Read Online Ten Sigmas & Other Unlikelihoods by Paul Melko - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Melko
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ready.”
He hung around until their OB showed up, then he went back to his rounds. No one ever thought they’d be able to care for something as defenseless and needy as a baby, but it usually worked out. He figured the Ka Yays had a good shot at figuring it out. He silently wished them the best of luck.
“Doctor Curt! There’s a boy who caught his head in the stair rail. The firemen brought the whole banister!”
“Coming!”
He wasn’t Doctor Mighty anymore. But sometimes it was easier to care when you had biceps of steel.
ALIEN FANTASIES
I keep practicing what I’m going to say when one of the aliens picks me. I know I said “when” but that’s how I feel about it. I have a rapport, you know. Sooner or later, I’ll look up from my desk at the bank, and see a leonine mane bobbing over the edges of the cubicles, weaving its way toward me. I just know it.
I think I’ll play it cool, like aliens come by my desk every day and ask me to gallivant across the galaxy. I’ll tip my glasses forward on my nose and ask in my best bureaucratic voice, “May I help you?” And he’ll recognize and appreciate my coyness, since we’ll both know why he’s there. He’ll smile with his large canines, toss his mane to the left, and ask, “Care to join me aboard the Mother Ship, Jennifer?” And I’ll say, “Not tonight, I have to pick Gabrielle up from her ballet lessons.”
No, that wasn’t quite right.
I guess I always assumed Gabrielle would come along. The aliens must have some facilities for students: playgrounds and schools and such. Readjustment is always difficult on a teenager, with meeting new friends and getting used to no sun. But children are resilient. My parents moved seven times before I was out of high school.
Or I could leave her with Nick. But learning to live on the Mother Ship would be better than living with her father. I mean, he threw a glass of Coke in my face the last time we spoke. What would he do to Gabby? He ran out on us, after all. He’s untrustworthy.
*
I have two bags packed: a smaller one I keep with me at all times, and a bigger one in the hall closet at home. I could make do with either, but the one at home has a summer and winter wardrobe in it. The aliens have been unusually reticent about their home world, so I have no idea how to pack.
In each bag I have a few of my old Heinlein juveniles. I don’t know why I bother with that; the aliens have spent the most time, other than on talk shows, in libraries transcribing all the books to archives on the Mother Ship. I figure I won’t need those books then, if they have the entire libraries of Earth in a boxed set. But I’d miss the smell of the binding and the yellowed pages. Gabrielle will appreciate that.
Not that I can get her to read or anything. Kids these days have different priorities. I remember that before I met Nick, I could spend all day with my nose in a book.
*
The day ends without incident, without Sylvia forcing me to account for all the time I spent daydreaming, I mean. I’m efficient when I work, I just don’t like to work. The bus ride from downtown is the best part of the day. No demands, no customers, no boss, and no screaming teenager trying to find her tights.
As we pass over the Monongahela, I see the excursion vehicle hovering over the Incline. It is a smaller one — not like the one in Washington — but still the size of a small skyscraper. They’re actually renting the airspace over the houses.
Maybe coy isn’t the best way to play it. Maybe a subdued surprise, followed by tentative, then full-fledged acceptance. “The Mother Ship? Well, I don’t know. Am I fit to be an emissary of my race? I am? Then, of course, take me! I’m yours!”
I smile innocently at the man I accidently jostled.
“Sorry.”
Oops. I think I need a bigger pause between tentative and full-fledged.
*
When I get home, the dog is chewing on a pair of Gabrielle’s tights, and it doesn’t realize until I kick
He hung around until their OB showed up, then he went back to his rounds. No one ever thought they’d be able to care for something as defenseless and needy as a baby, but it usually worked out. He figured the Ka Yays had a good shot at figuring it out. He silently wished them the best of luck.
“Doctor Curt! There’s a boy who caught his head in the stair rail. The firemen brought the whole banister!”
“Coming!”
He wasn’t Doctor Mighty anymore. But sometimes it was easier to care when you had biceps of steel.
ALIEN FANTASIES
I keep practicing what I’m going to say when one of the aliens picks me. I know I said “when” but that’s how I feel about it. I have a rapport, you know. Sooner or later, I’ll look up from my desk at the bank, and see a leonine mane bobbing over the edges of the cubicles, weaving its way toward me. I just know it.
I think I’ll play it cool, like aliens come by my desk every day and ask me to gallivant across the galaxy. I’ll tip my glasses forward on my nose and ask in my best bureaucratic voice, “May I help you?” And he’ll recognize and appreciate my coyness, since we’ll both know why he’s there. He’ll smile with his large canines, toss his mane to the left, and ask, “Care to join me aboard the Mother Ship, Jennifer?” And I’ll say, “Not tonight, I have to pick Gabrielle up from her ballet lessons.”
No, that wasn’t quite right.
I guess I always assumed Gabrielle would come along. The aliens must have some facilities for students: playgrounds and schools and such. Readjustment is always difficult on a teenager, with meeting new friends and getting used to no sun. But children are resilient. My parents moved seven times before I was out of high school.
Or I could leave her with Nick. But learning to live on the Mother Ship would be better than living with her father. I mean, he threw a glass of Coke in my face the last time we spoke. What would he do to Gabby? He ran out on us, after all. He’s untrustworthy.
*
I have two bags packed: a smaller one I keep with me at all times, and a bigger one in the hall closet at home. I could make do with either, but the one at home has a summer and winter wardrobe in it. The aliens have been unusually reticent about their home world, so I have no idea how to pack.
In each bag I have a few of my old Heinlein juveniles. I don’t know why I bother with that; the aliens have spent the most time, other than on talk shows, in libraries transcribing all the books to archives on the Mother Ship. I figure I won’t need those books then, if they have the entire libraries of Earth in a boxed set. But I’d miss the smell of the binding and the yellowed pages. Gabrielle will appreciate that.
Not that I can get her to read or anything. Kids these days have different priorities. I remember that before I met Nick, I could spend all day with my nose in a book.
*
The day ends without incident, without Sylvia forcing me to account for all the time I spent daydreaming, I mean. I’m efficient when I work, I just don’t like to work. The bus ride from downtown is the best part of the day. No demands, no customers, no boss, and no screaming teenager trying to find her tights.
As we pass over the Monongahela, I see the excursion vehicle hovering over the Incline. It is a smaller one — not like the one in Washington — but still the size of a small skyscraper. They’re actually renting the airspace over the houses.
Maybe coy isn’t the best way to play it. Maybe a subdued surprise, followed by tentative, then full-fledged acceptance. “The Mother Ship? Well, I don’t know. Am I fit to be an emissary of my race? I am? Then, of course, take me! I’m yours!”
I smile innocently at the man I accidently jostled.
“Sorry.”
Oops. I think I need a bigger pause between tentative and full-fledged.
*
When I get home, the dog is chewing on a pair of Gabrielle’s tights, and it doesn’t realize until I kick
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