Read Online Lost In Translation by Edward Willett - Free Book Online Page B

bedrooms, each with its own tiny bathroom.
    Karak took Katy’s suitcase into one of the bedrooms. When he came out he said, in that funny, squeaky voice of his, “This is where you’ll stay for the next few days. Right now you are the only human on the ship, so you’ll be alone here. The kitchen will automatically prepare food for you three times a day in that compartment.” He pointed at a shiny black rectangle in the kitchen wall. “Whatever you don’t eat will be automatically removed from that same compartment.” He touched her head again, and when he removed his three-fingered hand, spoke more gently. “I know none of this matters to you right now. We’re going to fix that, Katy. We’re going to make you better.” He went to the door, turned, and said, “Welcome to the Guild of Translators,” then went out. The door slid shut and sealed behind him.
    Katy lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
    She didn’t know, or care, how many days had passed when the door opened again and Karak reappeared. She had eaten several times, and slept, but there were no timekeepers in the apartment.
    She looked up at him as he came in, but didn’t say anything. He touched her head again, then led her silently out of the ship.
    Â 
    At the top of the loading ramp, Karak stopped and looked down at the small, silent figure by his side. “Commonwealth Central,” he told her, hoping for some reaction. Garish lights of pink and blue glistened off the mirror-black wet pavement surrounding the ship, their reflections pockmarked by the icy rain dropping from the night sky. He felt nothing from her in any way related to the excitement he might have expected in a young one brought so many light years from home, but he did sense a faint spark of resentment as rain blew in under the overhang protecting the ramp. Of course, he thought; she’s dressed for the warm weather she left on Earth. She’s cold.
    The resentment flared and died like a burning bit of straw, leaving her as inert to his empathic senses as a lump of wood, but he had felt it: no doubt of that. “So, there’s life in there yet,” he said to her. “As I knew. Come; you’ll soon be warm.” That earned him a faint glimmer of surprise, probably that he had guessed she was cold. Feeling better about the child than he had since he first sensed her pain in the orphanage’s playroom, he led her down the ramp as an egg-shaped silver groundcar rolled across the pavement toward them on fat blue wheels.
    He felt more surprise from her, as short-lived as her earlier resentment, when the egg split open to reveal another human in its padded pink interior, a boy a few years older than her. Her reaction pleased Karak, but that pleasure faded as he slid in beside the boy and helped Katy in after him. Jim Ornawka was as strange a case as Katy. He was the only confirmed empath Karak had ever run across, in the Guild or out of it, who had the ability to completely block him out. All empaths could hide their emotions to a certain degree, but never completely, and never from someone with the skill and power of a Guildmaster. But Jim could do it—and did, constantly. Whereas other empaths were normally as open with their emotions as non-empaths, and had to concentrate to block, Jim claimed, and the facts seemed to indicate, that his natural state was blocked and he had to concentrate to open himself up.
    So far the Guild researchers had failed to find anything within the structure of his brain or his genetic material that explained his unique ability. A non-empathic S’sinn scientist employed by the Guild had suggested dissection, but of course that was out of the question while the boy was alive; though if he became a Translator, his body would be available for autopsy and further research upon his death. Barring disease or accident, however, that time was yet many years away.
    Karak