The Moons of Barsk by Lawrence M. Schoen

Author:Lawrence M. Schoen [Schoen, Lawrence M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765394637
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2018-08-13T22:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

A CHILD’S VIEW OF SPACE

“WHAT did you do in the Patrol, Papa?”

Rina walked hand in hand with Jorl as they made their way from one of Keslo’s public performance spaces where they had just enjoyed a retelling of the story of Pholo performed by a traveling troupe of Eleph shadow puppeteers. Jorl regarded his daughter, trying to fathom what had prompted the question.

“What makes you ask, little twig?”

“Cuz didn’t you fly? When you were in the Patrol? Like Pholo did.”

“Pholo flew because … well, no one really knows how Pholo flew. But I flew in a ship.”

“Right, I know. But what did you do? Why were you flying?”

“Oh, got it. Well, we did a lot of things in the Patrol. Sometimes we helped out with emergencies at one or another of the outer colonies where things were spread a little too thin. Once our navigator caught a glimpse of a smuggler hiding quiet and hoping to slip away just as we came into a system, and that got … messy. But mostly we were following up on cartographic data from earlier unmanned craft.”

Rina whuffed a put upon bleat from her trunk and gave her father that look, the one she saved for when he forgot that smart as she was she was still just a kid and couldn’t always follow everything he said, particularly if she found it boring. He acknowledged his error with a little squeeze of her hand and tried again.

“Most of the time we were looking for new planets. The Alliance is always expanding, and to do that it needs to find new worlds where people can set up colonies. For that to happen, the Patrol has to constantly push portals further and further out there. The galaxy’s very big, and without the portals it would take far too long time to go from one place to another.”

Their walking had taken them to the door of Dabni’s bookshop and they stepped within. Rina’s mother was helping a customer but she paused long enough to wave her trunk at the pair of them. Rina lifted hers in response and then led her father deeper into the store to a small table surrounded by several chairs. Kokab waited patiently, propped up on one of the seats, a miniature teacup set in front of it. Rina sat at the table and waved Jorl to sit at the sole adult-sized seat. As he got comfortable, she went through the motions of filling a dainty cup full of fantastical tea, a blend composed of made-up words she’d overheard from different visitors to the shop. Today they were drinking ontologically thespianation with just a hint of cribble. She waited for him to delicately lift the cup with one hand and only then picked up the conversation again. “But why?”

“Why?”

“Why push portals?”

Jorl frowned for a silent moment and then set his cup down as he pulled a pair of books off a nearby shelf. “These are two books in a set, volumes one and two, do you see?”

“Yes, but—”

He lifted his trunk interrupting her.

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