Booj'lly

7

Booj’lly

    “Only a self-absorbed idiot like your father,” noted Jhl grimly to her older daughters, “would have dreamed of taking a girl of Su’s age to the Academy planet!”

    “The cadets aren’t all male humanoids, Mum,” objected Mrsha.

    “Enough, though!” replied Jhl with feeling.

    “Well, yes, but at least they aren’t clod-hopping Bluellians,” noted D’ffni. “It wasn’t me, Mum,” she said kindly to Jhl’s dropped jaw; “it was what Aunty S’zaan said in that last text-blob.”

    H’lln elaborated kindly: “The one where she described how drunk the clone got at that—”

    “YES!”

    The sitting-room rang with silence.

    “All right, I suppose it shows he’s humanoid like the rest of us,” said Jhl crossly, “and stop going on about it.”

    “You couldn’t expect Su to be pleased, Mum,” noted Mrsha.

    Jhl took a very deep breath. “We were talking about this newest idiocy of your father’s, I seem to recall.”

    “Yes. Well, first he buys her all those pretty summer dresses—the place must have the same seasons as Bluellia, by the sound of it—and then he surrounds her with nice young cadets, of course she’s going to go off the rails a bit,” said D’ffni mildly.

    “Yes, but honestly!” On! The plasmo-blasted thing came on, being one of Shan’s it blobbed itself off if you took your visual organ off it for an IG microsecond, and Jhl read out sourly:

    Darling, you won’t like this, but I can’t help thinking it’s rather funny. Su-Su’s the hit of the Academy! Naturally I thought I’d take her to a few select parties and encourage her to try to enjoy herself, but there was no need for my feeble efforts: the minute we got to the Principal’s Welcoming Garden Party she was surrounded by eager young lads, and next thing I knew she’d accepted a date with a Third-Year to see the historic delights of Academica and another date with a Second-Year for some canoeing on the river! Did you ever do that? I did: tremendous fun, though of course the canoes aren’t cheap.

    Naturally I had the boys checked out—discreetly, of course—and only fancy, the Second-Year is an Upahdeey’ah: R.V.’s grandson, in fact! You won’t have met him, darling, but at one stage he was the Whtyllian Ambassador to Intergalactica: I’ve known the family all my life. And the Third-Year, a handsome lad with dark hair and except for the dark eyes, really quite Whtyllian in looks, is one of the grandsons of the present Meagraw of Gr’mmeaya. Didn’t BrTl’s funny little pink girl go there at one stage? A closed world, of course, but the latest man is a little more progressive, and several of the grandsons have been sent off-world for a decent education. His name is Seullim’n, a very old traditional Gr'mmeayan name for a son of the Royal Household. One addresses him as “Prince” or “Your Highness,” darling, but our Su-Su addresses him as “Sully”!! Amusing, no?

    Her daughters looked at Jhl’s face and didn’t dare to say it was, rather.

    “BrTl’s sent me a recorder-blob of the Principal’s Garden Party, actually,” Mrsha revealed.

    “Eh?” croaked Jhl, as the Third Galaxy whirled around her dazed ears.

    “Mm,” she said, putting it on the tea table on which no afternoon tea had as yet appeared. “I haven’t seen it yet: it arrived just as I was leaving, so I grabbed it on my way out. Trff gave it to him to try out, it’s a new sort. Well, you wouldn’t understand,” she said tolerantly to her old mum who was only a retired Space Fleet Captain— Oh, forget it.

    The blob flashed on, whether obedient to a mind-message or on its own initiative who could say, and there they all were, on the spreading pale blue lawn before the Principal’s gracious residence—Jhl had forgotten about that plasmo-blasted lawn, help, BrTl wouldn't like that, he thought all grass and hence all lawns should be green, though the sky would appeal: it was a nice soft pale jade, about the same shade as Trff to the mere humanoid eye. Great steaming Vvlvanian magma pits, Shan was in his Fleet Admiral’s uniform! How cringingly embarrass— Right, here was BrTl, determinedly not in uniform, good on him, emanating cringe.

    “Uh, am I only imagining those emanations?” she croaked.

    “I thought I picked them up, too,” agreed D’ffni.

    Mrsha looked smug—well, smugger, most engineers looked pretty smug most of the time. “You did, it’s the new blobs, see?”

    Yeah, yeah, the new blobs, who needed them… What in Federation had the man crammed Su into?

    “That’ll be a garden-party hat,” said H’lln kindly.

    “You’re wrong, it’s Dad’s main grqwary paddock,” Jhl croaked.

    “It isn’t heavy, Su’s perfectly comfortable, you can tell,” noted H’lln.

    Zat so? It was still as wide as Dad’s main grqwary paddock, though. Sort of see-though. White, if that mattered. The dress was about the same—white and see-through with floating skirts. Literally skirts, plural, there were several layers of them, all different levels.

    “I think she looks lovely! The girls are all wearing those this year,” said D’ffni helpfully.

    “Self-evident,” replied Jhl grimly, squinting at her youngest daughter’s chest.

    “Mum, you’ve worn a lot less, and a lot more revealing, in your time,” said H’lln on a tired note.

    “Not on the vacuum-frozen Principal’s Lawn surrounded by seething testosterone, however!” she retorted smartly.

    D’ffni reddened and laughed sheepishly, and her sisters smiled weakly: that blob was sure doing a good job of purveying the seething aforesaid!

    “Um. I think Trff might’ve gone too far with these new recorder-blobs,” admitted Mrsha at last: they were beginning to taste what the Principal’s guests were eating. ”Well, a bit!” she said hurriedly.

    “Something like that,” agreed Jhl. “Blrtlberries with real Whtyllian cows’ cream, is it? Oh, now, really! That’s two Friyrians slobbering over Su! –Give them their marching orders, asteroid-brain!”

    “Mum, she can't hear you,” murmured H’lln.

    “I know that! Great splintered shards of quog, what’s that?”

    “Uh—a captain,” said D’ffni, swallowing. “DorAvenian.”

    Jhl ignored her: she was goggling at the spectacle of the DorAvenian full captain cutting out all the fledglings that had clustered round Su and carrying off her twenty-year-old daughter to a secluded corner where he sequestered her between his charming fanged self in its plasmo-blasted Number Ones and a large pink-flowered bush that hadn’t been a feature of the Principal’s Lawn in her, Jhl’s, Academy days.

    “I wonder who he is?” murmured. D’ffni. “Personally the fangs don't appeal, but there is a sort of something about him, isn’t there?”

    Grimly her mother replied: “I dunno who he is, but he’s a Seeker captain and three times Su’s age, min.’, and put it like this, it’s gonna stop now!” Get me a text-blob!

    “Mum, you’re overreacting,” said H’lln uneasily as three panting clones shot in with trays of text-blobs.

    “Overreacting? A Seeker captain? And a DorAvenian? Look, his idea—after the good time, which I dare say is the first thing on his agenda, and you can stop those emanations now, D’ffni—his idea, if he’s serious about the girl at all, will be to spirit her away to his plasmo-blasted ancestral castle on flaming Vvlvanian-cursed DorAven and keep her chained to his culture-pans for the rest of her life! Believe it!” Blob on! “Shank’yar,” she said grimly to the text-blob, “tell me instantly who that plasmo-blasted DorAvenian is who’s got his claws into Su, and WHAT YOU INTEND DOING TO STOP IT! –Send that, Vt R’aam Forty-Nine,” she ordered grimly.

    “Nuh-now, Mistress?” he quavered.

    “Yes, now, that’s an order!” she snarled.

    Bowing until his Whtyllian nose almost touched his Whtyllian knee, Vt R’aam Forty-Nine took the blob and shot out.

    “I—will—kill—the—being,” announced Jhl slowly and evilly through her teeth.

    “Mum, I’m sure he’s keeping an eye on her!” protested Mrsha.

    “Are you? ON, you plasmo-blasted piece of over-Trffified space junk!” she hollered. “Let’s just watch, shall we?”

    They watched. Amidst the flowering shrubs of the Principal’s charming garden, Shank’yar appeared to be condescending kindly to the Principal, another commodore, four full captains (not the DorAvenian) and assorted hangers-on—was that an ambassador in formal diplo wear?—but he certainly didn’t appear to be keeping an eye on Su. Then he appeared to be condescending kindly to three admirals and the assorted lady-beings hanging off their appendages. Then he appeared— Oops, no, he didn’t.

    “I think BrTl must have switched it off,” decided Mrsha, giving it a cautious mind-prod.

    “Sickened,” her mother agreed sourly. “Hang on, here it comes again.”

    They watched, smiling in spite of themselves, as BrTl kindly adjusted the uniform collar of a very immature Br-cognate in a very new cadet’s uniform and into the bargain that of the cognate’s friend, an equally immature Meanker, who gave a muffled ho-hoo! down the meankoid tubes but thanked him nicely. After that it only seemed to be Trff and Phyoowella sitting on the grass in the lee of a white-flowered bush eating agar-agar.

    “Here’s Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, where’s he been?” cried D’ffni as the recorder-blob blobbed back onto BrTl and the clone appeared by his side.

    “Putting his stuff in his room, I expect. I hope he got that new underwear I pwlded over,” said Jhl on an anxious note.

    “Mum, the climate of Booj’lly is just like ours, he won’t be cold!” said H’lln robustly.

    “He will if he gets a room on the south side of the west wing, my room was like the frozen plains of Gwrrtt in the mornings.”

    Oddly enough BrTl and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two weren’t discussing his underwear, so the girls, exchanging glances, kindly assured their gaga old mum he must’ve got the parcel from New Whtyll.

    “He does look smart in his uniform!” beamed D’ffni.

    Yep, thought Jhl heavily, there was gonna be trouble there, the minute he got uncloned, and why in Federation S’zaan had imagined that BrTl’d be the one to sort it out—!

    “At least BrTl’s got the strength to carry him back to his room, Mum,” said H’lln sensibly, reading her thought.

    “True, but who’s gonna carry him?”

    “Mum, he won't drink too much when’s he been given a job to do,” Mrsha assured her.

    Jhl looked wildly at her engineering-brain of a daughter.

    “He can be very reliable!” said Mrsha crossly. “And stop emanating at me! –Hang on, here’s Su again!”

    They watched numbly as Su, the DorAvenian and a handsome young cadet in Third-Year’s uniform who, Jhl had no doubt, was the Prince Whatsisface referred to by Shan, joined up with BrTl and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two and collected up Trff and Phyoowella, and Su waved a casual goodbye to her father, who was so absorbed in condescending to a—great steaming piles of mok droppings, was that a Fleet Lord?—okay, to a Fleet Lord, that he didn’t look up. The bunch of them hurried off happily to the parking lot—the staff parking lot, as a matter of fact—where they all piled into a pale yellow lifter that appeared to belong to the young prince, he was certainly driving it, and lifted off.

    Suddenly BrTl’s face appeared in close-up and they all gasped.

    “Dunno if this plasmo-blasted blob of Trff’s is picking this up or not.—Okay, we know you-it thinks it is!—Anyway, we’re just popping into town for a drink. I’ll keep an eye on Su, don't worry! Oh, and on Vt R’aam Thirty-Two!”

    “Commander BrTl,” said the clone’s voice in totally anguished tones, “I assure you that was only the once! I allowed myself to—to enter too freely into the—the spirit of the occasion—”

    “Not a spirit, it was Bhl’s brew!” choked BrTl. The picture shimmered horribly and went out of synch. “Oops,” he said. “Well, if that worked, that’s where we’re going, so I’ll blob off now. Of course if it didn’t work you’ll get a blob full of nothingness, so blame Trff! BrTl out!” And the thing blinked off, leaving just the faintest suggestion of Trffish indignation hovering in the air.

    “Um, it was just an experimental one,” said Mrsha after a moment. “But it made a very good job of showing things from different angles, didn’t it?”

    Jhl took a deep breath. It hadn’t managed to show what Su was up to while BrTl was mucking round with assorted beings’ collars, or while Trff and Phyoowella and their plasmo-blasted bush were completely occupying the foreground, middle-ground and background, had it? “Let’s have afternoon tea, shall we?” she said with huge restraint.

    Politely the girls agreed that they’d love some afternoon tea, Mum!

    “This is it,” said Shank’yar, smiling. “Room 342.”

    Su looked doubtful: she thought that Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had been accepted into Second Year, but this was a First-Year floor.

    Suddenly the door opened and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two in person bowed very low.

    “Hi, it is your room!” she said in relief.

    “Yes, Young Mistress: couldn’t you tell?”

    “Nah, these doors have all got shields or something.”

    “It’s the privacy regs,” murmured her father.

    “That’s correct, my Lord,” he said, bowing again.

    “Um, is it okay to bow when he’s in his uniform?” asked Su dubiously.

    “Of course, so long as I’m not in uniform!” replied Shank’yar cheerfully.

    “No, well, thank the Federation for that small mercy!” she returned with feeling. “Can we come in, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    “Of course! I beg your pardon, Young Mistress,” he said, standing aside and bowing her in.

    Su went in, looking thoughtful. “Hey,” she said slowly, “do them shields work both ways?”

    “‘Those’ shields,” corrected her father firmly. The clone glanced at him uncertainly. Tell her, he sent, very mildly.

    Yes, my Lord. “You are right in thinking I sensed it was you and my Lord, and could just have told the door to open. It would not, however, have been correct in me to do so.”

    “That’s exactly what I thought,” said Su grimly, “and hasn’t it dawned yet that I’d be reduced to slime or mouldering away out in deep space if it wasn’t for you, and we can’t ever pay you back and you’re gonna be a sentient being from now on so you better get used to it?”

    Before Vt R’aam Thirty-Two could utter her father said coolly: “Su-Su, my pet, one approves the sentiment, but hardly the expression. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, whether a clone or, as you so infelicitously put it, sentient being, would not think it appropriate merely to order the door to open to a member of the family.”

    “That’s correct, Young Mistress,” said the clone on an anxious note.

    Su sighed heavily and sat down on the edge of the neat humanoid-style bed. “Yeah, okay. Manners.” She looked around the room. “Gee, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, you haven’t done anything to your room! Well, yeah, that’s a real nice sim-pic of Mum on the dressing-table, but where’s the rest?”

    “The—the rest, Young Mistress?”

    “Your stuff!” said Su loudly, scowling horribly.

    “I keep telling you!” said a loud, cheerful voice from the doorway, and Su jumped. “Hullo,” said the owner of the voice, emanating friendly interest. “I’ve told him everybody brightens up their room with their own bits and pieces, but he prefers the SK14/82 look!”

    “Eh?” croaked Su, looking at the being numbly. Um, was it a Meanker? Did they have those pale grey fluffy things on their heads? Not exactly frills…

    “SK14/82; it’s so null it hasn’t got a name, just a designation, and there’s nothing there but dust and pools of brownish liquid,” explained the newcomer cheerfully. It had one big bright blue sparkly eye with no white in it, apart from the colour it was more like a looghoid eye than a humanoid eye, and two arms and legs like us, but two long tubes coming out of its chest just below the arms…

    “The pools are marginally sentient,” said Shank’yar on a dry note. Yes, he’s a Meanker, wake up, Su-Su!

    “That’s right, sir," agreed the Meanker easily, “but the epitome of dull—so dull that they haven’t got names for themselves. Terribly glad to see Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s got his family here for the long weekend. I’m Cadet Ju Mullan—my room’s opposite.”

    Su watched numbly as her father shook hands, humanoid diplo-style, with the burly Meanker cadet, and introduced himself, adding: “Related to Lu Mullan of L’Pont’che, are you?” Gee, it didn’t matter what species they were, did it?

    “That’s right, sir; so you know my grandfather?” he replied happily.

    “Served with him in destroyers,” said Shank’yar with a grin. “Allow me to introduce—”

    Su switched off as the two of them blahed on about his grandfather and the service the being had seen with Dad and blah, blah… Right, now a retired Rear-Admiral, couldn’t of guessed that.

    “Eh?” she said, jumping.

    “Su-Su, wake up! I was just saying, isn’t it nice that Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s across the hall from a being whose family we know?”

    (No.) “Um, yeah,” she groped. Oh, right, as well the being’s grandmother had served with Mum, had she? Yeah, yeah…

    Gee, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two wasn’t gonna be let off either: now the Meanker was investigating the poor being’s chest of drawers—Su could feel the emanations of anguish coming off him—well, yeah, that load of underpants that Mum had sent him’d be enough to embarrass anyone, there were more than a being could get through in three lifetimes—gee, and now he’d found that big old seashell Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had had for about as long as she could remember and was putting it on top of the thing. And was this all he’d brought?

    “Yes—uh—I think possibly you don’t understand, Ju Mullan. I didn’t intend to stay when I left the Third Galaxy.”

    “He’s got stuff back home,” said Su, glaring. “And they don’t let ya take much luggage on a PBTT.”

    “No, exactly,” agreed her father smoothly. “But you’ll have to excuse us, Cadet Ju Mullan: we have a restaurant booking.’

    Cheerfully the friendly Meanker agreed he mustn’t keep them, assured them it had been great to meet them and he wouldn’t fail to mention it to his grandparents in his next sim-call home, blah, blah—and at long last retired to his room. Since he left the door open they could see that, unlike Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s ship-shape living quarters, it was crammed with personal stuff. Some of it was making weird noises, too.

    That, sent Su’s father on a tired note as they went down the corridor, was a sim-pic of his two little sisters dancing and endeavouring to yodel—it’s done down the meankoid tubes, and I concede they’re not too good at it—and I really think a course on sentient beings of the two galaxies wouldn’t come amiss.

    “I know they were his sisters, the being can't shield worth an ig!” replied Su forcefully as a lift-blob took them down to the ground floor. “Even I could read him! And ya right, I never heard of meankoid yodelling before, but lemme tell you, if that’s it, they can keep it, pardon me for being anything-ist! And I’d just like to point out that I wasn’t the one that was grubbing round in someone else’s drawers and taking his private stuff out!”

    “I didn’t mind, madam,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two quickly.

    “Yes, you did, and don’t call me madam!”

    The lift-blob reached the ground floor and they all got off.

    “Ask,” said Shank’yar heavily. “If you don’t ask, you will never learn.”

    Su glared.

    “The feathery protrusions on the head are external gills, Young Mistress,” explained Vt R’aam Thirty-Two kindly. “Meankers breathe partly through them and to some extent through the tubes. Ju Mullan’s a very friendly being.”

    “Right, now tell me ya lucky to have him for a neighbour! And what in Federation are ya doing on a First-Year floor?’

    “I do feel lucky to have him for a neighbour. And as I am a First-Year, the Principal thought it would be more appropriate for me to be there. But I am taking Second-Year courses as well,” he said politely.

    “Now tell me ya not flying through them!”

    He hesitated. Then he said levelly: “No, I shan’t tell you that.”

    “See?” said Su fiercely to no-one in particular.

    Shank’yar took her arm. “Hush, my pet. We know his capabilities, of course: but the Academy isn’t used to him, just yet.”

    “No. –I’ll get Mum to pwld your stuff out from home,” she said abruptly.

    The clone bowed. "Thank you very much, Young Mistress, that’s very kind.”

    As he spoke three Second-Years, all with Merit Stars up, came in through the big front door of the dormitory block in a laughing bunch. If it was significant, one was a male humanoid—yet another plasmo-blasted Whtyllian, noted Su sourly, the Two Galaxies were overrun with the beings!—one a stout male lorpoid, and one a sturdy Nblyterian in her/s female stage. They glanced at Vt R’aam Thirty-Two and the lorpoid gave a shrill whistle of amusement, while the Whtyllian sniggered and cried: “Hey, clone! Come up to Room 514, we could do with a being to serve drinks this evening!” The Nblyterian gave a very much exaggerated Nblyterian bow, then falling against the Whtyllian in gales of Nblyterian giggles, while the lorpoid emitted more ecstatic whistles.

    Drunk, sent Su’s father. Ignore them.

    She gave him a quick glare and shouted angrily. “You’re a pack of rude mok lovers!”

    “Anything you say, Young Mistress!” cried the Whtyllian brilliantly, and all three of them collapsed in hysterical laughter, staggering around the lobby and clutching at one another.

    Shank’yar grabbed Su’s arm and removed her bodily from the building before it could get any worse. “Never argue with a drunk. Hasn’t your mother taught you anything?” he said drily to her puce-faced, furiously panting form.

    “They didn’t mean anything by it, Young Mistress. As My Lord says, they were dr—”

    “They meant everything by it, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, whaddareya?” cried Su bitterly. “Stand up for yourself!”

    He was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Very well, my Lord, if you wish me to speak, I shall. Those Second-Year beings are only about your own age, Young Mistress, and I could very easily have slapped a painful mind-lock on all three of them. And forced them to apologise as you think I ought to have done—or, indeed, to do anything at all. The fact that I could is why I did not.”

    “Quite right,” said Shank’yar briskly while Su was still scowling over this. “Beneath him, my pet. The vacuum-frozen Academy nonsense is all beneath him, come to that, but he needs to get the qualification, y’see? Now, come along, this lifter isn’t much, but Trff’s tinkered with it for me: we've got a lovely table booked but they won’t hold it forever, you know!”

    Su sighed and allowed Vt R’aam Thirty-Two to assist her feeble form into the lifter. “A lovely table booked where?” she asked in a doomed voice as the vehicle shot up vertically at light speed from the parking slot with the lumo-blob sign announcing “PRINCIPAL’S VISITORS ONLY”, and rocketed off at near hyper-speed.

    “Mm? Oh, The Peaks, of course!” he said cheerfully.

    Su groaned: she’d expected something of the sort. They’d been there before, with Trff and BrTl, once her father had more or less ordered poor BrTl into Number Ones. It was called that because it was perched, with benefit of blobs—Trff had explained it in great and incomprehensible detail—across the summits of the two highest mountains the FW dump had, well above the snow line, whatever that was—and blah, blah, blah. Cost more for one meal than the average working being of the Federation earned in a lifetime, right. That sort of dump. Not generally patronised by the cadets of the Academy—no. Though you were likely to see the Principal there (and its bond-partner/s if the current Principal was the sort of being that had them) every other night of the local week.

    “My Lord!” gasped Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.

    “Why not? Get a decent meal into you!”

    “Um, yeah, the Academy food doesn’t sound very exciting,” admitted Su.

    “You’ve been listening to Commander BrTl!” he said with a smile. “No, but my Lord, it’s too much. And—and will they even let me in?”

    Su watched in a sort of dumb horror as her father’s neck turned purple. He took a very deep breath, and instead of shouting about his plasmo-blasted rank and consequence, as she’d fully expected, said: “Exactly which facilities of this delightful Federation planet have refused you service, may I ask?”

    “It—it was only one, my Lord, and Chief Engineer Slp-Og V, Trff, er, made them change their minds,” he croaked.

    "Tell me, if you don’t want me to read it for myself,” said Shank’yar flatly.

    “Er, well, it was a bar and grill which has become very popular, we subsequently discovered, with one of the Second-Year coteries—I’m sorry, Young Mistress, that would be a, um, a select group, I suppose. Its name, my Lord,” he said, swallowing, “is Athlor Kadry’s Steak House. I—I had heard it mentioned, but the Second-Years refer to it as A.K.’s, and I’m afraid I didn’t make the connection.”

    “Athlor Kadry’s…” said Shank’yar slowly. “Are you implying that this anything-ist FW dump is owned by a Whtyllian?”

    “Well, yes,” he said miserably.

    “By the three-tongued blurryankers of Trypthfymia!” he shouted. “I will have his guts for sparf!”

    “Gee, that was a good one. Two Service swears in one blow,” said Su numbly.

    “Be silent!” he snapped.

    “Heck, Dad, what else can you expect from a Whtyllian? And when I said would Vt R’aam Thirty-Two want to come to the Federation with me, you said he was a clone that belonged to you and it was immaterial whether he wanted to or not. No wonder the sort of Whtyllian that runs steak houses doesn’t think clones count!”

    “That will do,” he said grimly. “We are not discussing the IG-legal position of cloned beings vis-à-vis their owners, but the respect due to the uniform!”

    “Oh, is that what we’re discussing?” returned Su sourly. “Gee, ya know what? Just for an IG microsecond I thought we might be discussing the right of any being or group being, free or clone, to buy a meal anywhere it or they can afford to.”

    “That as well!” he said angrily. “It goes without saying!”

    Su sniffed, but was silent.

    “I’ll have the place closed down,” he decided tightly.

    “My Lord, may I beg you to refrain? I really think, what with the Great It-Being having changed the owner’s and his employees’ minds none too gently, and Commander BrTl having assisted the process with his hand round the owner’s neck—”

    “Magma pits, his actual hand?” gasped Su.

    “Yes: the Commander was very annoyed. I think they’ve learned their lesson, my Lord.”

    “If you say so, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two,” said Shank’yar, sounding horribly mild. Su gave him a suspicious look but his face, as usual, expressed nothing and his mind, as usual, was completely unreadable.

    “Thank you, my Lord. –Added to which, it would cause ill-feeling,” said the clone with a smothered sigh.

    “What ya mean is, them snot-nosed Second-Years’d pick on you even more!” cried Su bitterly.

    “That’ll do,” said Shank’yar mildly. “And that isn’t entirely what he means: Second-Years are silly enough without something else to take their minds off their studies. Now, think about what you’d like to eat, my pet. Remember that delightful carp entrée we had last time?’

    Sighing, Su tried to think what she’d like to eat. Not a fluffed up, mucked up fish-based something or other sitting in four, count them, four separate little pools of different-coloured yucky sauce, though—no.

    “Galloping grpplybeasts, you went to The Peaks?” gasped the friendly Meanker.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two swallowed a sigh. “Yes. The view is wonderful.”

    “At night?” he said dubiously. “Meankers can’t see much at night. Humanoids have got better night sight, have they?”

    “No; the surrounding peaks are illuminated—some variety of lumo-blobs, I imagine."

    “Gee, a lumo-blob show as well?” gasped Ju Mullan.

    “Mm. Su enjoyed that,” he admitted.

    “Of course! My little sisters love lumo-blob shows, too! Hey, but you shoulda talked your father into letting you and her come with us over to Mollyjollyholly! Real fun! Mu Mullan and Nu Mullan had a great time!”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had gone rather red: he had tried before to explain that My Lord was not a relative at all, but the young Meanker didn’t seem to be able to take it in. He could just have implanted the notion, of course, but that would not only have been IG-illegal, it would have been entirely unethical. “Ju Mullan, as I’ve said, My Lord is not my father. Or my relative.”

    “As good as, though, isn’t he?” said Ju Mullan happily. “And he’s gotta be a relative, he’s a lordship from Whtyll and you’re a lordship from Whtyll!”

    “I’m not,” croaked the clone in agony. “My original was a lordship—yes. But I’m only a clone.”

    “The way Mum explained it—and she oughta know, she’s a biologist,” he reminded him, “that’s exactly the same thing, because you’re exactly the same as him—see?”

    “Only biologically,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two desperately.

    “Exactly! Mum and Dad’ve taken Mu Mullan and Nu Mullan home, they hadda go back to school, of course. So has your little sister gone home with your Dad, or is she staying on with Commander BrTl for a bit?”

    At least the being had grasped Commander BrTl’s rank. Uh—was his translator at fault, perhaps, was that the problem? Having been cultured up in the Third Galaxy it wouldn’t have been exposed to much Meanker, of course. Cautiously Vt R’aam Thirty-Two probed his translator. Well, it was sure it was picking up Meanker and translating it into Intergalactic okay, but…

    “I beg your pardon, Ju Mullan,” he said quickly. “My Lord”—was the problem with Ju Mullan’s translator, not his own: was it conveying that phrase to him as “my father”, was that it?—“has not gone home, but returned to his hotel on Intergalactica, to—er—”

    “Harry the Federal government: got it!” he agreed cheerfully.

    “Er—press for the implementation of an improved chain of Intergalactic Relay Stations,” he murmured.

    “Right: harry the F government!” agreed Ju Mullan with a merry ho-hoo. “So what about your little sister?”

    How in Federation could any translator, even a Special Offer one, render the phrase “young mistress” as “little sister”? “Lady Su is staying on with Commander BrTl for the time being. My Lord intends taking her over to Whtyll shortly.”

    “Ugh, the poor little girl! And what about the green fluffy one?’

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had to swallow. True, that was the Great It-Being’s appearance, and most beings of the two galaxies had never seen an it-being: they preferred to stay home on Zll. Trff had a special interest in blobs, was why it had left home to become an engineer. He wasn’t sure why it had chosen the Academy rather than do an engineering degree at any of the megazillion universities of the Federation, but he had a suspicion it might be related to the number of igs these institutions charged for tuition. Whereas Space Fleet Academy was free, if you could get into it. More than that, it paid you a small allowance, into the bargain! Very small, true, and also true, as Commander BrTl had pointed out, you had to sign a significant proportion of your lifespan away in return for it—

    “Er, Chief Engineer Slp-Og V. Trff has accompanied Leader Vt R’aam.”

    Very carefully Ju Mullan closed his one big lapis lazuli eye. “We’ll expect to see that chain of Relay Stations real soon, then!”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two smiled weakly and didn’t contradict him: my Lord was very, very angry indeed about the poor communications between home and the two galaxies.

    “Well, if we get leave this weekend we could show her something a bit more fun than The Peaks!” suggested Ju Mullan eagerly. “Take her to Whizzo Burgers, maybe, and then try the Water World in the amusement park in Academica!”

    “Yes; she’d like that. We are due leave,” he reminded him cautiously.

    The Meanker winked again. “Those of us that haven’t got twenty or more demerit points, yeah!”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two smiled weakly. He himself had none—he had not so far incurred a single demerit point—but Ju Mullan had compiled eighteen so far this week. It was true the Academy record was said to be five hundred and sixteen in a week—that being had been a DorAvenian, and they were known to be truculent, insubordinate and very, very stubborn, as well as very daring, but nevertheless it was inconceivable—

    “’Tis, isn’t it?” agreed Ju Mullan on a wistful note. “What a being he must’ve been!”

    Unalloyed admiration: oh, dear. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two took a deep breath. “I can’t agree,” he said levelly. “And in any case he grew out of it.”

    “How do you know?”

    The clone bit his lip.

    “You know him, don’t you?” cried the Meanker cadet in huge excitement.

    “Nuh— I’ve met him, merely. He was on my Entrance Board. And actually, if you’d bothered to attend the Principal’s Welcoming Garden Party”—resolutely he ignored the emanations of scoffing amusement and incredulity—“you would’ve met him, too.”

    Ju Mullan’s tubes were observed to fall straight and limp. After an appreciable period of time the being croaked: “Eh?”

    “Yes. He seemed quite struck by Su, and came for a drink with our group.”

    “Um, did he tell you it was him got all those demerit points?” asked Ju Mullan cautiously, recovering. “I mean, there’s got to be more than one DorAvenian in Space Fleet.”

    “Not really, but I assure you, it was him. You see: he grew out of that silly sta—”

    “Asteroids of Hhum! You read him! You did, didn't you?”

    “I— To a certain extent, yes. Ju Mullan, there’s no need to—”

    Ju Mullan wasn’t listening. “Asteroids of Hhum! You read a full captain? A Seeker captain?”

    “I’d met him before, remember, and though I couldn’t read him very much at first, I—”

    He still wasn’t listening. “Asteroids of Hhum! What sort of being are you, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two smiled weakly and didn’t manage to say he was only a clone.

Next chapter:

https://theadmirableclone-sf.blogspot.com/2023/11/whtyll.html