not get this Galactic to help you fix the ship you will be stranded here for a hundred revolutions of this planet or more.’ The blood hound was not happy but found that he had no choice but; Iddi teleported David back to his ship. David’s curiosity displayed on his face at how he found himself back under the tree on the east side of the yard from which he had walked away just moments earlier. The question going through his mind was, how could that happen?
Iddi explained to David: ‘David, please I need your help, and only yours, to fix my ship.’ Iddi looked at David who to him looked like a cub, but instead of a dog, a humanoid creature. David looking at what seemed a dog that talked, wearing a suit, and standing on two legs instead of on all four. He nodded at the creature: “Okay show me what is wrong and I will see if I can help you.” As he saw Iddi walk through the wall of the vessel he followed him and found himself inside a large pot shaped vessel, as if he had walked through a door instead of through a wall.
David looked around for what he expected like a console and found nothing except walls through which he could look as if they were glass. He asked: “So where is your machine or whatever you want me to fix?” Iddi looked at him communicating with the ship: ‘what is wrong here?’ That was where the ship took over amplifying the size of its computer chip in David’s view. David was startled for just a moment till he saw the scramble in the connections of the vastly enlarged chip. “I do not have any tools to help.” He argued. The ship telepath’s to him,: ‘Just think at it and it will correct itself.’ David thought about a wrong connection and saw how the machine straightened itself out as if it were alive. David found it so amazing he saw it more like a game to play, not work. And piece by piece the apparatus gradually seemed to straighten itself out.
The ship saw bodily requirements of David’s body and supplied what nourishment it needed. Time went by David without his awareness and he had no idea that he sat there in Iddi Klu’s spacecraft day after day for a long week. Finally David saw that all was in order and his head snapped around at Iddi, asking: “Well that is all I can see here. Are you satisfied?” Iddi who had seen the progress from time to time and had input from the ship computer nodded at him: ‘Yes David you did it all; now you can go.’ The two walked outside through the wall just as they came in days earlier.
Chapter 1
The alien bloodhound thoughtfully scrutinized his little assistant, wondering. David, the eight year-old Californian human cub he had abducted for need of a second brain, had been an amazing companion and helper. Now that the problem was found and fixed he still had some troubling thoughts.
Iddi still ignored
the ship’s signal, telling him, ready to leave
Terra. The seconds
ticked
by, and the little alien and his ship, were still on the
ground.
The
signal of course, came from the repaired ship’s
master. Iddi Klu
scratching his jowls with his paw like hand, was searching
his mind,
what, in
his best judgment was the correct action to take.
He, she, it, neither term was totally correct since the Klu change sex by choice, was mulling over what to do with the Galactic cub outside the ship. A Galactic living among animals.
The Klu were
neither Earlies nor Lates to the galactic
civilization. They were
a
canine race, and as such the only one in the Galaxy.
There were
sub races
amongst them ranging from a dog somewhere between a
Dachshund and a
Beagle
right up to the tall, majestic Groders, which easily
reached five
hundred
pounds, and may have looked like anything from a Great
Dane to an Irish
wolfhound.
Iddi’s’ clan hailed from an island where his bloodlines
were
pure. The
shape and appearance would have fooled most Earth people
to accept him
as a
Bloodhound.
Iddi was young for
a galactic citizen. In earth revs his age amounted
to barely a
hundred
thousand which divided by three hundred sixty five comes
to less than
three
hundred years. The Klu were a semi nomadic race, so
much so, you
could
consider them the Gypsies of the Galaxy.
As was so often
the case
with island residents, the nation Iddi stemmed from was
obsessed with
national
pride. This pride was not so much a subject for
display, as it
was an internal
affair of their personal selbstbild.
In galactic
terminology, an animal was generally considered to be a
mobile
intelligent
organism not capable of leaving its solar system.
These creatures
fell
into category one or two. One being, zero
technology, number two,
included
preevolved species in possession of technology, short of
space
travel.
The latter were usually not in contact with the galactic
civilization
in the
real sense of the word. What little contact existed
served as
food for
superstition at worst, some reasonable acceptance or at
least
speculation that
the Universe housed others than themselves, at best.
Iddi Klu was in a
hurry but, there were still a few seconds to spare.
Besides, who
was
counting time when it was a matter of honor, to pay ones
debt, even if
you wanted
to disregard galactic law. His ship had been
stranded for seven
revolutions of this planet and recovery could easily have
taken another
twenty. Already two appointments had been
canceled. Iddi’s
schedule
was shredded by this malfunction of his vessel’s solid
state command
processor. It was a fiasco.
Iddi Klu could leave the usual finders’ fee, one twelfth of the recouped financial loss and no one would check the accuracy since no one bothered to check rewards to animals. The finder’s fee was not really a requirement when dealing with an animal. The fee was an ancient custom of his people from before they had been people. It was also the law, but that was half a galaxy away, and only between people. Usefully performing animals were petted, fed, maybe adopted into a household. That was reward enough. But David was more than an animal.
This humanoid
specimen had not reacted to the stimulation of mental
petting.
For Iddi
Klu to stick around and take care of the beast was out of
the
question.
Adoption, Iddi scrutinized the cub, was impossible.
The skinny
creature,
an eight-year-old cub of the specie, out-massed him by
five kilos
already
now. Adopting, the cub in itself would force Iddi
Klu into a
heavy
adjustment aboard the ship, which was where it spent two
thirds of its
time.
Leaving without
providing some reward was, Iddi Klu felt, to be beneath
its
stature. It
would cause no financial hardship to pay the finder’s
fee.
The furthest thing from his mind was what the next ten
minutes would do
to all
his plans. The changes this meeting with the
Earthling David
would bring
to his life, were beyond his wildest imagination.
At the moment one
question however remained. What would "David
Boulder", Iddi Klu
knew that the little beast had a name, and what it was,
what would
David
Boulder do with a credit account at his disposal with the
United
Cluster
Trust. The credit would sit there till
doomsday.
Iddi Klu dwelled on
this problem for a few seconds and developed the necessary
strategies
to
circumvent the obstacles to David's admission to the
Well, first things
first. Iddi Klu opened the account in David
Boulder’s name.
Once that
was accomplished, David was enrolled in the
Iddi’s first
attempt brought him a refusal from the university
admissions
dean. The
enrollment of a freshmen student from a pre-evolved race
had to be
approved by
a sentient. Iddi gave this some thought, then
unperturbed he
decided, it
would have to be a matter of getting to Siggi Klu a third
level
cousin.
Yes Siggi, who was a member of the board of
education.
Siggi shook his
head at Iddi’s plan to provide the humanoid cub of the
earth animal
specie with
a galactic education. Iddi would not be
denied. First of
all it was
a debt of honor, he explained, second it was the law on
the Klus’
planet.
Bluntly he asked Siggi whether it was suggested he break
the law.
Siggi
didn’t want any of this bag of apples.
So, Iddi Klu, in
order to facilitate an easy transition, recorded David
with the
university as
an accident victim in need of medical attention.
Iddi chuckled to
itself;
the university computer was about to be taxed to the limit
with this
student. Iddi had been searching for brainpower
while coming in
for a
near crash-landing. His search engine had set sights
on David
without
delay. Fact was David lit up on Iddi’s screen like a
quasar. A quick
scan
established that, the mind capacity of this human cub
pushed the
evaluation
algorithm past the end of its scale. The week Iddi
had spent with
the
earth cub was not anything like being with an
animal. Outside of
the
search for the glitch, the boy had been an amusing,
interesting, and
yes,
fascinating companion. Iddi the loner had for the
first time in
his life
found someone to make him reconsider his desire for
solitude. For
the Klu
it was a revelation.
Now, that all the
necessities with the outside galaxy had been dealt with,
the final
touch,
without which none of this could work, was due. Iddi
Klu
teleported its
own well-dated teleport amplifier out of his head. This
was done with
directions to move straight into the skull of David
Boulder. Iddi
felt
somewhat naked and lonely without the hardware in his
head.
For Earth this was
an absolute first. No dweller of Terra possessed a
personal
teleport
amplifier. The very existence of the galactic
civilization was
not even
suspected. The technology to develop a three
dimensional
integrated
device with less than three atom line width, which amounts
to about
three
angstrom, in itself would have been considered an
impossibility by the
engineers in Silicon Valley or on Route 128.
The personal
teleport amplifier was vastly more than the name
implied. A
standard
model, readily available to anyone without restriction,
would boost
telepathic,
teleportation and telekinetic talent, or potential, from a
completely
useless
level to a perfectly workable strength. That
capability was the
original
purpose for the teleport amplifier’s development. A
crutch for
the weak,
the disabled and for those members of the galactic
civilization that
had joined
before genetic equivalence to the galactic norm, in the
areas of mental
development in general, and kinetic power in particular,
had been
achieved.
That was in the far
past. Now, was an entirely different story.
The personal
teleport
amplifier, called teleamp in daily use, had grown in
competence and
reach
beyond anything the original designers had ever
envisioned. No
citizen of
the galaxy would be without it because it resembled
nothing short of a
supermarket of transportation and communication with half
a dozen
extras thrown
in, not the least of which was the gravity
controller.
The Klus were well
suited for warp prospecting. Their small body mass
made for cheap
travel. Their temperament relaxed to the point of
laziness
allowed for
long periods of solitude in good health while searching
the galaxy for
warps to
order, or in lean times on spec.
Iddi Klu felt
somewhat ill at ease. Iddi was also happy, with the
conclusion of
his
involuntary stay on Terra. Ill at ease, because of
the absence of
the
micro-miniature teleamp, he gave up to David. And he
was happy
and
pleased to have managed to cut short the delay, caused by
the
unexpected
breakdown of his scout class space vessel. Iddi was
proud to some
degree,
about solving the problem, how to reasonably square its
debt to David
Boulder. It should be mentioned here that even
amongst the Klu,
where
eccentricity was more a norm than an exception this latest
act of
generosity
would have been considered bizarre, if not unwise.
Chapter 2
A man who looked to
be in his twenties sat on a rock, a quarter mile from the
spot amongst
the
trees, and bushes on the hillside, where Iddi Klu and his
space vessel
lifts
off, ending their unscheduled stay on Earth. There
was something
strikingly
familiar about him. He had been sitting on the rock
and observing
the
goings on from this considerable distance with interest,
but without
display of
excitement or concern. Now that alien and ship were
gone, and
David had
started on his way down the hill towards his home, he got
up from his
perch on
the rock and leisurely strolled along a deer trail and
suddenly he was
out of
sight.
A few minutes later
the only creatures remaining in sight were the two chicken
hawks that
have been
riding the thermal above the hillside to gain
altitude. Then they
had
reached the limit of the free ride, letting the wind carry
them to the
next
ridge with another updraft.
David Boulder had
been missing since the evening of Saturday seven days
ago. At
first,
William Boulder, who was David's father, when he found out
about his
missing
boy, was merely annoyed. When the eight-year-old
David still had
not
turned up by midnight,
With a heavy heart
William Boulder picked up the phone and reported his son
missing.
The
Sheriff's dispatcher stamped the report at seven minutes
after
one.
At a quarter to two
a Deputy arrived at the
Routine
investigation disclosed that David had told of his taking
hikes in an
unincorporated area of
Iddi Klu had seen
the search parties, determined them to be straightforward
biological
units of
the local specie, devoid of technical amplification.
Even though
both parties
practically fell over David and rode into Iddi Klu’s scout
vessel, the
telepathic shield provided by the alien permitted not one
member of the
searchers group to recognize the boy or take note of the
alien's
craft.
David had been
aware of the activity around the scout-craft. It did
not distract
him. His total conscious attention was focused on
the repair-job,
to the
exclusion of all else. Iddi had no problem with the
help of the
ship nourishment
facility, to take care of David's eating needs. The
teleamp
checking the
mix of carbon, metals, salts minerals and water, provided
with
perfection. One thing was missing. David had
lost track of
time. He was still unaware of the lost week.
The processing of a
new student at the
Within a few
seconds David was connected up to the University
clinic. It was
immediately diagnosed, that the teleport amplifier needed
repairs as
well as
updates. The two jobs were started at once.
Cases like this
were
rare, but a few were in the memory bank. The
procedure was
similar to the
repairs, on the ship’s computers David had just
completed.
The program of
updating, interfacing and repair was done with David's
assistance, but
did not
require the concentration that had been necessary while he
worked on
the ship's
master. David had learned a lot about this kind of
work in the
last seven
days. He understood, that the minute material he
manipulated,
without
ever of course touching it with his hands, were the
building blocks of
matter,
molecules and atoms. The mind of the child accepted
this without
prejudice. It was so easy, to detect the flaws in
the latticework
of
matter, and rearrange it with a minimum of logic, it was
fun.
David
enjoyed it as much as he enjoyed jigsaw puzzles.
CHAPTER 3
David was almost
home, when he met Susan Crane. She was the first person to
see him,
since his
disappearance. Susan was a classmate of David’s, and
lives across
the
gully a hundred feet down the hill, from the
Susan had been caught
up in the excitement over David's disappearance for all of
last
week. It
had brought not only David, but her as well, to
prominence. In
the
process she had realized that she had a crush on him and
his being lost
made
her feel a loss of her own. Now, after her mom had
warned her to
stay
away from strangers, since for sure that was what happened
to David,
trust in a
stranger caused wicked things to happen to him. Here
he was whole
and
unhurt.
"Mom, look
here he is", she pauses, to look for some sign of abuse,
torn cloth,
scratches, dirt, blood. Yes blood was a sure sign of
harm.
But
nothing; no matter how she scrutinized the
"Yes Susan who is
here?” But Susan was already up and
running out the door, which slammed close behind her with
a resounding
bang. The way Susan sounded to her mother, and the
urgency with
which she
had gone out of the house, got her mother’s curiosity up
enough to
leave her
kitchen for the rear porch. There she would be able
to look out
on the
hill and find the 'he', who got her little girl to leap up
and run out
of the
house. When she recognized the he coming down the
hill, was
David, she
understood the excitement. She joined her daughter
to welcome the
"Where have
you been all week?” Susan hammered at David with her
fists. The
boy was
bewildered.
“Are you
nuts? I've only been gone for a couple of hours".
“Are you nuts,”
Susan aped him. “It was a week since everybody
started looking
for
you." She yelled at him in exasperation. David
looked at her,
bewildered at first and then with a frown of
concentration. The
microchip
present in his head informed David.
‘Yes David you were
indeed gone all week. Look! This is what you were
doing.’
It does it not just
by telling him but by creating a picture of Iddi and the
scout vessel
David had
spent the last seven days with. Like a flash the
missing week was
there
in full, with color, sound, smell and touch. There
was no
escaping it,
when he saw the alien Iddi and his scout ship. All
at once, he
replaced
the frown on his face with an embarrassed grin. The
impression
the
telepathic message he got made him believe what he had
been told.
But
wondering who by, he looked up and down the hill, asking.
“Where are you? Who are you?”
The teleamp responded by explaining.
‘I am Iddi Klu’s
teleamp; or rather I am David Boulder’s teleamp now. I am
part of the
finder’s
fee Iddi gave you for finding his processor’s
glitches.
Here!’
The microchip
replayed the final minute’s transactions. David just
experienced
the
first function of his personal teleport amplifier.
With the
little
machine in his head he had better than a good memory, he
had acquired
total
recall. The clouded memories of the past were gone
forever from
his
life. From this second on, impeccable, perfect and
total recall
was his,
just for the asking, or rather for a moment of
concentration. All
this
David got from a unit of dated technology, less than
perfectly
interfaced,
operated by the most inexperienced user in the
galaxy. David
stared at
Susan, now aware there was no one talking to him.
“How am I going to explain this?”
The teleamp transmits to David while David is questioning.
‘There is no need to verbalize David, this kind of surface communication is very easy to read and your spoken words just create an echo.’
‘You can hear me think?’
David shook his head. Susan had looked to see what David had been turning to look at. Not seeing anything, she turned back to the boy.
“Yes, where have you been all week long?”
Here Susan's mother
Joyce took over with what she considered to be her
motherly
instinct. She
was close enough to be easily heard without the need of
raising her
voice:
"Come in David
you must be starved, poor dear. Come on, have a
piece of fresh
pie!"
The children had almost
reached her, and she turned back into the house with that
typical air
of the
adult toward the next generation, which never quite allows
a
choice.
David had little choice in the matter, since Susan kept
pulling him by
the hand
impatiently, curious, excited and somewhat eager for a
piece of pie,
she admitted
to herself. It wasn’t exactly what David had
planned. So
what was a
fellow to do? David allowed himself to be dragged
into the
Crane's
kitchen to sit down and have a piece of fresh pie.
It turned out
to be
apricot pie, delicious, and still warm from the
oven.
David tried to use
the time while munching at the kitchen table to think
about a plausible
explanation for his week long absence. David was
trying it on, in
his
mind.
‘My Mom, no way,
maybe my Dad?’
‘They would never
believe it, me sitting up there with the funny little
bloodhound guy
fixing his
flying saucer like in the cartoons. I'll have to
invent something
to
explain my not coming home for a whole week.’
‘This is going to
be tough, real tough’. He was kicking it around in
his head,
‘I'll tell
them, I’ll not tell them, I’ll tell them.’
But nothing came to
mind.
‘I guess I am gonna
be grounded for a day, a week? No, two weeks?
Maybe a
month!
Dad'll take my bike away!’
David groaned with
a full mouth. The Cranes both took it to be
hunger. ‘I am
going to
get it good.’ He was sure, ready to give up the
search for an
explanation
that would get him off. Not off, like off scot-free,
but off like
a
light. Somehow the apricot pie just didn't taste
quite that good
anymore.
While David ate her pie with an occasional groan, Susan's mother inspected him, looking for signs of wear, damage, despair, anything. She kept on shaking her head, trying to unravel the mystery. How could an eight-year-old boy disappear, and be gone for a week, a whole week. And then show up, damn it, unharmed? No not just unharmed but with not a single hair out of place. You wonder how the mother took it, were her thoughts. It roused her curiosity.
“What does your mother say to you coming back?”
David's cheeks were
bulging. All he could do was shake his head.
The Crane woman had
the phone off the hook and was dialing. Four One
One; there were
two
rings.
"What city
please”? The operator asked. "
Susan’s mother
memorized the number just well enough to punch it into the
phone.
This
time it took five rings before David's mother answered the
phone.
"Hello,
Susan's mother felt for the boy’s mother and with the feeling of understanding what the Boulder woman must have been going through in the last seven days; she knew the first question on the mother’s mind, 'how would her son be, what had happened to him, was he all right?'
More than that, she
thought that her woman's intuition told her something more
than that,
David
Boulder was all right. He looked better than just
all right, and
that's
what puzzled her. She felt it was decidedly odd,
when a boy had
been gone
from his mother's care and attention for a week, he should
look as
good, and
clean, and sharp as David did. She thought of the
care and
attention she
gave to Susan and for that matter to her husband and how
quickly any
neglect
showed up in her daughter's appearance, her dress, her
hair, her
shoes.
It must be David, the boy looked capable, even
mature. She
scoffed at her
own thought; an eight-year old, mature?
The
One of the side
effects of the machine's repair-work on David was that he
had flashes
of vision
as if the picture of the world outside were thrown on the
wall of the
kitchen. An added strange feature was that, right
through the
wall, he
saw his mother coming down the hill to the Crane’s house,
her face
strangely
tense.
That is how he saw
that her next step would bring her foot squarely on the
skateboard and
he could
already see her falling. He shot up from his chair
his face
intent with a
shout on his lips.
"Mom!”
The anticipation of pain made him wince and with
intensity, driven by
the
desire to stop the accident, it forced to clear the path
in the newly
built
interface. This was the final push, this time from
his side and
it
cleared the circuits between the student, patient and the
teleamp IC
implanted
in his skull.
Animal and machine
became one. This primeval strength growing from his
terror, this
powerful
cry of his mind from want and need to stop the pain from
happening,
pushed
against the suddenly open line. The kinetic force of
his first
chance
ever, to exercise, of his own volition, a function of his
brain that
was
atrophied beyond recognition in every kind of animal known
to exist in
the
Galaxy, was overpowering. It was a moment where the
danger of a
mere fall
down the hill, was insignificant when compared to the
danger of a fifty
ton
crane, of relatively unlimited reach, with an
inexperienced boy of
eight years
at the controls. This parallel to the situation was
quite
conservative.
The feed back
instantaneous and well tuned brought this strange new
condition of his
mind to
his awareness as suddenly as it was brought to the
attention of the
hospital. The computer registered an out of
alignment condition,
either
due to a gain in the bio-computer signal feedback of the
teleport
amplifier,
which by now was at a seventy four point operating level,
or an
over-functioning of the teleport amplifier. Last but
not least it
could
be a temporary glitch of over-stimulation due to the
clinics work on
the
apparatus to affect repair towards conversion.
The present degree
of over-function was a new high. The nearest, in
potential
over-control,
in the memory of the hospital was a person who in the
process of full
kinetic
force teleamp application had pushed himself right through
the
permawall of a
space freighter.
At that time the
death of the citizen was a problem beyond the hospitals
capability. Today
the hospital was equipped to deal with even such severe an
accident. Then,
instant frying of the body, made repairs, at the then
existing state of
the art
in medicine, impossible.
The safeties had
been advanced for the duration of the repairs and
therefore cut out the
amplifier just short of its instantaneous
destruction. The
retrieve was
enough to save Mrs. Boulder’s life. The minute
remainder of the
projected
kinetic force hit the woman exactly where David's hands
would have hit
her, had
he stood in front of her, namely in the stomach.
No one other than
David saw the accident.
David sat frozen by
fear, unable to move hands still up in the air. The
teleamp
neutralized
the adrenaline, and David was ready to take action.
It was
nothing more
than jumping off the stool and running out of the kitchen
across the
deck down
the stairs and up the hill.
David had never run
as fast as he did in these seconds. Since he, in his
eagerness,
lost
balance five, six times the teleamp cut in with enough
teleportation to
avoid a
fall. This caused some of his steps to become
kangaroo
jumps. The Cranes,
mother daughter pair tried to follow David, but by the
time they came
out the
door onto the porch, David was standing by his mother's
side bending
over her
shouting. "I am sorry, mom; I didn't mean to do
it. Please
wake up mommy! Please get up mommy! Mommy”? He touched her
face, then
he lifted
her head trying to revive her.
The two Cranes reached the woman on the ground. Mrs. Crane knelt by the quiet shape on the ground fearing that the excitement of the son’s return after a week of worry about his disappearance must have been one thing more than she could take. 'Simply, of course': she thought, 'Mrs. Boulder had fainted'.
The teleamp pathed
David. 'The female ought not to be moved, her lower
spine is
broken into
splinters which, propelled in the direction they point
now, will do
irreparable
damage'.
David shook his
head, trying to clear his head. He looked around for
who might be
talking
to him, before his puzzlement drove him to ask.
"Who are you?
How do you know?” The teleamp came back
slowly.
'David, I am your teleamp. You don’t have to vocalize when communicating with me. I can see the damage quite clearly. You could too if you wanted to. You should request for repair assistance at once if you want to salvage the female'.
David made another
attempt to locate the source of all this
information. Failing to
find
anyone he decided to give soundless telepathing a
try. Very
slowly he
pathes back moving his lips.
'Are you nuts? This is my mom, not some female. What’s a repair facility? Do you mean a hospital?'
The teleamp cut into the word hospital with its reply. 'No need to slow down for me I can accommodate speeds better than a thousand times faster. Yes, precisely true a hospital is urgently required. Fetch it at once.'
Joyce was stroking
David's shoulder, the boy, it was obvious to her was near
tears.
She
reassured him.
“Your mother will be all right David, don't worry! Susy quick fetch a cushion for her and let’s make her comfortable”.
She tried to
straighten out the body on the lawn looking about for
help. It
was
impossible to move
‘The female must be
stopped from moving your mom. Your mom requires
immediate
attention by a
repair unit. Fetch a repair unit’.
David struggled
with soundless pathing. ‘What are you telling me,
bring a
hospital here?
That’s impossible. We can call an ambulance to take
her there.’
The
teleamp broke into his last word. ‘Yes precisely
true. It
must be
done at once. Call an ambulance.’ David was thinking
about
telephone book
and number with anxiety.
The thought struck
him to call information for the number. He looked up
at the house
and the
telephone starteds to show through the solid walls.
He saw the
phone
coming off the hook and he heard the dial tone. The
vision was
magnified
so much he could see the dialing of four one one taking
place.
Again he
heard the voice in his head. This time it was a request
for
instructions from
the teleamp.
‘To where shall we
order the ambulance to come?’ David gotets frantic
and started to
hyperventilate before he got the words out.
'I don’t know, here
of course. I mean number
The operator came
through loud and clear.
“Which ambulance
service do you want Madam?’ David heard the
teleamp’s insistent
response.
“This is an
emergency, we don’t know anything other than we need it
here at fifteen
Indian
road, and right now”. The operator’s voice turned
metallic and
unemotional.
“Yes madam I’ll
dial it for you”. David was faintly aware that the
operator ordered the
ambulance for them, in the same metallic monotonous
voice.
'How did you do this'? He only thought the question. Yet there was an immediate response. 'The operator had no intention to cooperate, so I had you take charge of her. She won’t remember a thing about it'.
Joyce had been
looking at her neighbor for a minute with anxiety building
in her
face.
She mumbled half to David and half to herself.
“I think this is
worse than I thought we better call an ambulance”.
David gave her
a
puzzled look. It was not quite clear to him that the
woman could
be
unaware of the teleamp’s interplay with the operator.
'Best to calm this
female down', the advice came from the teleamp.
David looked at
the Crane
home and as he grew tense the walls grew thin until he saw
the
inside.
And there he saw Susan walking to the door.
One, two, three,
four steps and there she was coming through the
door. The more
intently
he had looked the sharper and clearer the view of the
inside
turned. His
gaze swung back to his mother, who was groaning now, he
momentarily saw
the
crushed grass and dirt underneath her when his focus grew
too intense,
before
his eyes saw the whole of her again.
It was still
unnerving to just on a thought see the ground and then
have it
disappear like a
snap. Mom looked quite normal again. How did
it happen,
what was he
doing? He looked at her intently and again to his
eyes the ground
replaced the body. Now David heard the noise of a
car coming up
the
driveway, and his attention was on this and the fact that
it took so
awfully
long.
David stood up to
be sure it was his driveway the motor could be heard
from. He
then gave
the two Cranes a short look, telling them. "Please
stay here with
mom, I’ll go and get them." He was off running and
caught the
driver
just as he got out of the ambulance.
David was
anxious and impatient. He couldn’t stop himself from
complaining.
"What took you so long? My mom is hurt bad, I need
her to get to
a
hospital fast." Stan, the driver, was used to meeting and
dealing with
relatives of accident victims’ nervous impatience.
He just nodded
at
David as he walked to the back, to help the paramedic get
the stretcher
out. He then turned to David questioning.
"Where is she
son?" David just waved in the direction of the backyard
while he first
danced around, and then tried to keep in step with the
ambulance team
on their
way to his mother.
Chapter 4
Minutes later the
ambulance with
‘The Driver seems
to be lost David. He is turning every which
way. We should
assist
him or help will be too late.’
David nodded,
thinking. ‘What can I do? They
are
gone.’ The teleamp would not be put off.
‘The driver is visualizing his destination, shall we help him?’ The information from the device was disturbing to David. ‘Sure, but what can we do?’
The driver was
about to turn left on north San Pedro Road, when without
warning he
found
himself turning into the emergency driveway of Marin
General. He
made a correction
on the wheel and slowed down, biting his lips in
panic. The
fearful
thought was, ‘I must have fallen asleep at the
wheel’. But how
was that
possible? What was really puzzling was how in hell
he could have
gotten
here if he was asleep for fifteen minutes. It was tough to
take.
He
worried, he might have crashed. The question why
didn’t he, would
be food
for nightmares for many months to come.
The driver got out
and the paramedic was at the rear door pulling on the
stretcher.
"Man oh man, are you tripping or what. This is the
fastest pickup
ever."
The driver touched
his head, then he felt his heart, he looked at the sky,
then he crossed
himself. The Paramedic watched him with
suspicion.
"Will you shut
up boy? Do you want to lose our job here?" The
paramedic shook
his
head while they rolled the stretcher with
The teleamp was not satisfied. ‘David, this is very unscientific and inefficient. Will the facility be able to fix the damage?’ David looked at his head holo with a doubtful look. ’Yes, no?’ David was so exited he looked for what to tell the damn machine in his head: ‘I don’t know.’ The teleamp suggested. ‘Let us go and look.’
David was stumped,
but slowly got the idea that he didn’t have to talk out
loud to inform
the teleamp
in him? He still wondered at how that could be but
accepted it.
‘How?
They are gone.’ The holo grinned at him with more of a
smile than
before:
‘Yes precisely true. Here we go.’
David found he stood
in front of the emergency entrance, while the ambulance
team rolled his
mother
into the hospital. The driver gave David a smile
till he
recognized the
kid. Then he froze and got the shivers. He
felt sick to his
stomach. He would have liked nothing better than to
throw
up. All
he could think of was how to get rid of the patient, as
fast as
possible.
The head holo looked at David with a frown. ‘He doesn’t like you, he is scared of you. Why is that when we did nothing but help him?’ David looked half after his mother half at his holo. ‘It scares me being here quick like and sudden and I may not understand how and why, but at least I have an idea, that, you or I can do this somehow. If I am shaky, these guys should be scared out of their skulls.’ The holo turned a three hundred sixty. ‘Oh, it computes. Shall I block their vision of us?’
David nodded
questioningly. ‘Can you do that?' Then David tilted
his head at
the holo,
feeling silly he agreed. 'Oh, of course you can,
that was how the
sheriffs couldn’t see us with Iddi, while they walked all
over
us.’ A
nurse walking towards them saw David flash out of
existence and missed
a
step. Then without stopping, she continued looking
around to see
if
anyone else had possibly seen this miracle.
The teleamp was
dubious about the facility and started to question
David.
‘Do you consider
this repair service capable of helping fix your mom? I
don’t compute it
is. Shouldn’t you check on their skill and
technology level?’
David listened and
grew alarmed. ‘What can I do, or should I say what
can you do?’
The holo shook
its head at David. ‘You are in charge; I only
function with your
brain
power and will. I will take charge only in
emergencies to save
you or to
further your emotional needs. What computes in this
particular
situation,
is to follow up. So let us join your mom.’
Chapter 5
David nodded with
an affirmative thought. As David materialized in the
x-ray room;
he looked
around trying to understand what the recent model of
Roentgen machine
was all
about. His mom was positioned under the
camera. The
operator
adjusted
David at
first watched without comprehension. His holo shook
its head
rapidly like
a dog shaking off water, then turned to David.
‘This is not a
viable technology; we must improve their apparatus'
capability.’
David nodded at the
holo. ‘How are we going to do this?’ 'I will
do it and you
watch
the animals for dangerous reactions. If you see a
problem we’ll
cancel
their existence.’
David shook his
head at the holo. ‘You can’t just go and kill them;
they are
people.’ The holo tilted its shaking head at
David.
‘They are not, but
we’ll just wipe their memory of what they see.’ David
nodded with
satisfaction.
There was
consternation in the room. One doctor, the
radiologist stared at
the
display tube, his head shaking; the intern pointed his
finger at the
screen,
his face to the operator. David looked at the screen
to see what
was
bothering them. The view of his mom’s inside was
clearing and
sharpening. It turned three-dimensional and started
to show
color.
The doctor with his
finger on the screen questioned the operator. “How
are you doing
this?”
Turning to the intern he asked. "Did we get in some
new
equipment?
Have you ever…?" His mouth gaped. The second
doctor looked
and
waved his hand at the operator. “Quick get a picture
of this.”
The operator was
nervous, but it did not stop her from turning off all
light, leaving
only the
red light in the corner on. She pulled a blank
negative from an
orange
box and slid it into the x-ray machine. She touched
a timer and
walked
behind the lead screen while cautioning the doctors.
“Doctor, you
must
step back doctor, I can get into real trouble if you
don’t.”
The two doctors’ looked at each other, they were shaking their heads. One turned back. “Missi, this is too important. This is a change in X-ray history, a few rads are nothing, compared to this. Look, this means we need no exploratory. It’s all as clear as day. It’s L4 and L5 where the damage is with these”, he pointed to the screen. “We know exactly what and how.”
The operator
shook her head. She was too shaken to argue with the
two.
The
exposure over she dropped the negative into the developer
for a few
seconds,
then the fixer while she turned on the light. True
to the image
on the
screen, the negative was showing color and three
dimensions.
The holo grinned at
David with a glint of satisfaction.
‘That is the best
we can do, with this they must be able to repair your
mom. There
is
nothing better in the galaxy that I know of. Are
they calm enough
for us
to be able to avoid making adjustments on their minds?’
David
nodded
his
head
‘Yea,
they are all right. Should we go back to the
residence
now?’ David pulled up his eyebrows at the holo.
‘How? Same
as we
came?’ ‘As you wish’.
CHAPTER 6
It was
Monday, a school day.
David was back,
after missing with Iddi for a week, in
class, back to his normal
routine.
He sat in his usual seat, third row
far left next to the window, during
the
second subject on Monday
morning. It was his math class,
and he
was not with
it. The teleamp was questioning
everything constantly. As
soon as
the bus came to pick David up at
Circle Road, it asked:.
‘Why are
you walking to this toy
contraption? Why is
it yellow all over? Is it a ritual thing
of the animals here or are you
being
conditioned? I can not detect any EM
emission of value.’
But
that
was
just
the beginning, when David, and all
the kids, got off at the school. ‘What
are we doing here?’
By the time half
the school day was
over the teleamp
questioned David. ‘What if you don’t come to
these cultural
events?’
David informed his electronic companion. ‘It
makes me a
truant.
They will send a police officer and pick me up and
put me in
detention.’
The teleamp’s floating holohead shook very
slowly.
‘I read no capability
to trace you,
not to mention,
they have no facility to keep you in. They are
harmless animals
to a
galactic citizen like you.’
David
looked at the holo
rolling his eyes, and
then he laughed out loud. He forgot
he was sitting in his
classroom with
the teacher’s attention on him, for the
uncalled outburst. He
made an
effort to muffle the laughter, and turned
his head aside.
‘You are right,
but I’ll have to
figure out what I can
get away with and what I can do. It’ll
take a while. I will
give
this some thought. Just leave me be for
a while.’
David
experimented with his new
found vision, right
through the wall into the next classroom, and
with a little exertion,
past the
second wall into the next room as well.
He also tried out the
other new
facility by knocking the chalk from the
teachers’ hand. She was a
nimble
one, so far he had succeeded three times and
every time she caught the
chalk
before it hit the ground. Then the
fourth time he fumbled it, the
chalk
did not drop, but shot up, bounced off the
wall, then hit the ceiling
and then
fell down behind her, and half the class was
snickering.
He too burst into a
laugh.
David’s teacher, Miss
Slater, gave him a troubled look. She had
talked to him briefly
about his
disappearance, but the boy had offered no
explanation as to his
whereabouts for
any of the seven days he had been missing.
She wondered where he
had
been, or what he had done, and most of all,
why? She busied her
mind.
‘The boy I’ve got back
from
wherever is very different
from the David of a week ago. He is definitely
more
playful. Is
this a new level of confidence? Then there is this new
accurateness,
add to
this, his fast response, which doesn’t only set him
apart from his
former self,
but, it makes him look like a new David. He sure
sticks out from
the
class as a whole. I’ll have to keep an eye on
this boy, and I
better get
back to my class.’
David got a lot of
consideration
for having been
lost. He had been given the opportunity to stay
home for a few
days, but
dad’s questions at home had been a little difficult to
deal with, and
he had
decided to get back into the normal days routine as
quickly as
possible.
David could hear Miss Slater thinking.
‘It is entirely
unreasonable for
him to be sent to
school immediately, following his return. The
weekend is not a
reasonable
time for recovery, after being lost for one whole
week.’
David knew from her
thoughts, she
was looking at
him. So he looked at her, instantly
refocusing on his own
classroom
trying to bury the last part of a snicker, tilting
his head toward his
chest. But it had just been too funny, to
watch the other
teacher's
frustration with her chalk.
The following day David
had a
doctor’s
appointment. What Doctor Slider reflected on,
how strange it was,
that
the boy could not remember one single thing. The
whole week was,
for him
at least, as if it had never happened. Nor was
there any strain
noticeable to him, but of course he was not a child
psychiatrist.
But he
was the father of four and was used to seeing at least
something when
one of
the children tried to cover up one thing or
other. He suggested
he would
look in again on Sunday to see how David was doing,
but could offer no
reason
why the boy should stay home from school, particularly
since he didn’t
want
to.
Doctor Slider, as a
general
practitioner, felt at a
loss about this situation. He recommended for
David to see Doctor
Shaefer, a child psychiatrist. This
David felt some slight
unease, when
going in for his
first appointment. It only took a few minutes of
pathing the
doctors’
thoughts to erase all trepidation. Doctor
Shaefer’s thoughts were
divided, between thinking about the week’s schedule,
and his desire to
prove
his friend Doctor Slider, who after all was only a GP,
wrong. The
teleamp
informed David, that the scrambled thinking processes
of the
practitioner were
highly detrimental to archiving a valid
conclusion. It made David
wonder
if Doctor Shaefer might decide to prescribe some ugly
tasting pills, or
demand
a brain scan to cover up his indecision, and failure
to detect a cause
and
reason for David’s unexplained absence.
David’s new ability of
looking
through walls and to
push around things, including people, like his mother,
without having
to
physically touch them, like no hands; Mom was
decidedly odd even if the
explanations from the teleamp seemed quite
convincing. Was this
maybe a
real sickness? Was he ill, even though he felt
perfectly fine?
CHAPTER
7
The next school day’s
subjects
include PE. David
looked forward to it with rather happy
anticipation. The last few
days
after returning from his bout with Iddi, he found he
could jump six
feet high
and run up and down the three-hundred-foot, 6 degree
driveway without
running out
of breath, or even he felt, reaching limits of what he
could do.
What troubled David was
his mom’s
not wanting to have
him come and visit her at the hospital. Why
would she try to
avoid him?
David really wished he could find out, but he
hesitated to use his new
found
talent on her. It was too much of an invasion of
her privacy, and
it was
still scary to him.
David found another
problem
sneaking into his
life. Two hours after going to bed, sometime
about eleven
o’clock, he would
wake up, ready and rearing to get up, get dressed and
go to
school. As
the boy found himself in the atrium fully dressed, his
dad, still
working on
his homework looked at him with surprise. “Where
are you going
young
man? I thought you had gone to bed.” David
looked at his father
as
understanding was fed to him by his teleamp.
‘You will not need
more than
two hours of sleep from here on in. You can fill
your extra time
with
reading, sport or traveling. Well traveling is
out you don’t have
a ship
for that. Your information base is lacking.’
David gave his dad the
news, as
fast as it was fed to
him, by his little companion. The older
When David was finished
with the
story of Iddi the Klu
and the reward, and the strange story of studies with
the
“Your mother has some
strange
feelings about you
David. Quite frankly she acts as if she is
afraid of you.”
David
nodded at his dad, then he
shook his head and
confessed to the terrible accident, with his
telekinetic power, and his
attempt
to save mom from a fall down a six foot bank, instead
ending up making
it into
a twenty foot drop. Bill was stunned. His
doubts, as to
David’s
story about a gift of powers, were devastating, hard
to believe.
What he
wondered, had happened to his boy? Was it all
sheer fantasy or
was he
demented? What the hell was wrong with the kid?
Bill turned to his
son. “Okay
David, for now
I’ll go with the assumption there is some reality
to this. I
guess I
can’t get away from your mother being in the
hospital with a serious
operation
in the offing, to keep her from becoming
paralyzed. The
three-dimensional
X-ray negative I will want to have a look
at. It would be the
first solid
proof I can lay my hands on. Your desire to
help mom with your
new skills
is very commendable, but I think, under the
circumstances, not
now. I
would want you to have someone else to practice on
for at least a year.”
David is torn with
indecision, but
his dad’s
evaluation seems sound. “Okay dad, my alter ego,
the microchip in
here,”
David taps his head
with his hand
in the vicinity of
the implant,
“Okay I agree with your
judgment at
this time, though
the information it has about, what it calls our,
repair facility, is
dismal by
galactic standards.” The older
Bill Boulder left for
his bedroom
at the rear of the
house. David pulled the Encyclopedia from the
shelf and got
involved with
its printed pages.
It was a little after
seven in the
morning when Bill saw
his son again. David sat on the living room
floor and appeared to
be
reading. Bill looked at the piles of
encyclopedia volumes on the
floor. It had the appearance David was through
with most of the
volumes,
or maybe all on his left side. David turned a
page every three
seconds.
Bill bit his lip and
then he picked
up one of the
books out of the pile on the left. He opened it,
turned to
David.
“Did you read all this?” David looked up from his page
and nodded at
his
father. Bill was not yet satisfied. He
looked at the open
book and
asked David.
“What’s a character?”
David turned his face
to the window
before he answered.
“It’s a word originally
denoting a
die for stamping
coins as well as the device stamped on them. The
word comes
directly from
ancient Greek, in familiar usage.”
Bill waved his hand in
front of
David’s face.
“Enough, stop it David,
that’s
verbatim. It
looks as if you are about to finish this before you
are going to
school.”
David looked at the two
volumes on
his right, then
looked back at his dad with the slightest of nods
“Yea, I guess you are
right
dad. It sure helped to pass the time
though.” Bill turned
his head
to the window wall to look out at the valley and saw
the quoted
description of
the word, character, slowly fading from the space in
front of
him. He
turned back to his son.
“So you don’t really
memorize it?”
David shook his
head “No dad, I just let the teleamp record it.” Bill
turned to go to
work but
turned back to David with a last word of advice.
“Don’t forget to
take
lunch to school.” “Don’t worry dad. I can
always come back,
if I
forget”. Bill stopped in the door then turned to his
son. “All I
can tell
you is, this is going to be one hell of an
adjustment.” David screwed
his face
up, and with a chuckle he agreed. “Yes dad, you
took the words
right out
of my mouth. I have to watch everything I do or
think, if I
don’t, I hear
about it.” David knocked on his head.
David knew that P. E.
in school
would be a lark.
The first ten minutes were wasted as usual. Soon
David saw how
his
enhanced speed and strength bore fruit. There
was a lot of
cheering every
time he had the ball, and that happened about once
every three
minutes.
He had the ball almost all the time now. The
kids on his team saw
his
speed and his agility. The end result was that
he was always
avoiding,
being near the opposition, which made him the easiest
player to pass
the ball
to. Anyone on his team, just naturally tossed
him the ball, it
was the
best strategy for winning.
The Galactic Uni.’s,
clinic was
ready to test the
proper function of all the teleamp’s
calibrations. First one was
telepathy. That brought him the thoughts of
Harry his best
friend.
What was the matter with him? Why was David such a
showoff? ‘What gives
with him?’
The reception of thoughts was focused on the teacher
now. ‘This
boy is
unbelievable. He is pro material. With
this kid on the
team, I’ll
gain some recognition around here’. With his mind’s
reception circling
the horizon,
his next transmission was Susan sitting in the
bleachers. ‘David is
really the
coolest guy. It’s so nice to have him living
next door’.
The Uni’s
clinic switched to a vertical circle at this
instant.
David didn’t hear
anything, he had
a hungry feeling so
strong he had to open his mouth, his arms and hands
looked like
hamsters’ and
there was this huge grub in front of his mouth, and
then it was not in
front of
him anymore; now he had swallowed it. His senses
were flooded
with
happiness and his stomach was starting to work on the
fresh, still
half-alive grub.
The satiated feeling snapped out.
His new view of the
world was from
an airplane.
No it is a view of the earth all right but from the
eyes of a hawk, and
his
focus tightened again to show sharp, and clear, a
young pheasant trying
clumsily to leave the shelter of its nest.
David’s muscles tensed
as he
felt his body tilt, and his arms going back to an
impossible
angle. Now
his own personal anxiety flooded his mind because he
was falling
towards the
ground a thousand feet down below. It was an
eerie sensation, but
the
over riding thought, was elation, and urgent
preparation to open his
mouth, no,
it’s, his beak. Then, one more time, the
thoughts of the hawk
were
gone. David went from mind to mind in a
circle. He felt his
mind
was taken over by whomever it was that sent their
thoughts to
him. Even
though only minutes go by it felt as if it had been
hours. It was
not
just an incredible experience, but it gave him a case
study of two
dozen
creatures thoughts and feelings.
CHAPTER
8
He heard someone
calling him
‘Harry, let me have your
sandwich.’ His mouth watered with appetite and longing
to bite into the
BLT
sandwich in his paper bag, and his stomach was
rumbling. ‘Boy, am
I ever
hungry. I want to eat my own sandwich.
Can’t he go to
Nick?’ His
head turned right, and there was big Nick, munching on
a gargantuan
sandwich,
and Nick did look as if he needed nothing less than
another bite of
food,
because Nick was the fattest boy in school. The
distraction
proved too
much for David. He had missed catching the ball
as it was passed
to him,
and the other team had it. David turned, and
accelerated in the new
direction.
The clinic was finished testing telepathy. The
new test was for
the
gravity nullifier. David lost traction and floated on
the last vector
chosen at
a nearly undiminished speed. Turning his head
David could make
out that
if he continued at the speed and in this direction he
would hit the
fence post
at, it feels like fifty miles per hour, but of course
that is just the
adrenaline in his blood. It can’t be more than
ten or maybe
fifteen?
Just before hitting the
post, David
came to a sudden
halt, still floating in the air, inches off the
ground. But then
the
antigravtest was over and David dropped the rest of
the way to the
ground. The teleamp questioned David. ‘You
are aiming to
bust the
fence pole to pieces? I am not sure if my interference
is
warranted. But,
it seems to me, you need not use your head to do
so. My
connections to
your firing neurons are not yet tested well enough to
guarantee our
interface
is perfect.’ The holograph of his head looked at him
inquisitively. David
laughed at his floating head. ‘Nah, I didn’t
want to bust
anything, least
of all my head. I was just so surprised I never
thought, well you
know, I
am still unsure of all we, you and I can do.’
The teacher blew the
whistle and
waved David out of
the game. David nodded, to convey he understood
and walked slowly
to the
bleachers. Strange thing though is, nobody else
was moving.
David
walked past them, when he passed Charlie who stood
there with the ball;
David took
it out of his hands, walked over to the basket and
threw it in.
He turned
to look back, and he could see that Charlie had moved,
but not much,
and he had
a pretty stupid look on his face, as if he just found
out he didn’t
have any
pants on. David thought, he probably found out
the ball was
gone.
And then it was all
back to
normal. David sat on
the bench and pulled up his feet. Holy cow, the
sneakers, mom
bought him
not quite two weeks ago, were done for. They
smelled of burnt
rubber. They were bad. Worse than anything
you might find
at the
flea market.
Only now, with time on
his hands,
did David find out
what the last twenty minutes or less had done to his
clothes. His
shirt
was a shambles too. There were two big jags in
it and three
buttons were
gone. Shiiit, the shorts were split at the
seam. The stuff
barely
stuck together. ‘I wish I was home David
thinks. In my
room, so I
can sort this thing out. Dad will be furious
when he sees
this.’
CHAPTER
9
David with his mind on
his troubles
was a little late
finding out he was at home, sitting on his bed, just
as he had wished
for,
seconds earlier. There was a moment’s thought,
before he burst
out.
“Quit playing those games stupid, you are gonna get me
into a heap of
trouble.”
The teleamp almost sounds like mother. ‘You did
it
yourself. When
you think, I want to, whether it is levitation,
portation, pathing, or
whatever,
you are doing it. You may be using my
amplification circuits, but
you may
be sure, I have no direct hand in it.’
David looked at his
torn clothes
and shoes.
‘Look at this; I’ve ruined my duds in ten minutes of
using your assist
in
running. What am I going to do now?’
David’s holoface moved
close
and tilted right and left. ‘Ah, no big deal just
go and fix it,
it was
shoddy engineering, probably a handout from some cheap
do-gooder’.
David’s eyed the holo in disbelief. ‘Are you
nuts, these are the
best,
they are Nike's. How in hell am I going to fix
those? I
don’t know
how to sew; I lost the buttons off my shirt.
They use big
machines to make
those Nike's. I don’t know how to repair clothes
and
stuff.’
The holo had been
shaking right and
left through
David’s heated response. Now it squinted at
David. ‘You
must have
forgotten how you fixed Iddi’s command module.’ David
was not satisfied
with
the teleamp’s response. ‘That’s a different
thing; it was easy
stuff to
do’. The holohead pulls its nose up. ‘It’s
all the same,
you’ll
see. This is easier than what you did for
Iddi. You tune
down to
angstrom vision and, there you are.’
David thought about the
job he did
with Iddi.
Bingo there it was. What he saw now was the
molecular structure
of the
sneakers. There was the resin, to hold the thing
together.
Then
there was a very important part, which must not ever
be missing, the
fillers,
needed to keep the cost in check, and hold the useful
life span
down. And
last, not least, the pigments to give color to the
shoes and make them
seductive and desirable enough to lure the buyer to
part with his
brow’s sweat
and his money.
‘The polymer is poorly
bonded.’ The
teleamp confided.
Pulling a sourpuss David nodded ‘I can see it, you are
right, it’s a
shoddy
mess.’ David’s telekinetic power and the skill
he had developed
while
working on the ship command module, was more than
enough. He
righted the
wrong in the footwear but the teleamp reminded him to
get back to
school.
David gave in. He ported back to sit on the
bench for the
remainder of
the PE class.
All the shaping and
bonding and
coloring of his
sneakers, kept him busy. It was not enough to
fix and repair the
worn out
sportswear. David found time, to put elastic
growing space into
the
Nike's. It would allow them to expand and fit
him not only now
when he was
barely nine years old, but to have them stretch and be
the right size
when his
foot had grown into a mans nine, ten, or maybe even
twelve. David
needed
just a few more minutes to repair his shirt. It
too got the full
treatment. Now, it all looked better than
new. Finally when
the boy
was finished he took the sneaker in his hand and
pulled it up to size
fourteen
and then he squashed it to a size four.
The next night David
and dad went
to the
library. It was a quick visit to the fantastic
building Frank
Lloyd
Wright had designed so many years ago. It housed
the hall of
justice, the
council chambers, the sheriff’s station and at the
very top the crown
of it all
a perfectly circular top, home of the county
library. It took
David just
a few minutes to check through the card files.
Then he turned to
Bill and
with a short quick nod he said. ‘Shall we go?’
Bill was taken by
surprise. “Don’t you want to check out some
books?” David
ducked
his head at his father. “I’ll get them tonight
when they are
closed,
dad. If I take what I need to keep me busy
tonight, they’ll think
we are
nuts.”
The older
CHAPTER
10
The next morning,
David was through
with his reading
earlier than expected. He decided to go for
a morning run.
This particular morning
offered
rather more excitement
for some
“This kid must be doing
better than
twenty miles per
hour. Let’s have look at this kid”.
The driver nodded and
nudged the
gas pedal.
David threw a glance over his shoulder, saw the patrol
car and made a
three
hundred sixty degree turn to get a good view of the
pursuing
vehicle.
Then he made the decision to avoid unwanted
questions. David had
not, up
to this time tried, just how much speed his legs held
in reserve for an
emergency. In these next few minutes the boy was
about to find
out.
The cop on the right silently stared at the little
figure gaining
distance on
them. The driver could not help but
comment. “Jeez, look
it, he is
still speeding up. Can you believe that?”
He stepped on the
accelerator and
the tires squealed,
as the speedometer needle moved up to fifty miles per
hour. David
gave
the pursuit car another look and angled away from the
fence for a few
steps,
then he reversed toward the fence which separated the
service roads
from the
freeway and with a five step spurt he took off, and
cleared the fence
by a
comfortable ten inches. For just a second the
two cops look at
each other
with open mouths, then their attention was back on
David, who was
crossing the
six lanes without letting up and flew across the fence
on the other
side.
The officer on the
right seat
straightened his collar
and picked up the mike. There is reluctance,
which is out of sync
with
the rapid disappearance of David into the next side
street. He
made an
effort while chewing his lips to put his mind in shape
for the way he
must report
the impossible happenings of the last three
minutes. He pressed
the send
button on the mike.
“This is car ‘One one
three’ we are
on West Side of
Highway 101 at the Ford tower, this is a code ten
fourteen and a ten
seventy
eight. Better watch out. This kid is,” he turns
to the
driver.
“How old do you think
he is?”
The driver screwed up
his
face. He was not very
happy.
“Mike don’t ask
me. He is
eight, ten tops,
better make it fifteen.”
Mike pressed the send
button again
and continued,
“His age, ten or
fifteen he just
jumped the fence into
101 and crossed over to jump the fence to the
Mike stared at the mike
with mixed
feelings. He
was undecided for just a moment, then he hung up the
mike. The
loudspeaker was silent for a pause long enough to
offer time for a
response. Mike gave it a stubborn look.
“Okay, I’ll have
two cars
there in five minutes. Ten-four”. The
driver shook his
head.
“She is right, we must have seen double. He
can’t keep that speed
up and
there is nowhere for him to go. We’ll get him.”
Mike looked out
on the
sleeping city. There was a look of conviction in
his eyes, it was
the
knowledge that came from the gut. It said, I
don’t think
so. The
race to find the jumper was on and after ten minutes
eight patrol cars
were in on
the search, and then the sheriff’s patrols were in on
the chase as
well.
David ran west on North
San Pedro
road. He saw a
man of sixty jogging at a good clip. With a
little extra speed he
caught
up with the early morning runner and matched his
speed. Not more
than a
minute later a Sheriff’s car pulled alongside.
The deputy rolled
down his
window and questioned David. “Good morning son,
you been running
long?’
David was still thinking how to disarm the man.
The stranger nodded
friendly,
before he answered.
“About a couple of
miles down I
guess”, his thumb
pointing east. “And back I guess. Why? You
want to come
along?”
The deputy shook his
head at
him. “Nah, not today
Sir, have a nice day you two.” The lawman made a U
-turn and headed
back
east.
The odd couple jogged
on for a
minute, before David
turned to his older running mate. “Thank you
Sir.” He saw a head
tilting
to him with a grin, and he not quite heard a near
soundless chuckle
before the
reply came.
“Nada, we live in
Snoopyland.
I am kind of
private myself. I am Sharky, but my friends call
me Skip.
Are you
O.K. old man?” David scrutinized Skip with a
smile.
“Thanks, I am
fine”. He put on a burst of speed. As David
pulled away from
Skip, he
heard him say. “See you tomorrow.”
David turned into
Circle Road, and
Skip pulled up his
eyebrow as he watched David disappear in the bend of
the road, slowed
down then
and turned back east.
CHAPTER
11
David ran up the steep
old drive
way through the open
side door, up the stairs and as he made haste through
his own room’s
door the
door knob came off in his hand, but not before the
force of his entry
had half
bent and half broken the hinges. Losing his
balance, he tried to
hold
himself off, by putting his hand on the wall; no such
luck, the
plasterboard
wall gave under the push of his hand as if it was
newspaper. Now
David
had a fist sized hole in his wall. He stared at
it disgruntled,
before he
pulled his hand out of it. The he looked at the
doorknob in his
hand. His eyes went the broken and bent
hinges.
The teleamp stabilized
the holo of
David’s head.
‘You’ll have to harden the doors and walls; they are
suffering from the
same
low quality sickness as your clothes. Best you
get things to come
up to
permawall quality standards in and around you to make
it livable.
You
might consider slowing down in this environment of
yours.’ David
glared
at the holo with disgust. “This is not funny,
you know”.
The
teleamp wipes the smile off the holo. ‘I’ll know
this from here
on’.
Under David’s intense
stare, the
door slowly floated
back up to the door frame, the hinges straightened
out. With this
done,
he concentrated on the wall. The hole filled in
and smoothened
out.
The fixed parts took on a solid hard sheen. The
final touch was,
putting
the doorknob back on. It felt as good as solid
brass in his
hand.
Now it was time to go
to
school. There was
nothing much to do. Except for his experimenting
the day would be
unbearably boring. Then the school day was over,
and in front of
a group
of stragglers he walked along Los Ranchitos road
toward home.
David
turned into circle road. The second house had
this wire fence
right up
against the street. Six years old Lisa squatted
near the fence
with a
tired old dog. When she saw David, she stroked
the old canine and
complained to the boy.
“Look David, poor Buddy
has to be
put away”. A flood
of tears ran down her face. She tried to hide a
sniffle.
David’s holo came into
his view and
the teleamp pathed
at him.
‘Help her. Fix
her dog.’
David looks up at the
holo questioning. ‘How?’ You heard her.
To-morrow the dog
is gonna
be put out of its misery’.
The holohead bobbed
up and down,
coming close and
closer to David until the boy backed off.
‘You do it the same way
you did
the ship’s brain, and your Nike's?’ ‘That
wouldn’t work on the
dog.
It’s a living animal.’ The holo shook back
and forth.
‘Well try it, there is
nothing to
lose here, is
there?’
David lay down his
books and went
behind the
fence. He got on one knee and stroked the
animal. The DNA
was not
nearly as bad as he expected. It sure was
helpful he had read the
encyclopedia.
As he straightened out the mess inside the dog’s
genes, he hummed and
hawed,
with every time, one of the double helices was turning
back to its
proper shape
with the telomerase lengthened.
Lisa’s mom stepped out
of the house
and walked over to
the three. She was troubled, but her face lit up
when she saw,
what
looked to her as if David were only calming Lisa down,
helping her get
over the
sad good bye. “Hello David, thank you for
helping Lisa and
Buddy.
It is very nice of you to do this”. Buddy gave a
low growl,
lifted his
head and licked David’s hand.
The teleamp shook its
Teddy
holohead at David. ‘Good,
great, excellent. You better quit now if you
please. Too
much of
this may cause an upset, no?’ David looked
up. ‘All right,
but
frankly I don’t see any improvement.’ The teddyholo
pulled a funny
face.
‘It’s your first try at a living animal. The
results usually take
awhile
to show. I fear you may have done too much
already?’ David got
up, and
went over to put his books back under his arm.
He waved a hand at
Lisa’s
mother who was walking back to the house, but looking
back, and nodding
at Lisa.
“Good bye Lisa”. The girl had two big tears running
down her
cheek. She
wiped at them and there was a throb in her
voice. “See ya
to-morrow.”
That evening, Bill told
his son, he
should come with
him to the hospital to visit his mom. David
agreed, hoping it
would help
to rebuild his mother’s confidence.
CHAPTER
12
It has been a week
since David
returned. It
seemed more as if a lifetime had passed from the last
weekend.
There was
no response from
David almost ported out
of the
hospital room.
But the holo appeared in front of him and
advised. ‘It would not
be good
for your mom. These pre-evolved races have
rarely learned to deal
with
their neurons over firing. They like to run
their synapses
ragged.’
Bill was adamant in his
mind to
help heal the breach
between mother and son. “Look
She looked at him,
aware he had an
agenda of helping
her and if not that, to at least cheer her up.
“Alright Bill so
tell me”.
Bill looked at the ceiling, a gesture she knew so
well. He tried
to get
the good news as precisely as possible. “David’s
scores are equal
to twelfth’s
grade ninety-nine percentile. Comments
are, it is impossible
to
fully appreciate his real levels since David completed
half hour tests
in less
then five minutes, while a one-hour exam was stop
watched at seven
minutes and
twenty seconds. Isn’t that great
Sweetheart?”
Luckily the nurse came
in to see
about the call.
In her mind she was
screaming. ‘Oh my god, what
is happening to us? This is terrible’ the
thought was powerful
enough to
slip through to David even with the pathing route
turned off. It
hit the
boy in the gut and there was nothing he could think
of, other than to
get out
of the hospital. David knew his mother was
terrified of
him. He had
no explanation for it.
Bill sensed some
undercurrent,
looking at his wife’s
strained face. He looked at David, and then he
turned back to
CHAPTER
13
David got his night’s
reading in
and his morning
run. There, at the end he met up with Skip
again. While he
jogged
along with the older man, he found him a very pleasant
person to be
with.
He thought it wasn’t just because the guy stood up for
him to the cop
without a
question. There was an unexplainable good
feeling to be with
Skip, almost
as if he were a relative. He hesitated using the
teleamp to path
him because
of a strange feeling of invading Skip’s privacy. What
he did not know,
was that
Skip knew about him and had reason to be wary. Having
David know more
about
Skip just now, Skip did not consider advisable.
Then it was Grammar
school
again. The teacher held
his latest test papers in her hand and waved them at
the class.
“What I
have here, are your test results. You can all look at
David, who truly
applies
himself. Try to learn from him. He lost
this whole previous
week. It hasn’t stopped him from finishing at
the top of the
class.”
Two of the classmates
looked at him
with frowns, and two
others were making faces at him behind the teacher’s
back, and a dozen
whispered
‘egghead’ to him.
The evening brought a
phone call
from the
sheriff. Bill took it and turned to David with a
question.
“The
sheriff wants to come over to write a final report on
your
disappearance or
kidnapping. He wonders if you are in good enough
shape to answer
some
questions.” David was not thrilled with the
idea, but it would
have to be
dealt with sooner or later his father explained to
him.
An hour later the
sheriff showed up
with a county family
psychologist in tow. Mrs. Albright was dressed
more like a
man.
Bill brought the two up the stairs and introduced his
son. First
the
sheriff looked David over with great care, and then he
shook his head
at him,
telling him. “Son you gave us quite a scare
there, this last
week.
Your dad was frantic with worry, when we couldn’t find
you”.
David looked
the officer straight in the eye. “Dad told me
all about it
Sheriff.”
There were a few
questions from the
sheriff. It
was mostly about from when he was gone, and when did
he come back and
was he
with anyone. David explained that he had no
memory of the time in
between. The officer took notes and doubled up
on the questions
to verify
the facts. David felt odd mental vibes in the
room. He did
not want
to open their minds to his telepathic ear.
The build up came to a
conclusion
when Mrs. Albright
requested to talk to David in private. Bill had
no
objection. He
left the living room to the three and went downstairs
to work on his
bike. It was an hour later, when David brought
the two county
officials’
downstairs to the front door. Bill came over to
shake hands with
the two
and thank the sheriff for the help in the search for
David, of the week
before.
The woman seemed
to be highly
agitated.
There was a dark stain down the back of her skirt,
which she vainly
tried, very
much to hide. The sheriff put his hand on Bills
shoulder,
complimenting
him. “Bill, all I can say, is I am glad you have
your son
back. I
think you can be proud of the boy. He has an
exceptional mind and
I know
he must be a great joy for you to have. I am
sorry about your
wife’s
mishap.” And that was it; they were out the door
pretty fast with extra
urging
from the county psychologist.
When they were gone,
Bill gave his
son a curious
look. “What was that all about?” David
shrugged his
shoulders. “He wanted to know what had happened
all over again”.
Bill took
a glass of juice from the refrigerator and sat down,
his eyes on his
son.
His curiosity was written squarely on his face.
“And what then?”
he asked.
“I told him, I told them ten times”. ‘Seventeen
times’, is the
teleamp’s
message to David.
Bill was puzzled.
“You told
him the story about
the finder’s fee?” David shook his head at his
father. “Come on
dad,
no. They wanted to take me with them. Her
mind was
screaming abuse,
the minute she saw me. I couldn’t block her
out. She never
let up,
no matter what I said. Your Mrs. Albright was
possessed with the
idea, how
taking me away from you would get her a promotion or
at least a raise”.
Bill was
fascinated. “So, what changed her mind?” The boy
gave his dad a
mischievous smile. “She has trouble with her
bladder. We
made her
pee her pants. In the end she couldn’t take the
pressure
anymore”. Bill
nearly choked on the drink he had been sipping from,
trying to keep
from
laughing.
Then he became
serious. “She’ll
probably be back
though.” He looked thoughtfully out the window
wall. “I still
have doubts
about this story of yours, but then, barely a day
goes by without some
new
proof of it.” The boy gave his dad a look with a
tilt of his head.
“Dad,
I have the same problem. You know how you
can dream you are
flying.
It feels so real at the time. Yet, when you
finally wake up you
know it
was nothing but a dream. Well, with the
teleamp and me.
It’s the
same thing. I can’t help, but think it’s
just a dream.” The two
looked at
each other with new understanding.
Bill was not yet
satisfied.
“What about the
sheriff?” David snorted, wrinkling his
nose. “He didn’t
believe a
word I said. He thinks I am covering up
something. They’ll
keep watching
me and waiting. His thoughts were. ‘This
little jerk kid
can’t stop
me from finding out, whatever the hell they are up
to.’ So you see, the
sheriff’s office is going to keep an eye on me, - or
on us?”
CHAPTER
14
A day had passed and
after work,
Bill at home after
dinner had walked to the TV and switched it on.
By the time he
was back
at his chair, the tube had warmed up. A news
anchor team was
filling the
screen. They did their introduction, smiling at
each other and at
the
camera. The woman started the report. “A
fire on
A bird’s eye view of
David could
be seen barreling out
of the tollgate-plaza and onto the bridge. He
appeared to be
going at a
pretty fast clip. Bill looked at the runner
sticking his neck
forward to
get a better look. The view reverted back to the
anchor
team. The
man was continuing the commentary. “On returning
from the fire
scene,
this early riser caught our crew’s attention.
Only back at the
station,
when comparing time to distance did Channel seventy
seven become aware,
that
they had spotted an Olympic contender in their
lens. A snafu, we
fear,
caused our staff to calculate the unrelenting
sprinters’ speed at an
unbelievable forty-four miles per hour.”
The anchor
continued about a
jackknifed truck on the
freeway stopping traffic. Bill had
turned down the volume before
turning
to David. “It was quite a blaze?”
David nodded at him. “Yes
dad, it
was. They had seventeen trucks up
there to fight it. They
worked
pretty fast, but one of the guys went too
far into the smoke. He
did it
without his oxygen tank. They had to
go in and carry him
out.”
Bill listened
with a kind of
curious
fascination. “You didn’t, did
you?” David had started
reading while
the news was on. Now he looked up at his
dad. “Of course I
did. It was the only excitement I had
all week”. Bill tried to
hide his
worry. “Don’t let anything go wrong with
you. It’s enough
having your
mother in the hospital. I don’t want you
there too.” The
Teddyholo took
shape in front of David. ‘Your dads’
heart rate just went up to
one forty
a minute. You may want to avoid pushing
his buttons.’
David gave the holo
a thoughtful
look, and then he
turned to his dad. “Dad, I am the safest kid
in the
country. I mean
it”. Bill nodded at his son. “I keep
forgetting, sorry, I
guess
I’ll turn in early and catch up on my sleep some.”
Bill left David in
the
living room and went to the rear corner of the
house where his bedroom
was and
David turned to his stack of books on the
floor.
The next day during
school David
started to talk to
Karin. “You can’t imagine how much better my
sandwiches are now
that dad
makes them.” Karin turned away from him to
Mario. “Hey Mario, can
you
hear the wind whistling through here?” Mario ran his
eyes over David
with a
grin. He nodded at Karin. “Yea it sure is
drafty here”.
David turned
to Susan, but she seemed to anticipate this and by the
time his eyes
were
coming around to her she was already walking
off. He decided to
keep his
mouth shut rather than collect more rebuffs. By
the time school
was out
he had forgotten all about the unfriendly mood he had
encountered in
the
morning.
On his
way home David sped up to
catch up with a group
going his way, to Circle road. Karin,
he knew would not turn in
with him
but go straight ahead, but Susan, Rick and
Mario lived in the Ranchitos
hills.
Karin gave him a cold look. Susan ran
off ahead and Rick and Mario
stopped,
blocking his path. Mario confronted
him with. “We wanna
walk
alone”. Karin nodded looking at Rick
and Mario, and then turned
to David.
“Yea, leave us alone”. Rick was a smaller
boy who would not have much
inclination to aggravate any of the bigger
boys when by himself, but
this was
different, and a real good
opportunity. He turned to David
after
checking
who all was there to notice and applaud
him before he turned to
David.
“Yea, get lost”. There was a twinge
in David’s heart to get
even.
His mind was on all the things he could
now do to one of these
animals. The
kind of retribution he could expend.
The Holo
took shape in front of him
with a sad
face. ‘David it’s not worth
it. They are just kids of a
similar
type of DNA, affected by you being a
citizen with all the back up that
is a
part of joining the evolved society.
Even here among the animal
humanoids
of this planet there is envy of those with
enhanced talent and
skill. The
only reason you notice it is because of
you not a being one of them,
but a Galactic.’
David was
mollified some but still
disgusted. ‘I
still think they are pretty shitty.’ He
glared after the boys traipsing
off.
CHAPTER 15
He turned into
Circle road by his
lonely self.
At the wire fence a dog was staring at
David. It was a strapping
healthy
animal. Lisa ran out of the house and with a
happy smiling face
she called
out to him. “Hi David, look how Buddy has
recovered since you
petted
him”. David looked at the canine with
surprise. “This is Buddy the
dying
dog?” The dog wouldn’t let him out of his
sight. It came to
the
closest corner to meet him and now walked with
David to the gate on the
other
side of the fence. “Thank you David.” The
telepathic message came
through
with a touch of huskiness and flutter. David
shook his head in
consternation and pathed back with his lips
moving. ‘Who is
this? What
the hell is going on here?’
The Holo
intensified. ‘I told
you when you worked
on the animal, you were likely to overdo it, and
you did. Now you
are
stuck with a telepathic dog. Oh,
well. It could be
worse’.
Lisa opened the gate and motioned David to come
in. David was
reluctant,
but then Lisa’s mother came out to the gate.
She greeted David
with
exuberance. “Hello David, Lisa’s dad thinks
you are a miracle
worker, and
Lisa is the happiest girl on earth. What did
you do with the dog
when you
were here? It’s as if we had a new Buddy here.”
She patted the dog’s
head
affectionately.
David slowly walked
in the
gate. He wanted to
put down his schoolbooks, but Lisa wouldn’t
have it. She
took the
books off him before he had a chance to put them
down on the
ground. The
dog had walked up to David and was about to lick
his hand. David
shrank
mentally from the moist tongue. The animal
pulled back with a
telepathic
message. “Sorry David, licking a man’s hand
comes natural to
me. I’ve
been doing it for ten years. I didn’t know
it could be
unpleasant’. Buddy
backed off a couple of feet, with his tail
wagging. The dog saw
the look
on David’s face, and stopped wagging it.
‘Wagging
a
tail
seems
a stupid thing to do, but,
without speech it is the only effective way to get
to show a
smile. My
face doesn’t have the muscles for it. I don’t
know how to thank
you. I guess I can look out for you. I
have more than a nose
for
trouble thanks to your gift. Could I live with
you?’ David
looked the
dog over, biting his lips. He looked at the
happy girl in front of
him. ‘If I can’t live with you maybe I could
visit you.
They will
never know the difference. I used to go and not
come back for
hours at a
time’. David contemplated the animal with a
frown.
The
holo moved to the top of the dog’s
head. ‘The
beast can’t communicate to them what it knows about
you. We don’t
have a
problem. Even if the dog could get it across, it
wouldn’t do any
harm.
What person on this planet would dare to believe an
animal?’ Buddy
looked at
David with wide-open mouth asking by telepathy.
‘Are you one
person with
two minds, or is there someone with you? Is that
the angel thing,
which
Lisa believes comes to put her to sleep?’ David
stroked Buddy’s
head. ‘Shut up, I am thinking. I don’t know
what to do with
you. That is fact number one.’ David wondered,
if the dog was
going
to be in the same boat? Being hated by
everybody? The
Teddyholo shook
right and left. ‘We don’t know. I expect
Buddy will find
out pretty
quickly’. David nodded at Lisa; he took his books back
from her.
“I’ll
see you tomorrow Lisa.” He gave the animal a last
look before he
went out
to the street to go home. Lisa called after him
“I’ll be looking
for
you”. The dog’s message followed him. ‘Buddy
too, David’.
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